Historical Family Saga

Lauren Francis-Sharma's 'Til the Well Runs Dry opens in a seaside village in the north of Trinidad where young Marcia Garcia, a gifted and smart-mouthed 16-year-old seamstress, lives alone, raising two small boys and guarding a family secret. When she meets Farouk Karam, an ambitious young policeman, the risks and rewards in Marcia's life amplify forever.

Two noble teenagers are married against their will. Drugged, Deb has no recollection of events. Disgraced, Julian is banished to the continent. Years later, Deb falls in love with a wounded duelist, only to discover it is her husband, returned incognito! Can Deb forgive his calculated deception? Will their marriage survive beyond seduction?

If misfortune hadn’t gotten in the way, Sandra Sanborn would be where she belongs - among the rich and privileged instead of standing outside a Hollywood studio wearing a sandwich board in the hope of someone discovering her. It’s tough breaking into the movies during the Great Depression, but Sandra knows that she’s destined for greatness. After all, her grandmother Vira crossed the country during the Gold Rush and established the Sanborns as one of San Francisco’s most prominent families, and her mother Mabel grew up in a lavish mansion.

The end of the colonies' fight for independence ushers in a fresh and even more glorious struggle to build the new nation. It is an epoch ripe with the energy of a country in its springtime. Two young heirs to a family dynasty turn their eyes west - the frontier beckons. It took a special breed to give up the comfortable life along our eastern seaboard. Who knew what lay beyond? But when Abraham Kent fell in love with his beautiful stepsister, he knew that leaving was the only course open to him.

For over fifty years Egypt has known nothing but war and devastation at the hands of the Hyksos, a bloodthirsty barbarian people from the distant east who continue to advance, crushing armies in their wake. Times are desperate, but throughout the conflict, a brave resistance fights on under the great Taita, a slave who has risen far beyond his ranks. Piay, entrusted into Taita's care by his parents at the age of just five, has been trained to become a great spy, unmatched by any other.

At Home Place, the windows are blacked out and food is becoming scarce as a new generation of Cazalets takes up the story. Louise dreams of being a great actress, Clary is an aspiring writer, while Polly, is burdened with knowledge and the need to share it. This is the sequel to "The Light Years".

Beginning in 1920 and paralleling Hitler’s rise to power, this compelling story revolves around wealthy Paul Werner and interweaves a myriad of other characters as he quests for ultimate happiness and contentment. You will meet an unforgettable American family as they struggle with birth, death, murder, illicit passion, and great tragedy – and one man who must fight his own war against evil. Belva Plain pulls together the many life-threads entwined with Werner's to form a magnificent tapestry.

1740s France and England - the age of hedonism and enlightenment. Renard, Duke of Roxton, is wealthy beyond measure. Arrogant and self assured, his heart remains his own. Optimistic and headstrong, Antonia Moran is determined to flee the Court of Versailles with the Duke's unwitting assistance. Roxton is an unlikely savior - arrogant, promiscuous, and sinister. Antonia's unquestioning belief in him may just be his salvation, and her undoing.

Opposites attract. Appearances can deceive. A dashing and rugged façade hides the vulnerable man within. He will gamble with his life, but never his heart. Always the observer, never the observed, her fragility hides conviction. She will risk everything for love. One fateful night they collide. The attraction is immediate, the consequences profound.

Since her return home to Berlin, Goldie Schatzman has reconnected with her childhood friend, Leni, a free spirit who has swept Goldie into the Weimar lifestyle that is overflowing with artists and writers, but also with debauchery. Goldie had spent the last nineteen years living a dull life with a spiritless husband. And now she has been set free. As Goldie's daughter, Alma, is coming of marriageable age, her grandparents are determined to find her a suitable match. Will Goldie's life of depravity hurt Alma's chances to find a Jewish husband?

The novel centers around Iris, the daughter of the beautiful, passionate Anna from a secret love affair with Paul Werner. During the turbulent 1960s, Iris and Theo's fragile marriage begins to falter, while their son, Steve, a student at a midwestern university, comes under the sway of the charismatic and radical son of Paul Werner's niece, Meg.

On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding plans a trip to her mother's childhood home in Plaka, Greece hoping to unravel Sofia's hidden past. Given a letter to take to Sofia's old friend, Fotini, Alexis is promised that through Fotini, she will learn more. Arriving in Plaka, Alexis is astonished to see that it lies a stone's throw from the deserted island of Spinalonga—Greece's former leper colony. Fotini reveals the story that Sofia has buried all her life: the tale of her great-grandmother Eleni and her daughters, and a family rent by tragedy, war, and passion.

Charleston, South Carolina, 1860. For nine long years, Clare Stratford has struggled to understand her mother's final choice. The truth comes at a devastating price. Clare's lifelong love, Dr. David Lazare, risks everything to heal her wounded body. But only the medicine of David's Cheyenne brother, Ésh, can mend Clare's shattered soul.

At the start of the 20th century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste....

This magnificent novel - which secured for its author the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature - is now available to contemporary American audiences. Although it is set in the early 20th century, it recalls both Iceland's medieval epics and such classics as Sigrid Undset's Kristin Lavransdatter. And if Bjartur of Summerhouses, the book's protagonist, is an ordinary sheep farmer, his flinty determination to achieve independence is genuinely heroic and, at the same time, terrifying and bleakly comic.

Their lives have all the trappings of a fairytale. He is the proud, hardworking son of Sicilian immigrants. She is a pampered southern belle. When they meet, the Rossis of San Francisco and the Posatas of New Orleans have risen to become two powerful families with roots dating back for generations. And from the moment she sees him, Catherine Posata makes up her mind to marry tall, dark, and handsome Harvard Law student Dominic Rossi.

Nathan Hack expects his four sons to marry well and keep up the tradition of becoming barristers in the prestigious house of Hack. But Rubin, the youngest, feels that his legacy is a stranglehold. He's betrothed to a woman from a fine family when he falls in love with a beautiful, enigmatic stranger in Paris. Her name is Magda, and she will change Rubin’s life completely. Decades later, history will repeat itself when a woman is caught between two men during Hitler's regime.

When Jephtha Kent leaves his family to go north, the Kents come under the influence of Louis, the most opportunistic son. While the nation splits on secession and slavery, the Kents nearly fall to greed and self-interest. The Civil War divided families and friends and left wounds some of which are still not healed. That the Kents survived was a miracle: that they came through with vigor intact held great promise for the rich decades that lay ahead. The Titans is the fifth volume in the Kent Family Chronicles preceded by The Furies.

This addictive John Jakes adventure blends the Kents’ ruthless push for an empire with murderous betrayal and the Civil War’s life-altering culmination. With the Civil War reaching its gory climax, the divided Kent family is pushed to the edge of complete destruction. With the advent of the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad, the Kents continue to fight for their foothold among America’s wealthy founding families. While their private, insular war rages, young Jeremiah Kent is tempted by a calculating Southern belle into a trap of deceit, lust, and murder.

As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees - despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.