With the help of her business partner and medium, Esme Sabatier, she is able to achieve extraordinary results in tracing family histories, which she translates into archival-scrapbooking. When one of their clients ends up dead and the evidence in the crime scene points to them, Sophie and Esme are immediately suspected of foul play. To clear their names they need to channel all of their investigative efforts—with the help of their scrapbooking club—into finding a murderer.

    Something went wrong in her family during her adolescence, changing her mother from a Chicago North Shore matron into an alcoholic and a doting father into a workaholic. The moment she graduated from High School, she was sent to the Sorbonne in Paris with a generous bank account and instructions not to return.It is now fifteen years since she has seen her parents, and she intends to lay the ghost that has separated her family for good. However, as usual in Alex’s unpredictable life, things do not go as planned. After an acrimonious fight with her once beloved father, she leaves with only a wallet-sized photograph of a woman she knows nothing about.That night, Alex’s father is killed. Bewildered and grieved that her family can never be whole again, she soon finds out that she is the chief suspect in the murder. With the unflappable Briggie at her side, she uses all her new genealogical skills, and (with the help of Briggie’s deer rifle) discovers a secret so bizarre that she finally understands why her parents wanted her far away and safe.Join Alex and Briggie in the first of their hair-raising adventures!

    It will leave you breathless." --Walter Isaacson, author of Leonardo da Vinci, Steve Jobs, and other bestselling biographies.The Great Michigan Read for 2013-14. A Washington Post Best Book, 2009. A 2010 Michigan Notable Book.Beth Luxenberg was an only child, or so her son Steve believed. But secrets have a way of working free of their keepers, as this true story reveals. Approaching her 80th birthday, Steve's mother told a doctor that she had a disabled sister, without saying that she had always pretended that she was an only child. When Steve learned of his mother's slip, he was mystified. If his mom had a sibling, why had her existence been resolutely concealed for decades? Following the trail took Steve to Depression-era Detroit and tsarist Russia, the Holocaust in Ukraine and the Philippine war zone. Fascinating human interest; a real-life whodunit.Beautifully complex, raw and revealing.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)A wise, affecting new memoir of family secrets and posthumous absolution. . . a poignant investigative exercise, full of empathy and sorrowful truth." -- The Washington Post

    Following the success of his Running Press titles Danny Boy and Voices of Ireland, McCourt explores this beloved icon of Irish heritage through vivid anecdotes, charming folk tales, and recent documented incidents. Said to have been first crafted more than 400 years ago in a fishing village on Galway Bay, there is much more to the story of the Claddagh ring than simple popular history, and McCourt tracks it down and recounts it with his stellar storytelling finesse.

     My great-grandmother's name is bold across the cream envelope, now golden at the seams with age. I can't remember the last time I’ve seen graceful, purposeful handwriting with a fountain pen and not the hasty scrawl of ballpoint. Alice Hirshhorn, Astoria Hotel, Seattle Washington. “Letters to Great-grandma Alice,” I say with wonder, tracing my fingers over the faded postmark and foreign stamps. December 1915. Philippine Islands. I turn the thick envelope in my palm, slide out the tightly folded pages, and unfold the thin paper, taking care not to tear the letters that were important enough to keep for a century. My dearest Alice “Great-grandpa was in the Philippines?” I ask. “Oh no. Not your great-grandfather,” answers Grammie, her eyes twinkling with her mother’s secrets. “Elliott.” ​~ At thirty-three and with her future unclear, Ali Waller finds her way home again. A box of long-forgotten love letters written to her great-grandmother holds the unlikely key to Ali finding her new path. As she tracks down the letter writer and his descendants, Ali learns the magic of love, hope, and resilience. Told by three characters, and across century and an ocean, Genealogy is an enchanting story about love and loss, taking chances, and embracing the surprises that life brings.

     Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming all suffered great depredations and saw much bloodshed through the years of the civil wars as army regiments clashed with Native American tribes. Eugene F. Ware, captain of “F” company, Seventh Iowa Cavalry, fought within this area of conflict and provides vivid insight into battles and campaigns that tore through the Midwest. "The dust, the heat, the frigid cold, can all be felt in his pages. . . . This is a vivid book." New York Herald Tribune “[He] was a superb reporter. The big country of plains and mountains spreads out in his pages, and he sketches the army and Indian camps in strong colors. There is an abundance of spirited detail ... this rich book should appeal to all western history fans." Chicago Sunday Tribune "Filled with colorful and exciting incident, as much comic and touching as it is startling and dramatic, [this] is an unforgettable chronicle of the West that has become a legend, written by a man with a vivid imagination and a gifted pen who is at the same time remarkably accurate." Salt Lake City Tribune "Ware's reminiscence convey a spacious sense of two American epics: offstage, the war between the North and the South, and, under his eyes, the broad stream of migration to the Far West, with wagon trains fifteen miles long passing by-eight or nine hundred teams of oxen a day. His book suggests the grandeur of history, and yet it is an intimate, personal communication — fresh, spirited, and delightful reading." New Yorker This book is essential reading for anyone interested in finding out more about some of the less well-known areas of conflict during the Civil War period as well as the westward expansion of the United States. Eugene F. Ware was born in 1841. His family moved to Burlington, Iowa when he was a young boy. He enlisted in an Iowa regiment at the beginning of the Civil War. He entered the regiment a private and at the end of his service in 1867 was a captain. He worked for many years as a lawyer. His book The Indian War of 1864 was first published in 1911, which was also the year in which he passed away.

    She shut off the engine and looked at her nephew. She would feed Jose some lunch, and then she would see. Jose looked over at her, and Ramona reached out her hand and brushed lightly at his hair. "Let's go inside, Jose, " she said. "We'll have some lunch and drink something warm." The two of them climbed out of the truck. A slight breeze blew, and the water from the cottonwoods fell on them in large fat drops. Before they reached the house, the front door swung open and Ramona's grandfather, Epolito Montoya, who had been dead for thirteen years, stood in the doorway. "Why are you out in the rain?" he said.

    She is drawn to their apparently idyllic way of life and starts to look into her family history.Only to learn that her grandfather, John, was murdered.Why has nobody told her? Sarah becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Gwen and John.But are there some family stories that should never be told?

     Why doesn't everyone know the Boston Massacre wasn't really a massacre? Subsequent testimony proved the soldiers fired in self-defense. The King Street riot was started by a group of four street thugs who got their rocks off attacking lone British soldiers. Sam Adams and Paul Revere twisted it into a massacre. And, if you think the Boston Tea Party was a response to British taxes that raised the price of tea in the colonies, think again. The Tea Act of 1773 actually reduced the price of tea paid by the colonists. The people hurt by the Tea Act were the smugglers. The lower price of tea undercut their business, and ensured that the East India Company would have a monopoly on tea. The South Carolina Nullification Congress of 1832 was a harbinger of things to come. The question was if a state disagrees with a federal law, does it have the right to nullify it, and disregard that law? Vice-president John C. Calhoun argued state's rights superseded federal laws. President Andrew Jackson believed to his dying day that Calhoun was a damned traitor, and that he should have strung him up from the nearest branch. The Black Hawk War was a mix-up of frontier madness, mayhem, and murder. Illinois Governor John Reynolds called out the militia and raised thousands of volunteer troops. General Winfield Scott marched his regulars half way across the country to Fort Armstrong at Rock Island. Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor led a group of infantrymen in the fighting. In the end, it was a massacre that nearly wiped out the Sac tribe. In the fall of 1845 President Polk offered Mexico five million dollars if they would recognize the Southwestern Boundary of Texas at the Rio Grande. When Mexico refused his offer Polk decided to force the issue. He sent General Zachary Taylor and 3,000 troops to Corpus Christi, Texas. In March of 1846 General Taylor moved his forces into the disputed territory between the Rio Grande and Nueces Rivers. Soon after that, Mexico was provoked into a war with the United States. It has been said that James Buchanan was a "weak, timid, old man" who didn't do anything to prevent the Southern states from seceding. Some historians have even gone so far as to declare Buchanan was an "accessory after the fact." He was a president, Southern sympathizer, and traitor. But, was he? Imagine what it would be like to wake up, flip on the morning news, and discover Bradley Cooper or Ashton Kutcher assassinated President Obama. That's what happened in 1865. People were shocked when they learned John Wilkes Booth killed President Lincoln. Booth was one of the most popular actors of his day. He was young, just twenty-six years old, considered one of the most attractive men in America. At the time he killed Lincoln, Booth was pulling down $20,000 a year as an actor (that's roughly $300,000 in 2015 money). And, yet--he sacrificed it all for his political beliefs. What was going on in the mind of John Wilkes Booth? I could tell you more, but you get the idea.

    Inside, you'll learn about about: Lives of the ancient Celts until the British invasions Famous Irish including Michael Collins, Charles Parnell-and Bono! The Potato Famine and Immigration (were there really gangs of New York?) Irish music and dance Folklore, faeries, and leprechauns Complete with a Irish language primer and pronunciation guide, 101 Things You Didn't Know About Irish History is an informative reference for anyone who loves the Irish!

    David W. Shaw, who brings decades of experience as a seaman to his writing, has based this riveting tale on the firsthand testimony of the few who survived the wreck, including its heroic captain, James C. Luce. It is the story of the brave and dutiful Luce fighting his mutinous crew as they take the lifeboats, leaving hundreds of men, women, and children to suffer a cruel and painful death. It is also the story of those who survived the frigid waters and those who perished -- including Luce's own frail son, who died as the grief-stricken captain helplessly watched. Not only did 400 people die by daybreak, the wreck brought to an end the domination of the seas by the American maritime fleet.Utterly compelling, beautifully written, and a fascinating, heretofore little-known slice of American history, "The Sea Shall Embrace Them" is a stirring narrative that puts the reader on the deck as a shipful of men, women, and children do battle both with a mighty ocean and with their own baser instincts to survive.

    Learn from your parents the time honored traditions and habits that have made them who they are today, including their views on spirituality, what they learned in their youth, how they feel about parenting, and much more! With over 300 questions, this guide is a sure way to help you know your parents better.

    From relics of Georgian empire-building and slave-trading, through Victorian London's barged-out refuse to 1980s fly-tipping and the pervasiveness of present-day plastics, Rag and Bone traces the story of our rubbish, and, through it, our history of consumption.In a series of beachcombing and mudlarking walks - beginning in the Thames in central London, then out to the Kentish estuary and eventually the sea around Cornwall - Lisa Woollett also tells the story of her family, a number of whom made their living from London's waste, and who made a similar journey downriver from the centre of the city to the sea.A beautifully written but urgent mixture of social history, family memoir and nature writing, Rag and Bone is a book about what we can learn from what we've thrown away - and a call to think more about what we leave behind.

    Follows the development of a rural Illinois community from its origins near the beginning of the nineteenth century, looks at community activity, and tells the stories of ordinary pioneers.

    This book describes the lives and role of the three princesses, Louise, Victoria and Maud and tells the tragic story of Albert Victor.