The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter


Hazel Gaynor - 2018
    I am just an ordinary young woman who did her duty.”1838: Northumberland, England. Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands has been Grace Darling’s home for all of her twenty-two years. When she and her father rescue shipwreck survivors in a furious storm, Grace becomes celebrated throughout England, the subject of poems, ballads, and plays. But far more precious than her unsought fame is the friendship that develops between Grace and a visiting artist. Just as George Emmerson captures Grace with his brushes, she in turn captures his heart.1938: Newport, Rhode Island. Nineteen-years-old and pregnant, Matilda Emmerson has been sent away from Ireland in disgrace. She is to stay with Harriet, a reclusive relative and assistant lighthouse keeper, until her baby is born. A discarded, half-finished portrait opens a window into Matilda’s family history. As a deadly hurricane approaches, two women, living a century apart, will be linked forever by their instinctive acts of courage and love.

Ross Poldark


Winston Graham - 1945
    But instead, he discovers that his father has died, his home is overrun by livestock and drunken servants, and Elizabeth, having believed Ross dead, is now engaged to his cousin. Ross must start over, building a completely new path for his life, one that takes him in exciting and unexpected directions....Thus begins an intricately plotted story spanning loves, lives, and generations. The Poldark series is the masterwork of Winston Graham, who evoked the period and people like only he could, and created a world of rich and poor, loss and love, that listeners will not soon forget.

1929


M.L. Gardner - 2009
    With the help of their former, outspoken, Irish maid, Maura, and a new, equally Irish friend, Shannon, the wives become even closer than before.The couples' rocky path leads to more turmoil, however, when a business rival, Victor Drayton, creates one disaster after another. From petty tricks to outright violence, Victor's nefarious mind will stop at nothing to beat down Jonathan's last glimmer of hope.Despite everything, Jonathan and his friends are fixated on surviving.Emotional and financial destruction nip at their heels, until finally, with a lucky twist of fate, they escape city life and begin anew in their hometown of Rockport, Massachusetts.A story set in the past, 1929 is full of romance, drama, and humor. Vivid, expertly crafted characters make this novel more than memorable–1929 is unforgettable.

The Lost Castle


Kristy Cambron - 2018
    It survived a sacking in the French Revolution, was brought back to life and fashioned into a storybook chateau in the Gilded Age, and was eventually felled and deserted after a disastrous fire in the 1930s.As Ellie Carver sits by her grandmother's bedside, she hears stories of a castle . . . of lost love and a hidden chapel that played host to a secret fight in the World War II French resistance. But her grandmother is quickly slipping into the locked-down world of Alzheimer's, and Ellie must act fast if she wants to uncover the truth of her family's history.Sparked by the discovery of a long forgotten family heirloom, Ellie embarks on a journey to French wine country to uncover the mystery surrounding The Sleeping Beauty--the castle so named for Charles Perrault's beloved fairy tale--and unearth its secrets before they're finally silenced by time.Set in three different time periods--the French Revolution, World War II, and present day--The Lost Castle is a story of loves won and lost, of battles waged, and an enchanted castle that inspired the epic fairy tales time left behind.

The Englishman's Daughter: A True Story of Love and Betrayal in World War I


Ben Macintyre - 2001
    They were forced to hide in the tiny French village of Villeret, whose inhabitants made the courageous decision to shelter the fugitives until they could pass as Picard peasants. The Englishman’s Daughter is the never-before-told story of these extraordinary men, their protectors, and of the haunting love affair between Private Robert Digby and Claire Dessenne, the most beautiful woman in Villeret. Their passion would result in the birth of a child known as “The Englishman’s Daughter,” and in an act of unspeakable betrayal, a tragic legacy that would haunt the village for generations to come. Through the testimonies of the villagers and the last letters of the soldiers, acclaimed journalist Ben Macintyre has pieced together a harrowing account of how life was lived behind enemy lines during the Great War, and offers a compelling solution to a gripping mystery that reverberates to this day.

A Place In The Hills


Michelle Paver - 2001
    Capturing the beauty and pain of two extraordinary love affairs separated by a gulf of 2000 years, this book explores true emotion, loss, and the healing power of forgiveness.

Our Yanks


Margaret Mayhew - 2001
    The village had never seen anything like them before - certainly they were different with their wealth, their glamour, and their louche but romantic uniforms. Some of the older villagers, like the Brigadier, resented them on sight, others welcomed them with weak tea and fish paste sandwiches. But in some lives they were to make a long-lasting and emotional impact - most especially young Sally Barnet from the bakery, Agnes Dawe, the Rector's daughter, and newly-widowed Lady Beauchamp from the Manor.

Waterwoman


Lenore Hart - 2002
    She understood that her mother was ill and needed to be taken care of. That her father was a waterman, a life she envied. And she understood that her little sister, Rebecca, was unabashedly beautiful. And she was not. When Annie's father suddenly dies, no one questions which sister will take his place aboard the family oyster boat. And for the first time, Annie falls comfortably and easily into the only place in life she thought she could ever fit in-as a waterwoman. And then she meets Nathan... "Sensuous [and] funny...Hart's flavorful dialect, her knowledge of working the water, and her understanding of the complexity of relationships-particularly the ones between sisters-are masterful." (Sheri Reynolds, author of The Rapture of Canaan)

Upon Destiny's Song


Mike Ericksen - 2013
    Ane Marie Madsen was only ten-years-old when she immigrated to Utah with her family. She was numbered in the ill-fated Willie Handcart Company of 1856, which saw the deaths of almost a third of the company when winter storms hit Wyoming. After settling in Utah, Ane Marie’s faith is tested once again as her path moves through the misadventures of colonizing a new territory ridden with danger and disease. Over 150 years later, descendent Mike Ericksen retells this epic journey and discovers lessons for his own modern sojourn.Ericksen has previously told the story of his ancestors harrowing trek through song and speaking engagements held across the country. Now the amazing story and its beautiful message is finally available in "Upon Destiny’s Song."

The Secret by the Lake


Louise Douglas - 2015
    This is where Julia spent her childhood. But she used to have an older sister, Caroline, whom she rarely speaks about...Who disappeared at just seventeen...Who has a secret the whole village wants kept hidden for ever...Louise Douglas's beautifully crafted and haunting page-turner will hold you in its grip.

The Duke and I


Julia Quinn - 2000
    From their earliest days, children of aristocrats learn how to address an earl and curtsey before a prince—while other dictates of the ton are unspoken yet universally understood. A proper duke should be imperious and aloof. A young, marriageable lady should be amiable… but not too amiable.Daphne Bridgerton has always failed at the latter. The fourth of eight siblings in her close-knit family, she has formed friendships with the most eligible young men in London. Everyone likes Daphne for her kindness and wit. But no one truly desires her. She is simply too deuced honest for that, too unwilling to play the romantic games that captivate gentlemen.Amiability is not a characteristic shared by Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings. Recently returned to England from abroad, he intends to shun both marriage and society—just as his callous father shunned Simon throughout his painful childhood. Yet an encounter with his best friend’s sister offers another option. If Daphne agrees to a fake courtship, Simon can deter the mamas who parade their daughters before him. Daphne, meanwhile, will see her prospects and her reputation soar.The plan works like a charm—at first. But amid the glittering, gossipy, cut-throat world of London’s elite, there is only one certainty: love ignores every rule...

Ponniyin Selvan - The Pinnacle of Sacrifice, Vol. 2


Kalki - 1954
    The second volume of the fifth part in the series 'Ponniyin Selvan', deals with the sacrifice that Ponniyin Selvan makes in giving up the great kingdom which was his, and crowing another person as its king.

Paris


Edward Rutherfurd - 2013
    As he did so brilliantly in London: The Novel and New York: The Novel, Edward Rutherfurd brings to life the most magical city in the world: Paris. This breathtaking multigenerational saga takes readers on a journey through thousands of years of glorious Parisian history.

The Mermaid Garden


Santa Montefiore - 2011
    She likes to spy from the crumbling wall into the gardens and imagine that one day she’ll escape her meager existence and live there surrounded by its otherworldly splendor. Then one day Dante, the son of the villa’s powerful industrialist owner, invites her inside and shows her the enchanting Mermaid Garden. From that moment, Floriana knows that the only destiny for her is there, in that garden, with Dante. But as they grow up and fall in love, their romance causes a crisis, jeopardizing the very thing they hold most dear.Decades later and hundreds of miles away, a beau-tiful old country house hotel on England’s Devon coast has fallen on hard times after the financial crash of 2008. Its owner, Marina, advertises for an artist to stay the summer and teach the guests how to paint. The man she hires is charismatic and wise and soon begins to pacify the discord in her family and transform the fortunes of the hotel. However, he has his own agenda. Is it to destroy, to seduce, or to heal? Whatever his intentions, he is certain to change Marina’s life forever.Spanning four decades and sweeping from the Italian countryside to the English coast, this new story by Santa Montefiore is a moving and mysterious tale of love, forgiveness, and the past revealed.

Outcast


Josephine Cox - 1992
    Set in Lancashire in the 1860s, this is the story of Emma Grady, who lives with her uncle, a tough mill owner who tries to trick her out of her inheritance.