Harry Heron Midshipman's Journey


Patrick G. Cox - 2015
    Cox weaves the exciting, authentic tale of Harry Nelson-Heron, a young midshipman in the British Navy in the early 1800s. Born in 1789 during the Irish Rebellion, Harry must overcome the prejudice against the Irish and the usual hazards of an active and inquisitive youth to realise his dream of becoming an officer in Britain’s Royal Navy. When he and his childhood friend Ferghal make the treacherous journey to London to be commissioned to a ship, fate smiles on them. Harry is appointed a midshipman on the HMS Bellerophon, and Ferghal joins him as a seaman. Corsairs, diplomacy, and exploration challenge their skills as the seafaring life takes Harry and Ferghal across the seas to worlds they never imagined and engages their ship in sea fights with the French during the Napoleonic Wars.

The Shadow of Celene


Carol Sanders - 2018
     Livy Prescott is a young wife dependent upon,beholden to, and manipulated by Celene, a slave. In 1860, Edward Prescott gallops into Livy Taylor’s life racing his carriage down the main street of her tiny Pennsylvania town, winning a bet and her heart. After they wed, Livy is swept away to Merrywood, Edward’s home in the hills of North Carolina. There Livy faces the daunting task of adjusting to her new life as Mistress of Merrywood and slave-owner. And there Livy encounters Celene, the beautiful slave cook of Merrywood, skilled in the healing arts and privy to the deepest secrets of the Prescotts. Gradually Livy learns the extent of Celene’s influence and the hold she maintains over her master, causing Livy to question who is the real mistress of Merrywood.

The Essence of Shade


Deborah Jean Miller - 2019
    Despite his overbearing nature, Shade delights in her new role as wife and mother. When her husband suddenly dies years later, she uncovers secrets from his past—secrets so profound they derail the lives of both her and her daughter. After tragedy strikes, thirty-six-year-old Shade gains custody of her young grandson, Tyler, and moves to a small Michigan beach town where she becomes the owner of a successful bakery and café. Shade meets and falls in love with Tyler’s baseball coach, but their love for one another is doomed. Shade’s internal struggle to honor her vow to God, while denying her own desires, throws her on a path of painful redemption.

Girl On A Train


P. Hawkins - 2016
    This debut international thriller tangles a sordid web of love and intrigue.

Treacherous Waters: A love story full of twists


Teresa Crane - 1978
    Her French husband was killed in the First World War before their son Davie was born, and since then the young widow has put him first in everything. Her motherly instincts tell her that Davie would benefit from having a father, and when Fergus Cameron proposes to her, Annie knows he offers them both comfort and security.But is there more to life than just safety and good sense? When she and Davie bump into Richard Ross near their home in Kew, her instincts are proved correct. Richard, a lawyer, has an easygoing charm and she agrees, at his insistence, to become his wife.But shortly afterwards she wonders if there was more to their original chance meeting than she thought… Why does Richard know more about her past than she does? And can love survive the poison of treachery? From Teresa Crane, author of the smash-hit The Italian House , this is a vivid and unputdownable story of life and love, deception and betrayal.

Fortune's Daughter


Benita Brown - 2006
    Little does she know Rose has been stolen and given to a wealthy woman who, tricked into believing she's an orphan, adopts her and renames her Rosina. Worse still, it was all arranged by Daisy’s ruthlessly ambitious agent, Jack Fidler. Years later, when tragedy strikes, Rosina runs away to join a theatrical troupe and her natural talent for singing wins the hearts of the crowds. But this brings her into direct competition with one of the northern music halls’ established stars, Daisy Belle – and back into the path of Jack, who is determined to destroy her...

OLD HOUSE


Sharon Mierke - 2018
    Who has not wondered about old houses as they passed by? Who was the builder? Did he take pride in his work? Were the inhabitants always happy or were there hard times? How many people passed through the doors? Old House is a story about one house. It is located in a fictitious valley in the state of Montana U.S.A. Through the course of one hundred years, these are the people who lived, laughed, loved, and cried as they called this old house their home. Each chapter in the book is a story in itself. It begins with the man who built the house in the late 1860s, and it continues with the people who found lodging and refuge in it - from a young man with a bounty on his head, an old man in search of gold, to a woman seeking protection.

Mavis Belfrage


Alasdair Gray - 1996
    Five other tales describe folk in Britain's lowest professional class between the late-1950s and 60s.

The Testament of Gideon Mack


James Robertson - 2006
    For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, unfaithful husband and troubled soul, the existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies. Until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan himself.Mack's testament - a compelling blend of memoir, legend, history, and, quite probably, madness - recounts one man's emotional crisis, disappearance, resurrection and death. It also transports you into an utterly mesmerising exploration of the very nature of belief.

Rory's Fortune


Catherine Cookson - 1972
    Whatever happens, nobody must know what you are carrying…’Life changes overnight for fifteen-year-old Rory McAlister, an apprentice wheelwright, when his master, John Cornwallis, who had been kind to Rory and his poverty-stricken family, is injured in an accident and asks Rory to take his place on a vital errand.With a secret letter hidden under a patch on his shirt, Rory travels south to meet the sinister Miss Bluett – who sends him off on a terrifying voyage across the seas to Jersey. But what is the mysterious ‘blue baccy’ he is to carry home? And why is it so important that they can only come for it by night? Plunged into terrible danger, Rory’s very life is suddenly at stake as he finds himself caught up in the dangerous world of smuggling.Set in the mid-nineteenth century, Rory’s Fortune is a dramatic and action-packed tale of one young man remaining loyal to his master only to find his life changed forever.

Leaving Pimlico


P.B. North - 2014
    I can never get used to this, Alexi. Having you, that is. How did I deserve you? Deserve me? You don't have to do anything to deserve me. I love you. It's as simple as that. I love you for what you are. All you need to do is love me back. You don't earn love, as a payment in return.Peter Kingsmill's life had run into the sands since the death of his wife. What was a glittering London career had lost its shine. Until, that is, his life is turned upside down by an unexpected collision of events. He inherits the family estate, meets a girl seventeen years his junior and receives an anonymous letter which casts doubt on all the certainties on which he has built his past life.What follows is a journey of discovery which takes him back in time to war-torn Europe. To a story of betrayal in the secret world of spies and double agents, and ultimately to redemption and a bright new life.The narrative moves at speed from the dusty plains of pre-war Poland to the frozen winter landscapes of German-occupied Norway and finally to the gentle pastoral of the north Yorkshire hills. It is a story of a search for the pieces that make up a human life; and of the love that binds those pieces together....Do you remember the Snow Queen story? I can complete the pattern now. I have everything I need.

Still Life With Volkswagens


Geoff Nicholson - 1994
    Nazi skinheads are cruising the streets and a millionaire tycoon and a weather girl have been kidnapped. It falls to Barry Osgathorpe to discover who is responsible.

The Border of Truth


Victoria Redel - 2007
    But now that Sara has decided to adopt a child of her own, she finds herself facing a genealogical blank slate with which to start her new family. Her mother's family was decimated by the Nazis and she knows nothing of her father's pre-war journey out of Europe on the Quanza, a boat full of refugees fleeing the onset of the Holocaust. She also asks him no questions, as this is his one command: to leave the past to the dead.But as Sara works on her manuscript of the great critic, philosopher, and translator Walter Benjamin's work, details from her father's life start to float into her periphery, and even as she tries not to give in to curiosity they gather and overwhelm her until she is at his door, demanding answers.In this richly woven telling, Victoria Redel brings equal amounts of poignancy and fortitude to her symbiotic storylines, lending both characters the kind of strength only survivors can embody. For even as she leads Sara about her mission, Redel reveals young Richard's story, told from letters that he writes from the boat to a sympathetic Eleanor Roosevelt. And in a feat of literary excellence, Redel teases these details of Richard's past through Sara's present, deftly dropping them around her and driving her quest for answers at an increasingly hypnotic pace.A magnificent novel of truth and daring—of heartbreak and disappointment, of healing and understanding—The Border of Truth bares a heart and soothes a wounded soul.

The Italian Girl's Secret


Natalie Meg Evans - 2021
    In the hills outside Naples, the silver moon shines brightly on a whitewashed farmhouse. An urgent knock on the door breaks the silence: and in that moment, one young woman’s act of incredible bravery changes the course of the war.For Carmela del Bosco, a farm girl in a remote Italian village, sheltering an English spy is the most dangerous thing she could do. If she’s caught by the fascists it would be the end, especially for her beloved grandmother sleeping soundly upstairs. But taking in the pleading brown eyes of the man calling himself Sebastiano slumped at her door, and his terrible injuries inflicted by the Nazi occupiers, Carmela remembers how Nonna always taught her right from wrong. Risking everything, she hides him in a ruined tower on the edge of the farm.Each day Carmela tends his wounds, and the passion that kindles between them is a light in the darkest time. Sebastiano has information that could end the war, and needs her help to send it. But tracking down fellow members of the resistenza in the mountains means risking her life and bringing danger to everyone she knows.Carmela knows she must find the courage to do what’s right for her country. But if she leaves the farm, will she ever see her beloved nonna again? And will her sacrifice tear her away from the only man she’s ever loved, forever?An absolutely stunning and heartbreaking historical novel about the impossible choices people are forced to make in wartime. Fans of The Nightingale, All the Light We Cannot See and Rhys Bowen will be captivated.

The Silent War


Victor Pemberton - 1996
    Sunday lives for Saturday nights, when she makes the most of her Betty Grable looks at the Athenaeum Dance Hall. But Sunday's recklessly lived life is changed dramatically when, one summer morning in 1944, the laundry receives a direct hit from one of Hitler's V-1s, and she finds she is - and it seems permanently - deaf...