Why else would her Amish mother, a plain and simple woman who embraces the Old Order laws, hide the beautiful baby dress in the attic? But nothing could have prepared Katie for the startling news that stumbles out of her anguished parents on the eve of her wedding to Bishop John. Will Katie suddenly find herself a stranger in the community she has always called home?

    history: the internment of Japanese-Americans during WW II. In 1941, 18-year-old Hiroko Takashimaya, the beautiful, painfully shy daughter of a modern-thinking professor and a tradition-bound mother, is sent from her home in Kyoto to live in California with her American cousins and attend a prestigious women's college. Terribly homesick yet determined to make her parents proud, dutiful Hiroko begins to adjust to her new life and even does the unthinkable when she falls in love with Peter Jenkins, a handsome American professor. The joys of Peter's love painfully contrast with the humiliation Hiroko suffers at the hands of her racially prejudiced school mates, but worse is to come when war breaks out and Hiroko and her cousins are sent to segregated camps. Separated from Peter, now a soldier fighting in Europe, Hiroko sheds her sheltered, girlhood innocence and evolves into a strong, independent woman. Steel's slapdash prose and stereotypical characterization produce a formulaic tale, albeit more earnest and didactic than her usual fare, but she does succeed in telling a poignant story.

    Hitler's war machine has decimated the Allies and the people of Europe must now learn the terror of living under the Third Reich.For Gabrielle Conti, a young French girl working at her family's winery, such news seemed incredibly distant and abstract. Surely these events wouldn't impact her simple life in the French countryside?That was before the body of an SS officer was found in the basement.When her family becomes the subject of a brutal murder investigation, Gabrielle must match wits with SS Captain Hans Tiedemann, a veteran of the Russian Front who is hell-bent on singling out the killer. Gabrielle bets that if she can fool Tiedemann into thinking he is making progress, she just might buy enough time for her family to escape.But that will be no easy task. For as the Germans gather their clues, Gabrielle starts to learn more about her family's true involvement in the war--and saving them could spell the end of the French Resistance.

    

    Christine is a shy, unadventurous woman whose fiancee broke off the engagement only a week before the wedding, and Paul is a former emergency room doctor whose glamorous lifestyle, stellar reputation, and beautiful fiancee are cruelly snatched from him one fateful, snowy Christmas Eve. Deep in the Amazon jungle, against a backdrop of poverty and heartbreak, they must confront their deepest fears and, together, learn to trust and love again.

    The tribulation, according to Grandpa Herman, founder of Fire and Brimstone, will be an ugly time: "He said that we'd run out of food. That big bugs would chase us around and sting us with their tails . . . He said we'd turn on the faucet in the bathroom and find only blood running out . . . He said evil multitudes would come unto us and cut off our limbs, and that we wouldn't die . . . And then he'd say, 'But you don't have to be left behind. You can go straight to Heaven with all of God's special children if you'll only open your hearts to Jesus . . .'" Such talk of damnation weighs heavy on the mind of Ninah Huff, the 15-year-old narrator of Sheri Reynolds's second novel, The Rapture of Canaan. To distract her from sinful thoughts about her prayer partner James, Ninah puts pecan shells in her shoes and nettles in her bed. But concentrating on the Passion of Jesus cannot, in the end, deter Ninah and James from their passion for each other, and the consequences prove both tragic and transforming for the entire community. The Rapture of Canaan is a book about miracles, and in writing it, Reynolds has performed something of a miracle herself. Although the church's beliefs and practices may seem extreme (sleeping in an open grave, mortifying the flesh with barbed wire), its members are complex and profoundly sympathetic as they wrestle with the contradictions of Fire and Brimstone's theology, the temptations of the outside world, and the frailties of the human heart.

    They hoped it would be over by Christmas... Britain is at war and the proximity of the docks means that life in and around London's Turnbury Buildings is hard and dangerous. Chances are taken, people have secrets, hearts are broken. And feelings about foreigners are running high. Sixteen-year-old Freddie Jarrett is secretly seeing a girl from the local Chinese community - a relationship that would be frowned on by both families, despite the fact that they all support the fight for freedom from oppression. And his sister Grace has her own secret to hide. A secret that no one outside the immediate family must ever know. As the threat of the Luftwaffe looms over the docks, the community is threatened with being torn apart by prejudice, fear and separation, and the disturbing loss of stability that brings with it the feeling that it is only what happens today that counts for anything...

    I stroked his cheek, whispered, it’s really you…Dov and Yitzhak live in a small village in the mountains of Hungary, isolated both from the world and from the horrors of the war. But one day in 1944, everything changes. The Nazis storm the homes of the Jewish villagers and inform them they have one hour. One hour before the train will take them to Auschwitz.Six decades later, from the safety of their living rooms at home in Israel, the brothers finally break their silence to a friend who will never let their stories be forgotten.Told in a poetic style reminiscent of Atwood and Salinger, Malka Adler has penned a visceral yet essential read for those who have found strength, solace and above all, hope, in books like The Choice, The Librarian of Auschwitz and The Tattooist of Auschwitz.This paperback includes an exclusive 14-page P.S. section with an author Q, an Author’s Note and a reading group guide.Praise for The Brothers of Auschwitz‘I sat down and read this within a few hours, my wife is now reading it and it is bringing tears to her eyes’ Amazon reviewer‘The story is so incredible and the author writes so beautifully that it is impossible to stay indifferent. I gave the book to my mom and she called me after she finished crying and telling me how much she loved it’ Amazon reviewer‘It is a book we all must read, read in order to know … It is harsh, enthralling, earth-shattering, rattling – but we must. And nothing less’ Aliza Ziegler, Editor-in-Chief at Proza Books, Yedioth Ahronoth Publishing House‘Great courage is needed to write as Adler does – without softening, without beautifying, without leaving any room to imagination’ Yehudith Rotem, Haaretz newspaper‘This is a book we are not allowed not to read’ Leah Roditi, At Magazine

    An attractive 29-year-old Polish woman suddenly appears before a New York Jewish family in 1967, claiming to be a long-lost child who was hidden in Poland during World War II."Told without artifice or irony, Mekler's story of inter generational immigration is a cooly composed novel. By the time ending veers... Mekler has already transcended plot in favor of uncompromising examination." -The New York Times Book Review "Stunning... well crafted... adding depth and resonance to a gripping read. Not to be missed by anyone who loves a tale well told."-Library Journal"Vividly drawn character,both major and minor... The tale itself is compelling, combining romance and mystery and reminding us of the difficulty of unearthing personal truths when one of history's great cataclysms has buried them."-The Wall Street Journal"Takes a less-traveled road [from other Holocaust literature] and explores the loss of identity... Strongly evoked... the understated and moving story of a woman whose memories open so many old wounds."-Philadelphia Inquirer

    Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves - and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life - and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it. "At some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time," she muses. "After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is." Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

    In Our Sacred Honor, the first volume in the series, master storyteller Ron Carter presents the early events of the Revolutionary War through the eyes of common people. We meet the heroes, but we see them through the eyes and hearts of the soldiers and the sailors, men and women, who came out of the shops, fields, and forests and paid the price. No human mind could ever have created a plot so diverse, so intensely gripping, so inspiring as the story of the American Revolution. The history of the Mormon people is inseparably connected with the establishment of a free nation wherein the gospel could be restored. Through fictional as well as real-life characters, Prelude to Glory powerfully depicts that dramatic story.

    One stayed at home to raise her children and manage the family apple orchard; the other followed a dream and traveled the world to become a famous photojournalist. But when their beloved father falls ill, Meredith and Nina find themselves together again, standing alongside their cold, disapproving mother, Anya, who even now, offers no comfort to her daughters. As children, the only connection between them was the Russian fairy tale Anya sometimes told the girls at night. On his deathbed, their father extracts a promise from the women in his life: the fairy tale will be told one last time—and all the way to the end. Thus begins an unexpected journey into the truth of Anya’s life in war-torn Leningrad, more than five decades ago. Alternating between the past and present, Meredith and Nina will finally hear the singular, harrowing story of their mother’s life, and what they learn is a secret so terrible and terrifying that it will shake the very foundation of their family and change who they believe they are. Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN13 9780312663155 here.

    In this business of flying fighter jets, the odds of staying alive are stacked against him. Haunted by the memories of dead friends killed in air mishaps, this Vietnam vet and father of three must deal with a devious commander, an animal-crazed neighbor, whose husband hates pilots, a beautiful, but suspicious wife and a rebellious teenage daughter. The last thing he needs is another war.But when Iraq invades Kuwait in the middle of a muggy Louisiana summer, duty calls. Tuck and the other pilots in his squadron head to the Middle East. Back in Louisiana, Gina Westerfield and other military wives learn that war is hell on the home front, too. Later, when tragedy strikes, everyone at Beauregard Air Force Base must pull together and live on or forever be consumed with grief. “The story pulls you in from the very beginning. The novel's climax and its aftermath are one of the most moving and satisfying I have ever read.”Dwight Jon Zimmerman, New York Times #1 bestselling author of Lincoln's Last Days “A realistic yet heartwarming and reaffirming assessment of life and love and dedication by the very people who guard our own lives.” Parris Afton Bonds, New York Times bestselling author & cofounder of Romance Writers of America.

    In the tradition of Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, this moving novel, filled with warmth, wit, and wisdom, is about a group of women who discover--over the course of 40 turbulent years--the nature of true friendship.

    The deed is to a house in Urbino, Italy---the hometown he barely spoke of. Intrigued, Olivia travels there. At first she is charmed by the historic city, the relatives she’s not met before, and the young lawyer she’s hired to help her investigate the claim. But when Olivia tries to sort out the deed, she is met with a puzzling silence. Everyone in the town remembers her father, but they are not eager to tell his story. However, Luigi tells his part of the tale directly to the reader as the chapters alternate between Olivia’s search for the truth and Luigi’s account of his history. By the end of this skillfully constructed book, the reader understands both sides of a heartbreaking yet ultimately satisfying love story.