Award Winner: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
Private investigators Claire Caswell and Gaston ''Guy'' Lombard have cracked many high-profile cases in the past, but when Claire's friend Charlotte dies in a mysterious car crash in Miami--things get personal. With the stakes higher than ever before and only a hunch to go on, the sleuths begin a painstaking investigation by scouring the wreckage, searching for evidence of foul play where there appears to be none.
When they uncover a pattern of strikingly similar incidents--and a seemingly unrelated case becomes inexplicably linked--it is up to the investigators, with the help of their intern, Jin Ikeda, to unravel this bewildering mystery. What happened to Charlotte was no accident. And as Claire and Guy get closer to the truth, their snooping efforts turn deadly dangerous.
The Ploy is an enthralling whodunit that holds the reader captive with knotty twists and turns, suspects who are anything but what they seem, and answers that are just out of reach.
Award Winner: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
Twenty-five years ago, a group of ninth graders produced a Saturday Night Live–style videotape to cheer up their ailing friend. The show’s running time was only ninety minutes, but it had a lasting impact: Becca laughed her way through recovery, and the group—Jordana, Seth, Holly, and Lex—became her supporting cast for life.
Award Winner: 2018 Best Book Awards Best Cover Design: Fiction
Ghosts from the past, and the relentless momentum of time… On September 8, 1900, a hurricane unlike any previously recorded hit Galveston, Texas. To this day, an exact death toll cannot be confirmed, but the harrowing storm continues to be known as one of the worst human and geographic tragedies in America’s young history. In the midst of all the destruction, faith saved a fisherman from a vicious sea. Over a century later in the very same post office-turned-restaurant where the impossible occurred, his story lives on. The restaurant is now an historical site preserving the mail slot that accepted his letter to God when he thought he would never see his beloved family again. Called Vita e Spezie tourists from everywhere come to see where the miracle took place—and sometimes post their own letters of desperation, loneliness, and need. The Italian family operating the third-generation establishment is dealing with their own crises. Health issues, past mistakes, and daily stress are wearing them down, and there are signs the business won’t be around for another generation. Then the arrival of a gifted pastry chef—and hours later—a son thought lost, changes everything. Suddenly, the family that believes they took on a burden too great when they promised to honor the past, discovers their future is a gift from the past. And from it flows an ultimate truth… Perhaps there are no accidents.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best Cover Design: Fiction
Newly widowed, Ramona Brady Strong finds herself grieving doubly when her beloved father dies. After traveling back home to Williston, North Dakota to attend the funeral, she is caught up in a rekindled old romance while having to deal with pressures unique to an oilfield boomtown.
Ramona has inherited of one of the richest untapped oil fields in the region. But the son of an oil tycoon is threatening to usurp the mineral rights of the estate, and the only way to secure her family's legacy is to drill for oil.
Surrounded by family and friends, Williston begins to feel more and more like home. But as a web of deeply-held secrets begin to emerge, Ramona must decide whether to take control of the family oil business, or sell it all to the highest bidder.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best Cover Design: Fiction
Being kidnapped was only the beginning. Since she returned home, Zero’s life has been upended by the appearance of creatures she never thought possible. Even more unbelievable to her is her strange connection to them. Using her unique abilities, she tries to protect her friends. But nothing lasts forever. Now she’s on a quest to find the people behind the creation of these monsters. She needs answers. They need to be stopped. To do that, they must first reach the original outbreak zone. They must reach Ground Zero.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best Cover Design: Fiction
Emme Foster and her starved imagination live in a one-parent home in the dull Appalachian town of Crow's Egg. After making a wish to be in a fairy tale, she is catapulted on a quest to decode a spellbound key, solve a haunting secret, and stop a worldwide eco-disaster. And no pressure, but the faeries (that's how they spell it) are expecting her to also save the last bridge between their magical realm and the mortal one. Good thing Emme has her friends Bailey and Hunter, plus a few feisty pixies, to help navigate through ghosts, goblins, and even fouler creatures. Loaded with insight, humor, and rich vocabulary, this first book of The Lost Key Series is an ideal upper middle-grade read for everyone who longs for a green and greed-free world. Journey now with Emme and her companions into a 6,000-year-old story leading to the true origin of magic. Once Upon a Key is destined to be a classic tale of self-empowerment and loyalty to all that matters.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best Cover Design: Fiction
Brody Yates has fallen on hard times. Fired from his job as a sports reporter for a major newspaper, he decides to masquerade as a trainer in order to infiltrate the backstage world of figure skating. He has one chance to save someone’s life and to turn his around by breaking the story of a lifetime. The Chosen Ones, though fictionalized, reveals the secrets behind the sequins against the backdrop of the high pressure sport of world class figure skating. In this non-stop thriller, only one person can win. Not everyone will survive.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
Devastated by his father's sudden death, eight-year-old Ricky begins to see things--a ghostly silhouette in his bedroom window, a gruesome train accident involving four local teenagers, a terrorist attack that won't occur for another twenty-five years. After a traumatic incident at a New England summer camp, the visions become more frequent, more vivid, and more disturbing. A mysterious voice assures him everything will be okay if he crosses the ''threshold.'' But just what is the threshold? And what lies beyond?
An inspiring tale of hope, faith, courage, and profound self-discovery, A Hero Dreams takes the reader on an epic journey along the furthermost frontiers of human consciousness and into a miraculous realm where anything is possible.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
For fans of Indiana Jones, or authors Dan Brown and Clive Cussler, with an added touch of magic: Get ready to journey into an action adventure filled with archaeology, mystery, and intrigue.
Midwest Book Review calls the first book in Joan K. Lacy's Alex Cort Action Adventures an "extraordinary and thoroughly entertaining read." Philly Life & Culture gives it a "high recommendation for adventure lovers," and The Nerdy Girl Express touts it as a "strong supernatural adventure" and a "delightful story of discovery."
When British archaeologist Andrew Seaton discovers a jewel-encrusted golden statue, he realizes he may have uncovered the key to the lost city of El Dorado. The statue disappears before he can verify his findings, and Andrew must rely on private detective Alex Cort to recover the prized artifact.
The two men find themselves caught up in a dangerous race against a corrupt colleague and a ruthless art thief who will stop at nothing to claim the statue for themselves.
As each new clue leads them up the Amazon River and deeper into the jungle, they soon discover things are not quite what they appear. When all seems lost, the mystical powers of a beautiful woman guide them out of danger and ultimately to the ruins of an ancient city, where Andrew must right the wrongs he committed in a past life and Alex discovers a secret of his own.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
The Billy Gogan story is a fictional memoir told by an old Army general of his adventures as a young man. Billy Gogan, American, opens with recently orphaned Billy Gogan fleeing Ireland on the eve of the Great Hunger — either because he is the son of a dangerous revolutionary, or because his cousin doesn't trust him around his daughter. Billy befriends a destitute Irish peasant named Máire and her young daughter Fíona, and together they endure a harsh passage to New York, America's greatest city. They get separated as they debark, and Billy searches tirelessly for them in the dangerous Five Points, ground zero in the collision of Americans, ex-slaves, and Irish refugees.
Here, Billy completes his education. Already able to declaim Cicero and construe Aristotle, he learns voting fraud from Bill Tweed, the future head of Tammany Hall, and the numbers game from Charlie Backwell, Tammany's top bookie. Finally, Brannagh O’Marran, the beautiful mulatta daughter of the Irish madam of Gotham’s finest brothel, teaches him about love.
Billy eventually finds Máire and Fíona, and the three of them plan their future together. But that future is taken in a cruel stroke, and nothing will ever be the same.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
For popular food-blogger Kendall Gibbons, September 12th should be the single most important day of her career. She’s been given the opportunity to collaborate with one of the most important influencers in her industry, which will put her name on the forefront of millions of feeds. But this amazing opportunity is interrupted by a random twist of time and space. As Kendall exits the fifteenth-floor elevator that should lead her to the meeting, she finds herself back in her fifteenth year of life. Desperate to return to her twenty-eight-year-old life, the now transformed fifteen-year-old Kendall is forced to elicit help from her seventeen-year-old brother, Mike, and his best friend, Gavin, being careful not to make any changes that might put her future success in jeopardy. Through a series of cosmic missteps, Kendall stumbles back and forth in time within her own life. She is forced to re-live past experiences, and in doing so, re-discovers herself. Elevation is a non-linear, coming-of-age love story about losing and finding yourself, the nature of time and the importance of human connection.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
Ebony has spent her entire life isolated on an island institution run by her father, Dr. Hunter. She's unaware of the war brewing in the city between the magical and non-magical.
Her father is attempting to use her magical abilities to reverse the threat to magic, but when he forces her to push harder, her body weakens. Desperate to escape, Ebony is willing to trust complete strangers if they can help her find a way out.
But what if those strangers came to kill her?
Connor and his group of rebels disguise themselves as test subjects to infiltrate the institute and stop Dr. Hunter. Their goal - to kill Ebony and her friends. Connor's mission to kill her is halted when he realizes Ebony is a pawn, albeit a powerful pawn,in her father's game.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Best New Fiction
Can it be true that soulmates can share a love so deep that it can transcend more than one lifetime? That is what James tell his loving wife Kathleen before they suddenly die in a tragic car accident that snuffs out their lives and perhaps their love. Will they be able to find each other in the next life to rekindle the love they share, and who will believe them if they do?
Joseph, only six years old, is haunted in his dreams by a woman and scenes he doesn't initially recognize. Sweating heavily while twisting and turning in his bed, he sees flashes of the mountains, the beach and a beautiful young woman. He awakens suddenly, hearing himself scream, “Kathleen(!).” He is drenched and dazed, not realizing that his dream is a replay of the final scene of his past life as James with his wife, Kathleen. A few years later as his dreams continue, he recalls more clearly Kathleen’s soulful singing, bubbly personality and sweet smile as well as his deep love for both photography and her.
As a teenager, Joseph loves to watch singing competitions on TV shows, especially when teenage girls are singing. One day he sees and hears Kimberly singing on one of these shows and his heart skips a beat. He does not know why, but her singing consumes him. Kimberly grew up a sad little girl. She knows that something is missing in her life, but for the life of her, she cannot identify what it is. Only singing lifts her spirits, even if just for a little while. Joseph is drawn to her immediately. He has to meet her.
What happens when Joseph meets Kimberly? You can find out by reading Richard Sieg’s novel, Love After Life.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
FATHER DIVINE’S BIKES exposes the dark underbelly of 1945 Newark, New Jersey; a city that boomed during World War II but finds itself unable to cope with the peace that brings joblessness, despair and crime. As deeply-entrenched white enclaves are squeezed by the mass migration of blacks, escape routes for poor ethnic whites rapidly close. Two Catholic altar boys living in a world ripe for grifters, like Father Divine, soon learn that his promise of heaven on earth has hellish consequences. In the autumn of 1945, a battle erupts when the city’s competing mobs end their truce. When it gets bloody, other criminal forces poise to move in. Black bookies, using Father Divine’s controversial International Peace Mission Movement as a front, recruit Joey Bancik and Richie Maxwell to run numbers under the guise of newspaper routes. The boys' families welcome the few bucks they can put on the table. Meanwhile, their parish priest and two homicide detectives fear the numbers racket will entrap the boys in a world of crime. Turf wars, murders, and a corrupt police department in bed with the mob form a dark and gritty backdrop against a story of post-war Newark and the violence that permeated it.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
Part 1980s and 1990s nostalgia, part exuberant storytelling, I'M SO FINE: A LIST OF FAMOUS MEN & WHAT I HAD ON turns a sharply humorous magnifying glass onto gendered interactions in daily life, framed primarily by random celebrity encounters in Los Angeles. Far from a narrative of fame-chasing or conceit, however, I'M SO FINE breathlessly addresses what it means for a woman to fight for dignity and survival in an often hostile environment, to come into her own power as she decides what she wants for herself "& mostly gets its every fineness."
"I'M SO FINE is an accumulation that is the feminine memory that has had enough. This book is strength, is a critique, is subversive, is a woman, a fist, an lol, an F.U., a refusal, a gaze back at the gaze, is inevitable freedom wearing a flowered dress Kente cloth bomber jacket red lipstick white jeans a velvet choker white platform sandals a black turtleneck electric blue column dress an eggshell blouse with a high collar & pearl buttons is wearing a powerful woman's body and mind."—Natalie Diaz
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
The indomitable senior sleuth Imogene and her outrageously endearing Alabama family find themselves in hot water while on a family vacation at a mermaid convention in sunny Florida. When Imogene and her brood, including Goose the bulldog, encounter a dead body floating in the freshwater springs beneath their glass-bottom boat, the local police immediately arrest one of the Alabama visitors for the crime.
Now the aging amateur crime solver must exonerate her own family, but unearthing a killer among the park's past and present mermaids and employees promises to be no easy task, since so many of them are thrilled that the victim is sleeping with the fishes. And a decades-old curse that has deposited more than one dead body in the Bridal Chamber spring now seems focused on Imogene and her kin, who are wading into dangerous waters indeed. Witty and colorful, The Curse of the Bridal Chamber will keep you enthralled until the final surprising revelation.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
"An enjoyable tale of loss, lust, and love with a dollop of gravlax."—Kirkus Reviews
"...one well-written and unforgettable romantic tale with Silver-Screen potential." [5-stars] —Feathered Quill Book Reviews
"...breath-taking descriptions of Rome..." [5-stars] —ReadersFavorite.com
Set in Rome. Follow the whirlwind antics of a publicist as he struggles to manage his first TV chef client, his new life, and an unexpected visit from his ex-girlfriend.
Alex recently moved to Italy for an opportunity at a PR firm in Rome. His first client is the beautiful Danish chef Pernille Bjørn, a popular model, TV personality, and cookbook author just entering the booming televised cooking show market in Italy.
Alex's single-minded career focus is soon thwarted by Emily, an ex-girlfriend he hasn't heard from in almost a decade.
Italy's modern culture and enchanting sights set the backdrop to this Rome-antic comedy.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
One family. Too many secrets. Four people who want to matter.
In Nevada, Sloan family matriarch, Janice, is tired of her white trash life—dealing with debt, kids, her son’s motorcycle gang, and Harry, her drunk of a husband. She can’t shake her lifelong dream of singing at the Grand Ole Opry.
As Janice’s teen daughter, Carrie, plans her escape to college, Janice confronts the fact that she’s forty-eight and running out of time. She decides to leave her two young sons with Harry and move to Nashville for one year to pursue her dream. But before Janice can leave, Harry’s worst betrayal yet destroys everyone’s plans, and detectives start digging up the family dirt.
Times are desperate for the Sloan Family. They might survive if they can become each other’s unlikely heroes. Do they have what it takes to confront the truth about their lives and each other and break free from their way of life on Tiger Drive?
Debut novelist, Teri Case puts us inside the minds of mother, father, daughter, and son to portray how addiction, poverty, and secrets can derail the best of intentions. But with a little hope and a dose of trust, the human spirit can prevail.
Award Finalist: 2018 Best Book Awards Fiction: General
30-year-old Bronwyn Artair, feeling out of place in her doctoral program in Atmospheric Sciences at MIT, drops out and takes a job as a TV meteorologist, much to the dismay of her mentor, Diane Fenwick. After a year of living alone in Southern New Hampshire, enduring the indignities of her job, dumped by her boyfriend, she discovers her deep connection to the natural world has given her an ability to affect natural forces. When she finally accepts she really possesses this startling capability, she must then negotiate a new relationship to the world. Who will she tell? Who will believe her? Most importantly, how will she put this new skill of hers to use? As she seeks answers to these questions, she travels to Kansas to see the tornado maverick she worships; falls in love with Matt, the tabloid journalist who has come to investigate her; visits fires raging out of control in Los Angeles; and eventually voyages with Matt and Diane to the methane fields of Siberia. A woman experiencing power for the first time in her life, she must figure out what she can do for the world without hurting it further. The story poses questions about science and intuition, women and power, and what the earth needs from humans.
Welcome to Primrose Street, where neighbours share close interactions but know very little of each other. Only the maple trees that have lined the road for decades know their decisions, indiscretions, secrets, joys, and pains. From fifty-year residents Charlie and Cora and their grandson Ronald, to newcomer Sofia and her son Nicolas, to best friends Tabitha and Dayna, the residents of Primrose Street go about their daily lives--shopping, attending school, meeting at cafés, smiling as they pass on the sidewalk--all the while remaining invisible to one another.
Only when an invitation arrives in their mailboxes must the residents of Primrose Street decide whether to allow authenticity into their lives and neighbourhood or remain limited in their relationships and thereby to themselves.Drawing comparisons to Maeve Binchy and Elizabeth Strout for its clear-eyed characterizations of everyday people, Marina L. Reed's writing sheds light on questions that haunt us and exposes the poison of secrets. Primrose Street is everyone's street, where the ebb and flow of daily experiences can bring people together and miracles are still possible.
Snowden, North Dakota is a dying reservation town in a dying state, surrounded by hundreds of miles of prairie littered with the ruins of eight decades of economic decline. To half-Chippewa, half-white seventeen-year-old Dylan Erickson, this land is a little slice of heaven--the woods and fields, the endless skies that burn at night, and the Missouri River running through it all.
All of this is threatened by an oil boom.
As tens of thousands of workers pour into the state, the rural communities struggle to cope with the chaos. Housing prices skyrocket, the roads turn deadly from the explosion in traffic, and the cops are overwhelmed fighting the surge in drugs and crime.
But it's a fatal accident caused by Dylan's own self-destructive behavior that rocks the close-knit community and turns his whole world upside-down. In his search for a meaning in the accident and a way to atone for what he's done, he will discover the haunting meaning of the tragedy of beauty.
On her last day as a high school English teacher, Deann Nelson retrieves the things she has hidden in the secret drawer beneath her desk. The contents unleash a host of funny and painful memories. As she examines each item, she contemplates the realities of public school and the remarkable young people whose lives had intersected with hers. She reveals hilarious tales of teenage recklessness as well as the dark and dangerous secrets she has kept over the years. The triumphs and tragedies of some of her most memorable students are powerful testaments to the resilience of the human spirit, but no secret is more intriguing than that of Jordan Michaels, one unforgettable and heroic student. In an era of increasing scrutiny of public education and a growing emphasis on test results and statistics, Empty Desk is a book that captures the vulnerability of students and their teachers. It is about telling their stories, hearing the voices of others, surviving against all odds, and discovering ourselves.
Neighbors: Persons living in proximity to other persons. Everyone has neighbors.
Neighbors-From-Hell: Neighbors who are not nice. Have you ever had Neighbors-From-Hell?
Neighbors are an obvious arrangement in cities or towns. Good or bad, tidy or messy, quiet or noisy, nice or mean; there are all types. City slickers moving to the country invoke the image of space and solitude, but there will still be neighbors. The space between domiciles might be larger, but a bad, messy, or noisome neighbor can still exist. Even with a country home’s space and larger area, there can still be neighbors that won’t contain themselves to their own area.
Once upon a time there was a young family who had a dream of owning land and operating a farm. They became land owners and cattle ranchers, building their very own dream house on their very own patch of paradise. They worked hard to assimilate to this new lifestyle in a new neighborhood. It was everything they’d hoped for, and they were so happy.
Chicago Professor Martin Gregory is the author of a critically acclaimed novel of love and longing, a cult favorite among women. The book brings him unexpected status and prestige, but also unwelcome fame.
A love affair with one of his students derails his career and breaks his heart. Coming to terms with a life knocked off balance, Martin retreats to a quiet English village, only to be confronted at his flat by a mystery woman with an unexpected message and an implausible request, one that could alter his life forever.
A cross-country train trip, a visit to his father's grave, and a re-examination of a deep loss will eventually reveal either Martin's greatest character or unearth his most heartbreaking flaw.
A Well-Respected Man is about the hard choices we make to find fulfillment, and the search to discover meaning in both the life we choose and the one thrust upon us.
Theodore Graham, a burned-out genius with working-class roots, challenges the status quo of wealth, power, and the role of media, only to find himself as an unlikely candidate in a tight governor's race. This political comedy examines friendships and societal struggles through witty dialogue and character interactions. It's a fun, funny, and thought-provoking read that examines the clashes between classes.
Life on the reservation is not a dream. These stories tell the harsh realities of life with murderous men and murderous weather. Robidoux’s novella of Lucy Little Bear is as rich and complex as life itself.
“When I was seven my mother tried to kill me.” So begins the journey of Lucy Little Bear in a place “so cold salt water freezes in the bay.” All the characters in these linked narratives find their way into the warmth of your soul. An old woman, Lily Paul, sings in the old language until the fire sings back. She turns into an ermine to survive a perilous journey to her trailer park, “Hollywood,” on coastal Maine. And there is Shawna and the danger of those Moonlight Tours. Robidoux creates a mystical place with her words …where “fog floats in and out with the tide…creating a feeling the world is just a dream.” But life on the reservation is not a dream. These stories tell the harsh realities of life with murderous men and murderous weather. There is “generational loneliness” in the eerie call of a loon on Pennamaquan Lake. There are wonderful place names that live as the characters in the beauty of these stories that transcend the harshness and recall the “star bridge” over which we walked." -Diane Glancy, author of Pushing the Bear, Claiming Breath, The Collection of Bodies: Concern for Syria and the Middle East and others
Caught up in the turmoil of her own problems, Fez is oblivious to the struggles of her family members, who each face serious challenges—and things are only getting more complicated.
Fez, now fifty-two, never knew she had a sister—until one day, sixty-four-year-old Penny, a woman with special needs, has nowhere else to go and must move in with Fez and Fez’s teenage daughter, Hazel. But Penny hasn’t had to deal with change for a long time, and neither sister is sure how this new life will affect her. With her estranged husband living elsewhere, Fez is too distracted to notice the changes in Hazel, who has been falling into dangerous patterns of substance abuse.
The reunited sisters delve into family history to gain closure on a dark past, but before they find a satisfying answer, tragedy strikes—and their priorities finally start coming into focus.
Told from the varying perspectives of the three women, Seven Birds illustrates how complicated family issues and shared pain can forge stronger links among its members. If they can find compassion—for each other, for themselves, and for a mother’s past mistakes—then moving forward toward reconciliation and peace is possible.
Deep in the mountains, a woman-beast is awakened by her desire to find love when a handsome young hiker seperates from his group of friends and stumbles upon her secret community.
In modern day America, amidst the contentious presidential election campaign of November 2016, immigrant author Hureen Saghar Gandhi finds that humor is the only way to keep her family and her friends’ spirits high. Living a fast and furious life in Northern Virginia, surrounded by quirky characters, she decides she has no choice but to weave them into her satirical anecdotes in her book: Page 6 And Beyond. This book will have you laughing out loud as she embarks on a spy mission to: bond with long-lost childhood school friends on a sensational WhatsApp column; fulfill her bucket lists; chronicle encounters with her kids, and challengers; relate her childhood escapades; relive her misadventures in the Nordic region; and supply readers with extraordinary stories of her friends living in different continents.
Last autumn Sheriff Andy Patrick rescued his wife, Samantha, after being kidnapped by Matt Ruiz. Since then, Samantha has retreated into a protective shell. She won't leave her home, and worse, she has pushed away the people that love her the most.Her daughter, Delaney, decides to enlist the help of family friend, Kellyn Grindstaff. As a former sex crimes cop, therapist, and now professor of psychology, Kellyn has had plenty of experience helping victims of sexual crimes. Kellyn comes to Land's End, unknowingly bringing her own troubles with her. By saving Samantha, will Kellyn be able to save herself?
Barbara P. Walsworth grew-up in the backwoods and freshwater swamps of northwest Louisiana. She draws from her experiences there to create intriguing characters and a suspenseful novel, The Red Dirt Road. In the summer of 1962, fourteen year old Partheny Preiste's abusive, alcoholic father moved his family from southwest Texas to the backwoods of northwest Louisiana...and then, immediately abandons them. While struggling for the basic necessities, they discover someone is watching from the surrounding woods. And, even more disturbing, they learn of the recent murder of a small black child found in the swamp behind their shanty. What this evil wants and takes almost destroys this family. They battle to keep their faith and stay strong in the face of a heartbreaking tragedy and bring a murderer to justice.
When a young priest makes some bad choices, it becomes a blight on his vocation that follows him all his life. Father Bernard made some bad choices. Jennifer was one. Helen, another, although Helen began as an innocent mistake that got out of hand. After twenty years as an assistant pastor at Immaculate Conception Church on the west side of Chicago, Father Bernards vocation has deteriorated, not only because of his moral lapses but also from its lack of substance and value. His duties have become tedious and distressing; the sin, dying, dishonesty, and infidelity drains him. Deepening his distress is his life at a rundown, disintegrating parish, with an outdated liturgy and a pastor, Father McElroy, who is a rude, spiteful, and offensive old man. His attempt to save himself from his cheerless, desolate life leads him down a dangerous path, one that puts him in direct conflict with his vocation. Can he salvage his failing vocation and repair his troubled soul? Can he find the strength to restore the spiritual meaning and substance that once guided him as a priest?
Ten-year-old Woody, and his twelve-year-old sister, Vette, are growing up in the Midwest nurtured by their caring parents, Opal and Max. They return to their trailer from school one day to the horror of a man wearing a white mask who takes them prisoner. He rapes Woody, and leaves Vette shattered. Terrified, they keep the secret from their parents.
Not far away, seven-year-old Alice and her eight-year-old friend, Betty, are spending the day bicycling small-town backroads when they encounter a sadistic killer. Alice is captured; Betty runs free. Brad Denver, the killer, is captured before Alice's naked and broken body is found. He was coming back for the one that got away--Betty.
The two families move on with their lives through adolescence and marriage. But the crimes don't go away and the wounds never heal. The pedophile lives on in plain sight, but invisible to Woody and Vette. Someone has to make restitution for the pain they've suffered, and a Good Samaritan arrives to deliver justice.
Revenge is made and justice is delivered. Take a trip through the minds of the killers and victims. All those twisted from childhood will twist together in the end.
Classic case of wrong place at the wrong time. Sienna's only hope of survival is Agent Colt Masters. Colt and Sienna must work together to solve the case, but first they must learn to trust each other.
Rainie Shepherd, trying to move on with her life after World War II, never forgets the man she fell in love with and had to say goodbye to as an aircraft carrier took him away to fight for his country. John Shepherd never forgets the young girl who captures his heart as he sails out to sea.
So begins the story a love so strong, it carries you on a journey of the heart through war, tragedy and life's challenges. With the final journey of her life, Rainie Shepherd tells her story of a life bound by a lasting love that does not diminish with time and hardship. This love story holds true with the strength of one woman's heart.
Lillian Chase, a young author living in Omaha, inherits a house from a woman she doesn't know. The house is an old farmhouse near the tiny Nebraska town of Clearwater. Lillian visits the house, and while she is there, she begins to paint things she can only see when she's inside the house. Her paintings tell a story, and through them she learns the truth about something long hidden and the reason behind her inheritance.
Winfield, Iowa, 1918. Colonel Wallace Carson, the ruler of a vast agricultural empire, asks Ann Hardy, his ten-year-old granddaughter and eventual heir, to promise she will safeguard The Northeast Quarter, the choice piece of land from which the empire was founded. Ann readily accepts -- little knowing what awaits her. When the Colonel is killed unexpectedly the same afternoon, the world around Ann and her family begins to fall apart.
Against the background of America sliding from a post war boom into the Great Depression, The Northeast Quarter tells the story of Ann's struggle to keep a promise no matter what. She witnesses the remarriage of her grandmother to Royce Chamberlin, the seemingly humble banker who institutes a reign of terror over the household and proceeds to corrupt the entire town. Over the next ten years Ann matches wits with Chamberlin, enduring betrayal, banishment, and even physical violence. She grows from a precocious child into a tough-minded young woman -- watching, observing her enemy, and waiting for the moment to make her move. And when the moment comes in July 1929, life in Winfield will never be the same.
