Especially a boy with tattoos, a drifter from California who had spent time in jail, who worked in a gas station, and who would fight a man for looking at him the wrong way. Jenny Jaffe knew the rules, but when she saw Will McDonald for the first time, everything she knew about right and wrong disappeared. What was left was a passionate, once-in-a-lifetime love that no social constraints could hold. Will and Jenny became inseparable, and by the end of Jenny's senior year in high school, she was pregnant. When they made a plan to run away, Jenny waited at the spot where Will was to pick her up, but he never showed.What follows is the story of true love that spans three decades -- between man and woman, parent and child. Jenny is forced to give up her baby for adoption, and when that child, Claudia, becomes a parent herself, she begins a search for her biological parents at the risk of destroying the love of the adoptive parents who have raised her. Claudia finds more than she imagined, as she uncovers years of lies and betrayal, sacrifice and silence, and the extraordinary love of Will and Jenny, whose faith and passion survive it all.

    The neighbours avoid her parents like the plague and Sadie has no friends to turn to for help. But when Harry, the kind-hearted boy next door, sees Sadie crying because her father has lost all their money, he offers to pay her sixpence for a kiss. With coins in her pocket, Sadie goes to Paddy's market to buy underclothes she so desperately needs and it is there that she meets Mary Ann and a lively bunch of Liverpudlian stallholders who are to be her salvation. Even though she is rescued by Mary Ann's friends and starts a new life, Sadie's thoughts still return to her brothers and sisters back at home. And no matter how many admirers she has, there's a place in her heart for just one lad whose kisses she can't seem to forget...

    She knows God handed her a life of hardship, especially when her Dad gives her away in marriage to a man she doesn't know. However, she proves to be a true mountain girl with spirit, determination, feistiness and fiery spunk. Laine's unabashed account of events, before and during the first months of her marriage, draws the reader spellbound into a story that will linger like mists shrouding distant mountains.

    Combining a fascinating and gripping narrative with a portrait of life in the Civil War-era South, it is also the moving story of a boy on the edge of manhood, taking on difficult challenges that force him to confront the world for the first time.The year of 1864 is a difficult time to be living in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. The Civil War is drawing to a close and, under the orders of General Sheridan, Union troops have laid waste to the countryside. Against this bleak backdrop, Jamie Lockhart's mother takes on a boarder to help her eke out a living until her husband returns from the war.Soon, someone begins desecrating local soldier's graves, and Jamie, an intrepid fifteen-year-old, discovers that their boarder is the culprit. Confronted, the boarder assaults Jamie's mother; defending her, Jamie kills him. In his personal effects Jamie discovers the item he was looking for in the graveyard, a cryptic map to Stonewall's gold. Thus begins Jamie's quest.Along the way, Jamie is faced with the best and the worst in human nature, and meets a young girl and falls in love for the first time. He becomes privy to the hidden politics behind the war when he stumbles upon escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad, and he is also forced to confront the ugly realities of war and the absurdity of the lost cause in the final days of the conflict.A ripping adventure yarn, a moving coming-of-age tale, and a fascinating portrait of the difficulty of life in the Appalachians at the end of the Civil War, Stonewall's Gold is a compelling novel that is certain to appeal to teacher and student alike.

    He bade me fight..." Britain, 427 AD. Rome has abandoned the province, leaving it exposed to waves of barbarian invasions. To the west, savage pirates from Hibernia ravage the coastline. In the north, the crumbling defences of the Wall cannot contain marauding bands of Picts as they sweep down from the highlands. Worst of all are the Saxons, the dreaded sea-wolves. Under their chiefs, Hengist and Horsa, they wish to drive out the native Britons and claim the entire island for their own. Attacked from all sides, the Britons find a champion in the form of Ambrosius Aurelianus, the last of the Romans. A modest man, riddled with doubts and fears, Ambrosius reluctantly takes on the mantle of Dux Bellorum, Leader of Battles. Placed in command of Britain's only standing army, he fights to preserve the dwindling light of civilisation while the treacherous High King, Vortigern, plots his destruction. Set before the coming of Arthur, the first book of the Leader of Battles trilogy charts the rise and fall of post-Roman Britain's first great hero, and his desperate struggle to hold back the shadows threatening to engulf his country.

    Will Oakley, landlord and host, with his two daughters, beautiful Myrtle, and the repellent Harriet, waited to receive his guests. Along with the usual farmers, merchants and the "quality", there were others who fitted into none of these categories. Like the handsome foreigner with the scarred face, and the fat man who appeared to be gloating over some malicious secret of his own...

    The runaway evacuees who give her shelter call her Nellie, the only girl in 'Toff' Hecht's gang, until, yet again, tragedy strikes, and she is forced to move on. But when Nellie meets the great music hall illusionists, Monsieur and Madame Pierre - alias Bert and Doris Beckwith - her life begins again. In the magical world of bright lights and greasepaint she finds a wonderful new family. But even as she is happily stitching costumes backstage, Nellie can't stop thinking about her old life in the bombed-out rubble - and more particularly, about the restless young Jewish boy, 'Toff' Hecht...

    Perfect for fans of Dilly Court, Maggie Hope and Nadine Dorries. 1903. As Rob Berkeley comes home to Berry Edge, ten years after his brother's terrible death, he brings with him memories that Faith Norman, his dead brother's fiancée, would rather forget. Rob, driven by guilt, is determined to bring the family business, the foundering steelworks, back to full strength. But every time he sees Faith, he is remained of the part he played in her bereavement and the debt he owes her and Berry Edge. The secrets he hides from the community around him could threaten his very future, and jeopardise his growing feelings for Faith . . .

    Life isn't easy for widowed George Vannin and his young daughter, but somehow George has raised the child alone and Ellan adores her father. Ellan is ten years old when the shaft at Foxdale Mine collapses, and her father never comes up. From then on she lives with Aunt Maud, a dour woman with a quick temper. Her husband had died in a mining accident too, and she never forgave the family at the Big House for their part in the tragedy. When Ellan is offered a chance to better herself at the Big House, Aunt Maud savagely forbids it. Ellan's chance is yet to come, but she has a long way to go before she finds the happiness she deserves...

    But then an unexpected pregnancy puts everything at risk, and Dorothy is left alone – with Robbie nowhere to be seen.Heartbroken, Dorothy picks up the pieces of her life as a working girl in Battersea helping to support her mother and father. But before long, things start to become difficult. Her father’s health is worsening, money is tight and worst of all, Robbie hasn’t come back for her.Can Dorothy find a way back to happiness in the face of real adversity? Will she have the courage to make it on her own – or is someone else waiting in the wings to save her?Gritty and moving, this is the perfect read for fans of Dilly Court and Maggie Hope.

    Enticed by promises of work with good pay, people flock to textile mills in the South. Many leave their beloved mountains for what they hope is a step up from their grinding poverty. It’s guaranteed pay and housing. Being the sighted sister of the Hooper/Watson family, Lottie is grieved by a dream that sorrow will come to her home. Yet, she leaves Cocke County, Tennessee, with Beck Radford, her new husband, and her four children from a previous, abusive marriage, and goes to Clifton, South Carolina. Lottie is a stranger to village life and close neighbors. Life is harder than any of them imagined. In spite of hard work, widespread poverty remains a fact of life for everyone in the mill town. Lottie’s “gift” of second sight into the future is not an ability she would’ve chosen. One event she didn't see coming, yet someone else did, rips apart their life, as well as everyone’s around them.

    Plain, warmhearted Martha Drusso takes the downy-haired infant she names Belle to raise as her own, along with another orphan in her care, a little boy named R.C.But when Belle is three, her stepbrother mistakenly puts her on a train bound for Los Angeles, then leaves to get her a treat. The train takes off, and Belle is pitched into a child's worst nightmare: a series of orphanages and foster homes. When she is adopted into a loving Japanese-American family, it seems Belle's troubles are over -- until World War II breaks out. Never defeated, Belle is adopted again, and her beautiful singing voice ultimately leads her to Hollywood, and to love and marriage.All the while, Martha and R.C. steadfastly continue to search for Belle. For thirty years they believe that the persistence of their hearts will bring their little family together again . . . ."The power and integrity of Harris's prose turn this novel into something valuable." -- Atlanta Journal & Constitution

    government into acceding to his demands. Hoping to achieve U.S. impotence in the Middle East and the Mediterranean, the ambitious and charismatic Sharif wants, at the same time, to elevate himself to an exalted role among his fellow Arabs. A Delta force team decides it cannot storm the fortress-like school without killing most of their men and the hostages in the process. Amid a group of fairly familiar characters, Kennedy has introduced an interestingly drawn 15-year-old, Billy Tepper, a prankster with a swift and wide-ranging intellect, able, like TV's MacGyver, to transform everyday items into functional tools of another sort. With his lieutenant, Gamel, in charge of the hostage situation, Sharif seems bound to win. But Gamel is out of control. He kills one of the boys and dumps his body outside, Billy begins to sabotage the terrorists' equipment, mistakenly believing a rescue is imminent, and Sharif's plan starts to unravel. Fast paced, highly readable, if somewhat predictable, Kennedy's scenario will entertain thriller buffs.

    She needed a hero, and quick. But what she had hoped was that at least one person would have answered her plea for help. As the months wore on she had all but given up on finding the husband she so desperately needed, and resigned herself to a lifetime imprisoned by her cruel stepfather. Rancher Wes Roberts couldn’t get the thought of Mary Beth out of his mind, and the desperate nature of the ad she had placed. He figured it wasn’t unusual that he hadn’t received a reply to his letters, given that she had probably already chosen her husband and moved on with her life, but something nagged at him. He would never forgive himself if he didn’t find out for sure that she was safe, even if it wasn’t with him. When Wes arrives, not only is Mary Beth still there, she is more in need than ever. After he rescues her from the desolate life she has been living he realizes that he needs her just as much as she needs him. Please enjoy this sweet, clean, historical western romance novella of 21,128 words (about 90 pages).

    It's 1940 and the threat of invasion hangs over Britain. But in the isolated hamlet of Nun Ainsty it is the arrival of the Army that turns things turned upside down – especially for two young women.Lorna Hatherwood, married to a man ten years older, lives a quiet life. Then she volunteers to read to blind soldiers at the nearby Manor and everything changes – because of a handsome medical officer named Ewan MacMillan. But their relationship could spell disaster…Then there is Ness Nightingale. A Land Girl billeted with Lorna, Ness is trying to forget a disastrous love affair. But when she meets Mick Hardie, a conscientious objector, she has to remind herself that she has vowed never to trust a man again …