No wonder the purple beech is weeping. I'm sure it is from sheer bewilderment. Oh my girl of little patience, this is not the way one makes a garden, any more than one makes a painting by squeezing every tube to hand onto canvas. I shall explain when I come. Holders Hope, Herefordshire. The roots of a great garden are laid in the long summer of the Edwardian age. Grown from a woman s desperate need to hold on to beauty, created by a man who plants his love for her, hated by a husband it humiliates and imprisons - the garden grows around a secret it will take almost a century to solve.For two generations the lives of two families are bound up with the garden. The Allegri family, mine owners with the money to pay for it. The Thomas family, mine workers from the Welsh valleys with whose care and skill help to shape it. Three children - an unhappy rich girl, a musician and a boy dreaming of revolution - meet in the garden and share a secret that will affect the rest of their lives.

    A town with a dark secret.A young girl, Kasey, is murdered in the woods of northern New York, a strange symbol carved into her stomach.Investigator Reed Raleigh, Major Crimes, is tasked with finding the killer.Reed has his own troubles. He’s in therapy, divorced, estranged from his son. But he desperately needs to solve this case - his own stepdaughter vanished when she was a teenager and Reed knows all about the agony of having no closure. No way is he letting Kasey’s mother go through that.But as Reed begins to dig, the case grows ever more complex. Why is Kasey’s boyfriend acting so strangely? And why is her mother lying to the police?As evidence of Kasey’s bizarre secret life starts to emerge, Reed realises this case isn’t just about a dead girl. There’s something much bigger at play in this small rural town, a decades old secret that needs to be protected. At any cost.

    Betrayed by his employer and left for dead, Kovac decides to lie low in Tokyo.His plan? Revenge...But when a young woman asks him to protect her from the yakuza, Kovac feels duty-bound to help. She’s a victim of abuse, and long experience tells him if he doesn’t step in tonight she’ll be a corpse before dawn.As Kovac works to uncover the truth of his last job, he finds himself drawn into a conspiracy which goes well beyond the yakuza to a new and terrifying multinational cartel. One that will stop at nothing to control the global drug trade.The kingpins are certain they’ve covered all bases. They're well-funded and utterly ruthless. But they’ve failed to account for one man – John Kovac.SHADOW KILL is the first in a fast-paced, unflinching thriller series that won't in any way shortchange you on action. Perfect for fans of Lee Child, Mark Greaney and Mark Dawson.

    Just as they prepare to journey on, they are arrested for the murder of a beautiful heiress to a coal mining fortune. Suddenly, they must escape the noose that is waiting to hang them. How they do this in a parochial town that brands them as criminals and refuses to give up its dark secrets is a tale of dogged sleuthing. Probing uncovers shocking details of intrigue, double-dealing, blackmail, and adultery in the past life and loves of this charming passionate woman. The trail finally leads them close to exposing the identity of the real murderer, but time is running out.

    Yet Nell is determined to elude the duties and restrictions of matrimony. So when she finds herself pregnant at the age of 17, she refuses to divulge the name of the father and even her childhood friend Martin is kept in the dark.Nell's stepfather Hiram sends Nell to live at the Poor Farm of which he is a governor, to await the day when her baby can be discreetly adopted. Nell is ready to go along with Hiram's plans until an unused padded cell is opened and two small bodies fall out.Nell is the only resident of the Poor Farm who is convinced that the unwed mother and her baby were murdered, and the incident prompts her to rethink her decision to abandon her own child to her fate. But the revelations to which her questions lead make her realize that even if she manages to escape the Poor Farm with her baby, she may have no safe place to run to.

    The country’s grandest example of privilege, it symbolizes the aspirations of its owner and the dreams of a girl, just as driven, who lives in its shadow.Kerry MacGregor’s future is derailed when, after two years in college in New York City, family obligations call her home to the beautiful Appalachians. She is determined to distance herself from the opulence she sees rising in the Blue Ridge Mountains, however close its reach. Her family’s land is among the last pieces required to complete the Biltmore Estate. But something more powerful than an ambitious Vanderbilt heir could change Kerry’s fate as, one by one, more outsiders descend on the changing landscape—a fugitive from Sicily, a reporter chasing a groundbreaking story, a debutante tainted by scandal, and a conservationist prepared to put anyone at risk to stoke the resentment of the locals.As Kerry finds herself caught in a war between wealth and poverty, innocence and corruption, she must navigate not only her own pride and desperation to survive but also the temptations of fortune and the men who control it.

    What we don’t know is why. Excavations at a recently discovered Mayan site near Valladolid in the Yucatan unearth a codex – the first to be discovered in over 50 years. A mangled body is found among the ruins. It belongs to Father Colvin McNeery, an expert on the Gospel of Matthew, the only Gospel to mention the Star of Bethlehem. The local police say he was killed by a jaguar. Dr. Isabel Reyes, renegade daughter of one of the wealthiest families in Mexico, is called away from her clinic to issue a death certificate. She wonders, when she sees the claw marks, what sort of jaguar is left-handed? Ex-rabbi and scholar Simon Press has just seen another of his controversial lectures on the spread of Christianity end in violence. He’s back at his hotel nursing a scotch when he gets the news that his friend and colleague, Colvin McNeery, is dead in the Yucatan. Press has always been resentful of Christianity’s success; what he finds in McNeery’s translation of the codex will allow him to get even. Detective First Class Benito Rufino of the Antiquities Police is pulled off a sting he’s spent nine months setting up, and ordered to Valladolid. He’s furious until he finds out why: a codex worth $500 million pesos is missing. Leon Cortes - devout Catholic and a direct descendant of the Conquistador - has become drug overlord for all of the Yucatan because he believes his faith requires him to mortify his soul as his Savior mortified his body. Now he’s ordered by the Vatican to find the codex and send it to them. The 1500 year old codex contains an account of a holy man, a savior who is born under a bright star to a virgin, performs miracles, dies a horrible death, and is resurrected. If McNeery’s translation of the codex is correct, then something is radically wrong with the conventional accounts of the European discovery of the Americas. Or - and this is the only other possibility - something is radically wrong with Christianity’s notion of itself. Mayan Star is mystery/thriller with a Borgesian twist.

    And that the truth could stir a killer from his lair.Following the death of the woman she believed to be her mother, 28-year-old Naomi Waters learns from a malicious aunt that she is not only adopted, but the product of a brutal rape that left her birth mother, Mary Rose Francis, a teenager of Micmac ancestry, in a coma for 8 months. Dealing with a sense of betrayal and loss, but with new purpose in her life, Naomi vows to track down Mary Rose's attackers and bring them to justice. She places her story in the local paper, asking for information from residents who might remember something of the case that has been cold for nearly three decades.She is about to lose hope that her efforts will bear fruit, when she gets an anonymous phone call. Naomi has attracted the attention of one who remembers the case well. But someone else has also read the article in the paper. The man whose DNA she carries. And he has Naomi in his sights.

    Now his murder bequeaths her a mystery, a ramshackle homestead, and a silver mine.Zeke Graumann signs on as Becky’s foreman to keep his portion of his family’s ranch. He shares the workers’ reservations about a woman boss, especially one who burns water and prances around in dungarees. Even though she did look awful good in the dungarees.Then a series of accidents add threat to tension. Can Becky trust Zeke, find her father’s killer, and turn her mine into a profitable venture? Will Zeke be forced to give up his ranching dream to win Becky’s heart?“With a feisty heroine and a secret hero, sparks fly.” —Lena Nelson Dooley, editor, speaker, and author of fifty Christian novels

    But its world is threatened when no heir is born. Anna could restore their fortunes, but it would mean the ultimate betrayal. Then the Great Famine grips the country. 1910s – Clara finds life as lady of the manor is not what she expected when she married Pierce Armstrong. As the First World War rages, she finds solace in artist Johnny Seymour’s decadent circle. Then the War of Independence erupts and Clara is caught between two men, deceit and revenge. Present Day – When Kate Fallon sees the house it is love at first sight. She and her tycoon husband Tony buy it and hire the last Armstrong owner, architect Nico, to oversee its restoration. As Kate’s fascination with the house grows, she and Nico begin to uncover its history and the fates of its occupants in centuries past. But then, as her husband's business empire faces ruin, Kate realises that they are in danger of losing everything. Betrayal, deceit, revenge, obsession – one house, one family, three generations Editorial Reviews “Skillful and original plotting kept me enthralled until the final page of the story” Rosemary McLoughlin author of Tyringham Park “Downton’ fans, you’ll love this big house, Engrossing and imaginative” - Irish Independent “An irresistible mix of history, drama and intrigue that entertained and enthralled me in equal measure!” - Bord Gáis Energy Book Club

    And her father’s wisdom and empathy are as unusual as his despised profession. It is 1659, the Thirty Years’ War has finally ended, and there hasn’t been a witchcraft mania in decades. But now, a drowning and gruesomely injured boy, tattooed with the mark of a witch, is pulled from a river and the villagers suspect the local midwife, Martha Stechlin.Jakob Kuisl is charged with extracting a confession from her and torturing her until he gets one. Convinced she is innocent, he, Magdalena, and her would-be suitor race against the clock to find the true killer. Approaching Walpurgisnacht, when witches are believed to dance in the forest and mate with the devil, another tattooed orphan is found dead and the town becomes frenzied. More than one person has spotted what looks like the devil—a man with a hand made only of bones. The hangman, his daughter, and the doctor’s son face a terrifying and very real enemy.Page Numbers Source ISBN: 054774501X

    Those words adorned every building in Livingston, Virginia during the summer of 1963 confusing and angering five-year-old Stephen Phillips. Those words told him that what he felt for his colored neighbor Ruthie was wrong. As a teenager, Ruthie becomes the only ray of sunshine in his abusive life and he is not willing to let her go without a fight, a fight that could lead to murder.

    Less than two years earlier, Italian noblewoman Bona Sforza arrived in Poland’s capital from Bari as King Zygmunt’s new bride. She came from Italy accompanied by a splendid entourage, including Contessa Caterina Sanseverino who oversees the ladies of the Queen’s Chamber. Caterina is still adjusting to the life in this northern kingdom of cold winters, unfamiliar customs, and an incomprehensible language when a shocking murder rocks the court on Christmas night. It is followed by another a few days later. The victims have seemingly nothing in common. Gossip, speculation, and suspicion are rife, but the perpetrator remains elusive as the court heads into the New Year. As the official investigation stalls, Caterina—aided by Sebastian Konarski, a junior secretary in the king’s household—sets out to find the killer. With clues beginning to point to the queen’s innermost circle, the pair are soon racing against time to stop another murder. Silent Water is a story of power and its abuse, and the extremes to which a person may go to find redress for justice denied. Although set at the dawn of the Renaissance era, its themes carry uncanny parallels to some of the most topical social issues of the 21st century. "This clever and suspenseful murder mystery casts a fresh and sparkling light on the world beloved by fans of The Tudors and The Borgias. P. K. Adams, author of two previous novels about the twelfth-century healer and mystic Hildegard of Bingen, masterfully brings Renaissance Poland to life without ever losing track of the human passions that drive her characters. A wonderful start to a new series." —C. P. Lesley, author of Song of the Siren and other novels

    He is conflicted because he knows this is their best chance of survival, but he asks himself, will he ever see them again? Ilsa Guhr has a troubled childhood, but as she comes of age, she learns that her beauty and sexuality give her the power to get what she wants. But she craves an even greater power. As the Nazis take control of Germany, she sees an opportunity to gain everything she’s ever desired. Fate will weave a web that will bring these two unlikely people into each other’s lives.

    On his deathbed, the aging monarch surprises all of Christendom by dividing his patrimony, leaving his eldest son, Robert Curthose, only the Duchy of Normandy, and bequeathing his hard-won throne of England to his second son, William Rufus. Curthose, enraged that his father has deprived him of the better part of his inheritance, plunges the island kingdom into war as he and his uncle, the Earl of Kent, attempt to wrest the crown from Rufus’ head.Robert fitzHaimo, faithful companion to Rufus since the days of their childhood, is at his lord’s side as the conflict rages across the south of England. His tale is told through the eyes of a Saxon monk, the story of a turbulent era when betrayal was far more common than honour and, so it was said, the devil stole the soul of a king.