Secure in the love of her father, bothered with her mother’s desire that she be a proper Southern belle, Bessie’s determined to forge her own way in life. Or, as her Cherokee great-grandmother, Elisi, puts it, a whistling woman.Life, however, has a few surprises for her. First, there’s Papa carrying home a dead man, which seems to invite Death for an extended visit in their home. And shortly before she graduates from Dorland Institute, there’s another death, this one closer to her heart. But Death isn’t through with her yet. Proving another of Elisi’s sayings, death comes in threes, It strikes yet again, taking someone Bessie has recently learned to appreciate and cherish, leaving her to struggle with a family that’s threatening to come apart at the seams.Even her beloved Papa seems to be turning into another person, someone Bessie disagrees with more often than not, and someone she isn’t even sure she can continue to love, much less idolize as she had during her childhood.And when Papa makes a decision that costs the life of a new friend, the course of Bessie’s heart is changed forever.

    She is raising her teenage son Zac, coping with an absent husband and caring for her ageing, temperamental and alcoholic mother, as well as holding down her own job. But when Zac begins to suspect that he has a secret sibling, Sasha realises that she must relive the events of a devastating night which she has done her best to forget for the past nineteen years. Sasha’s mother, Annie, is old and finds it difficult to distinguish between past and present and between truth and lies. As Annie sinks deeper back into her past, she revisits the key events in her life which have shaped her emotionally. Through it all, she remains convinced that her dead husband Joe is watching and waiting for her. But there’s one thing she never told him, and as painful as it is for her to admit the truth, Annie is determined to go to Joe with a guilt-free conscience. As the plot unfurls, traumas are revealed and lies uncovered, revealing long-buried secrets which are at the root of Annie and Sasha’s fractious relationship. The novel spans several decades, telling the history of the Stein family from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day. Speaking of her inspiration for her novel, Deborah says; ‘My own mother was evacuated at the age of five during World War Two and my father was a young man working as an ARP warden. This novel is purely fictitious, but I wanted to explore the traumas that many ordinary people of the war generation suffered, experiences which would be quite unimaginable to many of us today and then to contrast them with the issues we all face in the modern day.’Deborah Stone read English Literature at Durham University. She lives in North London with her husband, two sons and her dog.

    At the request of a brilliant but hot-headed surgeon, Edith went from London to Brussels to create Belgium's first school of nursing. At the height of her success, the German army marched into neutral Belgium and took over her hospital and school. Swept up in the struggle to survive under the repressive and brutal control of the German occupiers, Edith was forced to make a decision when two wounded British soldiers came to her seeking asylum. If she took them in, she would put herself in danger. If she didn't, they would most likely die of infection or by the hands of the Germans. Her decision plunged her into the dangerous and clandestine world of the Belgian underground, where she became an important link in the rescue of Allied soldiers. For nine months, this quiet, religious nurse, went about saving over a thousand soldiers under the very noses of the German command. What happened next is both shocking and suspenseful. It caused a worldwide outrage, shaped American public attitudes of the war, and rocked the German government. Edith Cavell's story is about the profession of nursing, the brutality of war, and the risks of commitment. It is a testament to one woman's courage, resilience, intelligence, and determination to make some sense out of the violence of war. "Patriotism is not enough," said Edith.

    Our narrator is a tired English woman who, after WWI, escapes ambiguous personal troubles in London and seeks refuge at her chalet among the Swiss Alps. As she starts to gain strength, two English women, also of ambiguous personal circumstances, show up literally on her doorstep. The hostess takes them in, and they embark on a strange and endearing path to helping each other.

    This is the story of two African-American teens as they endure the backlash resulting from the integration of their segregated school with the all-white Lafayette County.

     KITCHEN BOY is the story of Andy Harrison, a working-class Maine boy, who spends every July and August working for the summer people and tourists on the Maine Coast, while dreaming of his own escape from Downeast. That escape proves at once dramatic and very humorous.The novel also is the story of a small, exclusive summer hotel and its eccentric and unforgettable female proprietors who help their young kitchen boy grow up. Through the course of six summers from 1959 to 1964, the "Kennedy years," Andy has many adventures, his loss of innocence paralleling that of his country.Stephen King on KITCHEN BOY: "If you love Maine, you will love this book." Carolyn Chute on KITCHEN BOY: "KITCHEN BOY is great. It is THICK and FLESHY and full of splendor. Sandy Phippen is a wonderful writer, one of the world's masters at character and voice." Janwillem van de Wetering on KITCHEN BOY: "To know Maine one has to live here but to really know Maine one has to meet with the sly and splendid work of Sanford Phippen."John A. Williams on KITCHEN BOY: “KITCHEN BOY is a reflective, often funny and always perceptive analysis of Maine and the people who think they have escape to it, and of the ‘Mainiacs’ who serve them. Both, in fact, have been captured forever by Sanford Phippen’s internal camera, registering drudgery, sadness, joy and, in the end, the quiet triumph of the human spirit through learning and growing into understanding.”Leo Connellan on KITCHEN BOY: “Phippen, like Erskin Caldwell and Will Rodgers, has his ear and humor universal, for people everywhere. KITCHEN BOY is that summer-people book we’ve yearned for: ‘the folk’ working for the foolish rich who take advantage of the poor, but Phippen breaks us up in the way his ‘disadvantaged’ take advantage, win our hearts, carry on, never change. Phippen has us splitting our sides laughing if we’re not crying. KITCHEN BOY IS A MUST READ!”

    Work on the Santa Fe Trail, and on a Mississippi River boat give him a start, but the years of Civil War leave him broke and footloose in South Texas. There he discovers more cattle running loose than he ever knew existed. Teaming up with two ex-Federal soldiers, he sets out to gather his wealth, one head at a time. While gathering and driving Longhorns, Mac and his friends meet an interesting collection of characters, including Margo. Mac and Margo and the crew learn about Longhorns, and life, from hard experience before they eventually head west. Outlaws and harrowing river crossings are just two of the challenges they face along their way.

    Could she pick her destiny, Vivian would choose adventure in the rolling hills, endless afternoons in the dusty garden, and a husband who speaks to her heart; no matter what his income might be. One magical evening at Almack’s - London’s most exclusive club - Lady Vivian runs into the dashing Lieutenant Sawyer Cook and discovers that her future is not so set in stone. Romance ensues, scandals are wrought, and real identities are revealed. Trapped between duty and longing, Lady Vivian must come to grips with the very notion of fate. Lady Vivian is a 70.000 word clean and wholesome Regency-era romance novel. It makes the first volume of Almack's Assembly Rooms. Each book of the series can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, or read as a collective. Garuenteed to make you chuckle!

    When an old scrapbook stirs memories, Billy Bryan looks back to the year 1947 when he was playing winter ball in Cuba, enjoying Havana's decadent nightlife, and dreaming of a major-league career.

    She taught her family how to read Scott’s medical chart and to ask pointed questions, no longer leaving his care to the medical professionals who had overdosed him with drugs to the very brink of death in less than three days.“Jo, you have to tell people what they’ve done to me. You have to tell them!”pleaded her little brother, as he lay writhing in agony.In “For the Love of Scott!”, the author recollects her family’s poignant story of love, bewilderment, and lingering frustration when faced with catastrophic medical mistakes. Read the experiences of Scott Hamilton’s family members as they struggle through a storm of horrific medical errors that could have been prevented and recognize what you need to do when someone you love is faced with life-threatening circumstances created by health experts.It took Jo 27 years to put this heartbreaking event down on paper. Writing opened old wounds and required hours of research and documentation. It forced her family to relive a chapter in their own lives that they desperately wanted closed. Yet, they rallied together to help Jo with her mission to keep that promise.To help further her goals, Jo Hamilton will be donating a portion of the proceeds from the sale of her book, to the 1984 Olympic Gold Medal Winner, Scott Hamilton's foundation, The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative. The Scott Hamilton CARES Initiative was created to help with cancer research, support cancer patients and their families, and find a cure cancer.

    To Cas, torn between Scotland and her New Zealand home, the object seems as odd and out-of-place as herself. Intrigued, she begins to search for its origins, thinking it will bring a brief respite from isolation. Instead, the Calgary chess piece opens the door to friendships and new hope. Her son, meanwhile, brings home his own revelation to shake her world.

    Thrillingly authentic historical crime novel set against the vibrant atmosphere of the 18th Century docklands; the first in a series starring former naval officer Tom Pascoe.

    These stories span characters and emotional states with canny details that touch the depths of your soul. Picturing the complexities of love, misery and mystery, the stories try to gnaw your heart like never before.• What does a flower teach us we often fail to see?• “The belly is an ungrateful wretch.” Is it true?• Ever wondered about the sparseness and illusions in life?• Does death put an end to true love?• Have all the ascetics won over their emotions?With the power of simple language, this book transports the readers to a world scarcely thought of in our bustling lives. The allegories maintain an intense rhythm of life prompting the readers to perceive things from a unique angle.“A whole bookful to make you think, cry, think again and move on.”

    And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I.In Pale Rider, Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain, and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered; and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test.Laura Spinney writes that the Spanish flu was as significant – if not more so – as two world wars in shaping the modern world; in disrupting, and often permanently altering, global politics, race relations, family structures, and thinking across medicine, religion and the arts.

    The twins are the apple of their parents' eye, and each other's best friend - they always know what the other is thinking. Feisty Rose has a more rebellious nature than her sister, but it's never before interfered with their closeness. However, Rose's secret dissatisfaction with her humdrum lifestyle reaches a head when she meets the rich and handsome Rodger. To the shock of the Flowers family, she elopes with him to Gretna Green. Once Rose has the money and glamour she's always craved, nothing will persuade her to contact her family again; not even her father's death. And then, in the wake of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, everything changes. With her charmed life in shreds and with no one left to turn to, Rose is determined to build bridges those she has hurt the most. But can forgiveness be sought so easily - and can she ever truly escape her troubled past?