Now a world-renowned portrait painter, her life is filled with laughter and friendship, including being a mother to her orphaned niece. Life is perfect, so why can’t she forget her first love? Thomas Bradford has come a long way from being the Hathaway family’s carriage boy. A veterinary degree, ambition and hard work have made him one of Chicago’s most sought-after bachelors. If only he could forget those stolen moments with Allie, Thomas might be able to enjoy his success. The Great Quake of 1906 stuns the nation and Allie’s art studio burns to the ground, destroying years of valuable work. She’s forced to return to Chicago with little Janey, the only spark of hope in a life reduced to ashes. Her faith is crushed by her tragic reversal of fortune.Thomas knows better than to fall for the beautiful young painter again, but he’s never been very wise around Allie Hathaway. The carriage man’s son is all grown up and Allie doesn’t expect a second chance at a love that was refused eight years ago. Her life is in shambles and she has a child to support, so why won’t her heart accept the truth?Once their love was torn apart by circumstance, but Thomas and Allie must decide whether to forge a future of hope together. This is the first book in the Colors of Faith, a Christian historical romance series by Virginia Carmichael. The next, Pockets Full of Gold, will be released in August 2013.Virginia was born near the Rocky Mountains and although she has traveled around the world, the wilds of Colorado run in her veins. A big fan of the wide open sky and all four seasons, she believes in embracing the small moments of everyday life. A home schooling mom of six young children who rarely wear shoes, those moments usually involve a lot of noise, a lot of mess, or a whole bunch of warm cookies. Virginia holds degrees in Linguistics and Religious Studies from the University of Oregon. She lives with her habanero-eating husband, Crusberto, who is her polar opposite in all things except faith. They've learned to speak in short-hand code and look forward to the day they can actually finish a sentence. In the meantime, Virginia thanks God for the laughter and abundance of hugs that fill her day as she plots her next book.

    Unable to continue to live alone in Chicago, her only option is to accept her sister's offer to move in with her family back in West Virginia. Will Delilah have the faith to pursue a new dream--even if it means giving up the old?In this charming novella, debut novelist Sarah Loudin Thomas introduces readers to Wise, West Virginia--a small town nestled in an Appalachian valley where the everyday miracles of life and faith play out in stories of healing, hope, and love.

    Expected to marry an up-and-coming banker from a respected family, Lucy fears she will be forced to abandon her charity work--and the classes she is secretly taking at the newly opened University of Chicago. When she meets an unconventional young architect who is working on plans for the upcoming 1893 World's Fair, Lucy imagines a life lived on her own terms. Can she break away from her family's expectations? And will she ever be loved for who she truly is? Readers will love being swept away into a world of mansions, secrets, and romance as they follow Lucy through the streets of the Windy City during one of the most exciting times in the city's history. From opulent upper-class homes to the well-worn rooms of an orphanage, Olivia Newport breathes life and romance into the pages of history--and everyone is invited.

    GrayAvery Nichols knows how to wear the mask. Perfect student, perfect daughter and perfect friend. Nobody would ever guess that inside, Avery is a prisoner to her own self loathing. Then she meets him…and everything changes. Handsome, charming and self assured, Jake Matthew sweeps Avery off her feet in an effortless fashion. Avery knows that Jake is everything she needs and all she has ever wanted. She would destroy herself to be loved by him…until he walks away.Broken and lost, Avery meets Parker. His genuine, caring nature reaches past the mask and the shattered pieces her heart begin to slowly heal. But just when Avery starts to feel whole again, she realizes the impossible.Jake never really left.

    The paper was an unexpected inheritance from a close colleague, and Lois must keep it for at least a year, bringing a host of challenges, lessons, and blessings into her life.When Lois pulls into Green on New Year’s Day, she expects a charming little town full of smiling people. She quickly realizes her mistake. After settling into a loaned house out on Route 2, she finds herself battling town prejudices and inner doubts and making friends with the most surprising people: troubled teenager Katy, good-looking catfish farmer Chris, wise and feisty Aunt Helen, and a female African-American physician named Kevin.Whether fighting a greedy, deceitful politician or rescuing a dog she fears, Lois notices the headlines in her life have definitely improved. She learns how to provide small-town news in a big-hearted way and realizes that life is full of newsworthy moments. When she encounters racial prejudice and financial corruption, Lois also discovers more about the goodness of real people and the importance of being part of a community.While secretly preparing the paper for a sale, Lois begins to realize that God might indeed have a plan for her life and that perhaps the allure of city life and career ambition are not what she wants after all.

    He tries to persuade her that following the living God will satisfy in a way that wealth and power will never be able to do. Will she listen to him? Or will she choose the handsome, successful man back home in China? Each of the novels in this series is a complete story.

    It is the perfect way to escape her agonizingly boring suitor, Roger Gordon. It's also where she stumbles upon two new loves: sailing, and sailing instructor Trip Andrews. But this summer of fun turns to turmoil as her father's gambling problems threaten to ruin the family forever. Will free-spirited Marguerite marry Roger to save her father's name and fortune? Or will she follow her heart--even if it means abandoning the family she loves? Author Lorna Seilstad's fresh and entertaining voice will whisk readers away to a breezy lakeside summer holiday. Full of sharp wit and blossoming romance, "Making Waves" is the first book in the LAKE MANAWA SUMMERS series.

    Seventeen-year-old Fanny has never put much stock in the conventions of society. In fact, she has given her heart to Michael, the family boat-keeper. But when she receives a surprising inheritance, she discovers just how oppressive society can be . . . and that she may be trusting the wrong people.Dare she follow her heart and risk going against her family? What if she loses everything she's ever known? It all comes down to one choice: What does Fanny Broadmoor want her legacy to be?

    But here's the rub about her job as a baker ... Emma is diabetic. When she tastes her creations, it can only be in the most minute portions. Emma is considered an artisan for the stunning crEme brulee wedding cake that won her the Passionate Palette Award last year, but she's never even had one full slice of it.When Jackson Drake hears about this local baker who has won a prestigious award for her wedding cake artistry, he tells his assistant to be sure and include her in the pastry tastings scheduled at his new wedding destination hotel the following week. And for Jackson, that particular day has started out badly with two workmen trapped in a broken elevator and a delivery of several dozen 300-thread-count bed linens in the wrong size abandoned in the lobby. But when the arrogant baker he met a week prior in Roswell stumbles into the dining room with a platter of pastries and a bucketful of orders, he knows for certain: It's going to be a really rotten day.Can these two ill-suited players master the high-wire act and make a go of their new business venture? Or will they take each other crashing downward, without a net? And will the surprise wedding at The Tanglewood be theirs?

    She’s nobody’s fool who hopes to steer clear. Until a thunderstorm sinks them both into a sea of love. Blake “The Rake” McClare has a notorious reputation as a womanizer, which is why soft-spoken Patience Peabody carefully avoids the lovable rogue attorney at the law firm in which they both work. Until a rare thunderstorm brings them together in a love soaked with the grace of God ... and sparked with a little lightning of its own.

    A small town librarian, she loved her predictable lifestyle. But her European-born stepsister Cecelia had other plans. As the two of them were about to board a plane for Scotland, Cecelia was suddenly called away to Italy. Edwina found herself alone in Edinburgh, tired, hungry, and very late. When the hotel clerk told her that she no longer had a room, she fainted - right into the arms of a tall Scot standing behind her. Anxious to meet his fianc, Alex Dunnegin whisked Edwina off to his castle and that's when the trouble began. The handsome Laird became the hero for the novel Edwina was writing. And Cecelia, her beautiful, entrepreneurial sister, the heroine. Could it be any other way? Edwina would find out that the stubborn Scot did not always play the part she wrote for him. My grandmother, a Southern farmer's wife, became the spark of light in my simple, quiet existence when she told me stories. As a child I listened in the dark of night as she, in the other twin bed in my small room, told me about her life. What it was like to live on a farm in the early 1900s. About the two children she lost to death and how it affected her. I felt like I knew the people who had died before I had been born. They had lived and it mattered. With her penchant for Irish story-telling, she began what was to become my own desire. To tell stories. For the last eleven years I have written a dozen fiction novels and as many true stories of my own life experiences, hoping that perhaps my stories will touch another's life like my grandmother did mine.

    The Glock-wielding, knife-carrying housewife knows how to survive whatever life throws at her. But when an anonymous warning note shows up in her best friend Miranda’s mailbox—a note written in a dead woman’s handwriting—Tess quickly discovers that ghosts are alive and well in Buckneck, West Virginia. Hot on a cold trail, she must use limited clues and her keen insight into human nature to unmask the killer...or the next victim might be Tess herself.Tinged with the supernatural and overshadowed by the mountains' lush, protective presence, this twisting psychological mystery is the first in A Murder in the Mountains series.

    He lost his wife but is ready to move on. Will a chance meeting in a foreign city change their lives forever? Following her husband’s untimely death, Wendy Miller’s life revolves around her adult children, but when she accepts an invitation to her late husband’s grandmother’s 90th birthday party in London, she meets a dashing, silver-haired Texan cowboy in Dublin. Bruce captures her heart, but can she move past the memories of her late husband and truly open her heart all over again?Bruce McCarthy did his best to hold his family and ranch together after his wife died in a car accident ten years before, but following a recent health scare, he decides to live every day as if it were his last and books a flight to Ireland to find his Irish family.The captivating woman he accidentally spills coffee on one morning stirs something inside him, and Bruce wonders if God might be giving him a second chance at love…As they meet again in London, Paris and Venice, their friendship grows deeper, but while Bruce is eager to take their friendship further, Wendy is unsure if her adult children will accept a new man in her life, especially when one of them still blames God for allowing her father to die prematurely.If Wendy can trust God to take care of the details, and Bruce can overcome his fears of his cancer returning, then they may just find true love again after all…A Time to Treasure is the first book in The Time For Everything Series, a set of contemporary Christian romance novels set in Sydney, Australia, and Texas, USA. If you like real-life characters, faith-filled families, and friendships that become something more, then you’ll love Juliette Duncan’s inspirational second-chance romance.Buy A Time to Treasure and fall in love with Wendy and Bruce today!

    While she waits for the Great War to end and Arthur to return to her so they can pursue all their plans, her mother's sister falls ill. Rebekah seizes the opportunity to travel to Texas to care for Aunt Adabelle, seeing this chance to be closer to Arthur's training camp as God's approval of her plans. But the Spanish flue epidemic changes everything. Faced with her aunt's death, Arthur's indecisiveness, and four children who have no one else to care for them, Rebeka is torn between the desire to escape the type of life she's always led and the unexpected love that just might change the dream of her heart.

    In desperation Aaron and his best friend, Harmony Jordan, devise The Plan, but when The Plan succeeds beyond their wildest expectation, it could spell heartache for them all.