Against the vivid, gritty backdrop of 1980s China, Lu Yao traces the proud and passionate Gao Jialin’s difficult path to professional, romantic, and personal fulfillment—or at least hard-won acceptance.With the emotional acuity and narrative mastery that secured his reputation as one of China’s great novelists, Lu Yao paints a vivid, emotional, and unsparing portrait of contemporary Chinese life, seen through the eyes of a working-class man who refuses to be broken.

    Raised by an educated mother, Clarissa is not the proper Southern belle she appears to be, with ambitions of loving whom she chooses. Sarah equally hides behind the façade of being a docile house slave as she plots to escape. Both women bring these tumultuous secrets and desires with them to their new home, igniting events that spiral into a tale beyond what you ever imagined possible. Told through the alternating viewpoints of Sarah and Theodora Allen, Cornelius' wife, Marlen Suyapa Bodden's The Wedding Gift is an intimate portrait of slavery and the 19th Century South that will leave readers breathless.

    Amy Watkins and miner 'Big' Tom Kelly were in love. But can they keep their feelings secret or face the threat of death in a community torn apart by the miner's strike? Tonypandy, South Wales, 1911. Starving, striking miners fight soldiers and police on the picket lines for the right to earn a wage that will feed their families, while Irish labourers are brought in the take their place in the pits, for half their pay. Handsome 'Big' Tom Kelly, an Irish worker, comes to Wales looking for a better life and believes he has found it when he falls in love with Amy Watkins, the daughter of a strike leader. At night, the miners search out the Irish men, drag them from their beds, beat them and then hang them from the street lamp posts. Can Amy and Tom keep their love a secret forever? All they want is a future together. But in a world full of hatred, anger and violence, their dream seems impossible. Until another strike leader offers them a way out.

    One cabin on a lake. Four thirtysomething sisters. Anything can and does happen.Imagine spending an entire summer in a cabin on a lake - simply because you can. That’s exactly what Samantha McGreggor, a thirtysomething eco-journalist, does in SUMMER OF FIREFLY MEMORIES. She trades Arizona’s summer heat for Minnesota’s cool lake breezes by spending her summer at the same resort her family used to go to when she was young. Her summer agenda - relaxation, beach reads, soul-searching, bonding with her three grown sisters. Her concerns - she and her sisters haven’t been back to the resort since their parents’ death twenty years ago when they were all practically teenagers, and, well, they tend to act like emotional teenagers when they’re all together. Her summer reality – fun in the sun, secrets, sibling rivalries, lost memories, new love, hope. If you enjoy feeling nostalgic any time of the year, then you'll enjoy SUMMER OF FIREFLY MEMORIES! Come dive in!

    Her long dark auburn hair cascaded over her shoulders and her pale, attractive face, wide set eyes and full sensuous lips took his breath away. Robert could not help staring at her in frank amazement. He found it difficult to equate this alluring woman with the tall, awkward girl he vaguely remembered while a young boy at Fairlee Manor in Scotland.* * *Action, adventure and erotic entanglements loom large in young Robert Hamilton’s future as he seeks to make his fortune in the rough and tumble world of the Johannesburg goldfields in the closing years of the nineteenth century.Robert’s business interests and adventures in the wilds of South Africa, bring him into close contact with the Boer peoples of the Transvaal Republic. As the threat of a British invasion looms large over the country, his support for the Boer cause finds him on the opposing side to his fellow uitlanders – foreigners. He is dismayed to discover that both of his brothers have enlisted in Canadian regiments ready to fight on the side of Britain in the Anglo-Boer War.

    But they lost touch and her dreams of a lasting love died. Now that she's back, Kaitlyn won't risk her heart again. But fate has other plans. She and Connor reconnect and he realizes the pendant makes her a target. As a government agent, Connor is conflicted between his duty protecting Kaitlyn and feelings he never got over. As the two race to find a centuries' old treasure, they discover first loves aren't easily forgotten.

    Reeling from her family’s betrayal, she’s faked her nursing credentials, invented a new name, and run away to the frontlines of the French battlefield. Four years into the Great War and she knows who she is and what she’s meant for—to save the living and sit vigil by the dying. When the cagey-yet-earnest Dr. Nicholas Wallace arrives, so do mysterious explosions destroying hospitals. Even as Nick raises her suspicions, he lowers her defenses. He wants the war to end. Are his acts of sabotage politically motivated or a desperate attempt at peace?​In peace, she fell apart.A year later, Vera is back with her oppressive family, living under her real name, and Nick is on trial for murder. Trapped in grief and guilt, she cannot speak about the past and does not believe in the future. With Nick refusing to defend himself, she ventures to London to understand why he is so willing to embrace the hangman’s noose. Who is he trying to protect? What secrets does he plan to carry to his grave? And why does Nick insist upon hiding her true identity? To save the man she loves, Vera must tear open the past and confront the tragic price for peace.

    Ten-year-old Hiroki Tanaka grew up in a fishing village on an island just off the coast of Honshu, Japan. While he helps his father fishing, a large earthquake hits his island. Hiroki falls from the boat as the waters become choppy and he is pulled under water. He is desperate to get back to his father. When he surfaces, his father and the boat are gone. When Hiroki swims to shore, he realizes that he has been swept back in time to an era of violence and the samurai. Amy Ohara is celebrating her twenty-first birthday by going on a cruise, off the coast of Honshu, Japan. She had grown up in Tokyo and is well acquainted with Japan's rich traditions and ancient history. Betrayed by the man she had been dating, Amy is now awaiting transport as human cargo. As her life swings in the balance, Amy has a choice, dive into the black waters and perhaps drown or be taken by the human traffickers. When the yacht blows up, Amy feel lucky to be alive and swims for shore. Yet she has arrived at the shore of distant past. Amy has been washed back in time nearly 700 years, 300 years before Europeans stepped foot in Asia. With her red hair and green eyes, she stands out.

    Orphaned at the age of ten, she has been shuffled around and on her own most of her life. She moved west in anticipation of meeting the man who had stolen her heart, only to be crushed when she finds out she was not wanted.This Christmas, will a meddling mother's scheme bring love to those who are hurting? Find out in this short, holiday story of thirty pages.Other titles available from Leah Atwood:Unlikely Substitute (Mail-Order Husbands)The Not Quite Mail-Order BrideThe Mail Order Bride's Quilt

    She and her new husband Bradley have been planning this trip for as long as they have been planning their lives together it seems, and now that they've left Independence, Missouri on the wagon train west, it appears that all of their dreams are coming true. Within just a few short weeks of leaving, however, the harsh realities of life on the wagon train strike Hannah hard and she is forced to realize that the adventure she envisioned with Bradley is not at all what it seemed. Will Hannah overcome hardship when her adventure out west takes a tragic turn for the worse? Book 2: Mail Order Bride Caroline: The Lord guides Caroline to an ad in the newspaper from a gold miner in Bannack who is searching for a lovely woman to become his bride. Soon, she joins the wagon train and anxiously makes the journey out west to start her new life. When she arrives, however, she discovers that the man she chose may not be the man she thought he was. She must decide where her loyalties lie—and if she can find it in herself to look beyond Bailey’s past and accept him for the man he is today. Book 3: Mail Order Bride Louisa: After the death of her sweetheart, Louisa feels that there is nothing left in life for her, and wonders what she could possibly do to fill the years that lie ahead. When her sister suggests for Louisa to become a mail order bride for one of the men in the frontier, Louisa is appalled, but with the prospect of her sister and brother leaving on the wagon train with their cousins, Louisa knows that she must make the decision to either be left alone without any relatives and only her painful memories, or to enter marriage with a man she doesn't know. Book 4: Mail Order Bride Emily: Emily has never quite fit in with the rest of the high society young women who are supposed to be her peers. Raised in privilege—and expected to live up to the part now that she is old enough to marry—Emily cares more about her dream of becoming a teacher than the idea of hosting fancy tea parties and being courted by potential suitors. Feeling that she cannot continue being told what to do any longer, Emily makes the bold decision to go out west so that she can start a school and teach the children of the Frontier. In order to fulfill her dream, however, she must become a mail order bride. Book 5: Mail Order Bride Charlotte: After the death of their parents, Charlotte and her brother Victor only have each other left in the world. Well past marrying age at thirty years old, Charlotte has nearly resigned herself to spending her life taking care of Victor when she suddenly discovers that he has been planning for them to move away from Philadelphia and seek out their futures in the Frontier town of Bannack. Though Victor refuses to admit it, Charlotte knows that having a single sister following him around is limiting to him, so she decides to take responsibility for herself and find a man who is looking for a wife. Book 6: Mail Order Bride Betsy: Betsy always knew that love would find her eventually, and until then, she would be happy watching the young men who lived in her mother's boarding house court their sweethearts on the front porch.

     Gervaise Belmont, Viscount Woodridge, has sworn to no longer gamble – but giving it up is proving far harder than he had expected. He despairs of achieving his aims, especially as the reputation he created, two years earlier, persists, destroying his opportunities for change. Until a chance meeting with a young lady gives him a reason to hope. Miss Clarisse Weston is disconsolate. Her father has, after many, many years, married again – and her relationship with her stepmother is strained, to say the least. When she is encouraged to look for a husband, she feels trapped. Whilst her father has introduced her to a charming Earl, she finds herself uncertain – especially as the Viscount she met by accident wishes to court her too. But all is not as it seems, and a tangle of lies, deceptions and betrayals soon traps Clarisse. Is the Earl all that he seems? Is the Viscount truly a rake and a gambler beyond redemption? Is her stepmother as concerned for Clarisse’s wellbeing as she professes to be? And can Clarisse find her way through the web of deceit, to be with the man she loves, or will greed and manipulation steal her chance at happiness forever?

    

    Manish Chawla is too selfish to be bothered about his wife’s happiness. It’s watching her sister’s closeness to her new husband that actually opens Saloni’s eyes to the lack in her life. Aarav Chopra hasn’t looked at another woman since he fell in love with the seventeen-year-old Saloni. The nine years in-between seem to disappear when he sets eyes on her again at her sister’s wedding. But this time round, his love stretches to include her son too, as Mitesh holds not just Aarav’s finger but also his heart in his little hand. Things come to a head when she flees Chicago to return to Delhi along with her baby son Mitesh.Life throws Saloni and Aarav together as she goes to work in his group of companies while awaiting her divorce. The attraction is as powerful as ever! But Saloni is absolutely clear that she wouldn’t be tied to a man ever again. Will Aarav be able to convince her otherwise?

    Code Name Camille, now a standalone book. 1940: Paris under Nazi occupation. A gripping tale of resistance, suspense and love. When the Germans invade France, twenty-one-year-old Nathalie Fontaine is living a quiet life in rural South-West France. Within months, she heads for Paris and joins the Resistance as a courier helping to organise escape routes. But Paris is fraught with danger. When several escapes are foiled by the Gestapo, the network suspects they are compromised. Nathalie suspects one person, but after a chance encounter with a stranger who provides her with an opportunity to make a little extra money by working as a model for a couturier known to be sympathetic to the Nazi cause, her suspicions are thrown into doubt. Using her work in the fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, she uncovers information vital to the network, but at the same time steps into a world of treachery and betrayal which threatens to bring them all undone. Time is running out and the Gestapo is closing in. Code Name Camille is a story of courage and resilience that fans of The Nightingale and The Alice Network will love.

    Will Isadora follow her dreams, or save her family…?1798, EnglandIsadora Alvescot has always dreamed of becoming a famous actress on the stage.But when her beloved papa suddenly dies, her family’s future is thrown into turmoil.With no immediate male heir, the family estate has been bequeathed to a distant relative – a viscount named Lord Roborough.And now Isadora is being pressured to consider matrimony.When Lord Roborough arrives, Isadora is desperate to do all she can to find out his intentions and determine whether he is a friend or a foe…Will he allow her family to remain living on the estate? Will Isadora still be free to pursue her dreams of acting?Or will she be forced to bend her will to another and become a wife?