Genre Literature

"The dead can't hurt you. Only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies - and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer's shortcomings.

Set in the 1868 Colorado Rockies, Rekindled tells the poignant story of a man and wife whose life and love are forever changed.

Val Eliot, a young woman working on an English farm during the war, meets Mike, a US Air Force pilot stationed nearby. When Val rescues a Border Collie named Peter Woodhouse, who is being mistreated by his owner, she realizes the dog would actually be safer with Mike. And so Peter Woodhouse finds a new home on the air force base, and Val finds herself falling in love.

Raised as an orphan by her aunt, Chariline has only been told a few pieces of her parents’ tragic love story. Her beautiful dark skin is proof that her father was Cushite, but she knows nothing else. While visiting her grandfather before his retirement as the Roman official in the queen’s court, Chariline overhears that her father is still alive, and discovering his identity becomes her obsession. Both her grandfather and the queen have reasons for keeping this secret, however, and forbid her quest. So Chariline sneaks on the ship of a merchant trusted by friends.

He's a troubled young actor, Hollywood's newest heartthrob, struggling with fame as the star of the latest superhero franchise. Through scandal after scandal, addiction on top of addiction, a flurry of paparazzi hunt him as he fights to conquer his demons. She's a single mother, assistant manager at a grocery store, existing in monotony with her five-year-old daughter. Every day when she goes to work, lurid tabloids surround her, the face of a notorious bad boy haunting her from their covers.

After sending his army to besiege another king's capital, King David forces himself on Bathsheba, a loyal soldier's wife. When her resulting pregnancy forces the king to murder her husband and add her to his harem, Bathsheba struggles to protect her son while dealing with the effects of a dark prophecy and deadly curse on the king's household. Combining historical facts with detailed fiction, Angela Hunt paints a realistic portrait of the beautiful woman who struggled to survive the dire results of divine judgment.

Fans of inspirational fiction eagerly devour historical novels from Christy Award winner Lynn Austin. In All Things New, the acclaimed author weaves a tale set in the aftermath of the Civil War. Josephine Weatherly and her mother, Eugenia, return to their Virginia plantation, but their once-grand home has lost its lustre. Jo’s father and brother are dead, and the war has left her remaining brother broken and embittered. Bonding with Lizzie, one of the few remaining servants, Jo struggles to rebuild her life....

Everyone has secrets.... The beautiful young judge. The hardworking waitress. The handsome college student. Some are meant to be kept.... The victims are all different, but they will all have one gruesome detail in common. But others can kill.... A clever serial killer is stalking the streets of Seattle. Searching for this next victim. Creating a monument of madness that will be built victim by victim, piece by piece, bone by bone....

Eight years ago, when the Philistines stole and then surrendered the ark of the covenant back to the Israelites, Eliora left her Philistine homeland to follow the ark to the community of Kiryat Yearim. There, the family she was adopted into has guarded the ark at the top of a mountain in seclusion. Ronen is a Levite musician determined to return the ark to Shiloh, where his tribe believes it belongs. He never expected that the Philistine girl he rescued years ago would now be part of the very family he's tasked to deceive.

Carla Andrews and Lorraine West are work colleagues and best friends. They socialise together, they work in the same bookmakers and they support each other as only best friends can. Then they are murdered together. When DI Tom Fowler is handed the case, he discovers a journal that Carla has left and must unpick the secrets Lorraine has kept hidden. Soon Carla’s and Lorraine’s husbands become the main suspects. It’s usually the spouse who is responsible, isn’t it? The investigation progresses until Isaac West, Lorraine’s 16-year-old son, disappears.

US Marshals Madison James and Jonas Quinn are thrust into a high-profile case when they are called on to transport two prisoners across the country on a private plane. But when the plane experiences engine trouble en route from the Pacific Northwest to Colorado, the pilots crash-land the aircraft deep in the heart of the sprawling Salmon-Challis National Forest. When Madison and Jonas regain consciousness, they find both pilots and one prisoner dead - and one fugitive on the run.

Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials, and its triumphs - through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other's faults with patience and affection.

The town of Bury took up a piece of Idaho Territory that was still raw, untamed frontier. It was no place for the cowardly or faint-hearted, but Smoke Jensen was neither. Nor were Stratton, Potter and Richards, the three bloodthirsty outlaws who came there to live. Or, if Smoke had his way...to die! It had been years since hired gunhands had murdered Smoke’s wife and son, but the pain was as fresh as yesterday. And so was Smoke’s need for revenge. He's come a long way to find the bandit trio responsible for his family's brutal massacre.

He's the son of a cattle rancher. A restless young dreamer who, under normal circumstances, would follow in his father's footsteps. Normal, however, is not his style. Like his famous grandfather and namesake Perley Gates - a hell-raising mountain man with a heavenly name - young Perley wants adventure, excitement, and freedom. And like his grandfather before him, he will find his dream - in the untamed wilds of a lawless frontier. That dream though might just become a nightmare....

Nathaniel Bainbridge is used to hiding, whether it's concealing his struggles with reading or his forbidden desire for men. Under the thumb of his controlling father, the governor of Primrose Isle, he's sailing to the fledging colony, where he'll surrender to a respectable marriage for his family's financial gain. Then pirates strike and he's kidnapped for ransom by the Sea Hawk, a legendary villain of the New World. Bitter and jaded, Hawk harbors futile dreams of leaving the sea for a quiet life, but men like him don't deserve peace. He has a score to settle with Nathaniel's father.

In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the 30s, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous world of her wealthy half-brother's home in London. There she encounters the attractive, carefree cad Eddie. To him, Portia is at once child and woman, and her fears her gushing love. To her, Eddie is the only reason to be alive. But when Eddie follows Portia to a sea-side resort, the flash of a cigarette lighter in a darkened cinema illuminates a stunning romantic betrayal.

Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London. The regal old woman came from wealthy and bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn't protect her from life's cruelest blows. Genevieve rose from the ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son. When Emma's own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother's doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her - until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school.

Fragrant blossoms herald spring, but the orchard is also a place of secrets and heartache. After the death of her husband Frank, Eliza is left with three young children and mounting debts. When a gentle stranger enters her orchard, she experiences a peculiar sensation of familiarity with the man. But will his unknown past jeopardize all that she has fought for?

Framed for murder, Dewey "Mac" McKenzie is running for his life. Though Mac's never even made a pot of coffee, he talks his way onto a cattle drive heading west as a chuckwagon cook. Turns out he has a natural talent for turning salt pork and dried beans into culinary gold. He's as good with a pot and pan as he is with a gun, which comes in handy on a dangerous trail drive beset with rustlers, hostile Indians, ornery weather, and deadly stampedes. Mac can hold his own with any cowboy twice his age. At least until the real showdown begins . . .

Middlemarch is a recognized masterpiece that explores the complex social world of 19th century England. It is concerned with the lives of several ordinary people, albeit ones with high social standing. The novel explores the very fabric of Victorian society in the 1800s, showing how various human passions, heroism, egotism, love, and lust, interrelate within this society.