Historical Homes

The year is 1910. Katherine Davis, MD, is an intelligent, self-assured, and attractive woman whose confidence perfectly reflects the confidence of a new century overflowing with scientific, medical, and technological breakthroughs. Without a moment's hesitation, young Dr. Davis accepts the professional invitation of a lifetime when she travels to Chicago's Hull-House to work with the celebrated social reformer, Jane Addams.

Scotland, 1942. The Lumberjills, the newest recruits in the Women’s Timber Corps, arrive in the Scottish Highlands to a hostile reception from doubtful locals. The young women are determined to prove them wrong and serve their country – but they’re also all looking for something more. Can the Lumberjills get through their struggles together – even when tragedy strikes?

It is 1944, and Anne Black is making the best of a new life in Somerset, but bringing up her daughters so far from their father; her mother, Peggy; and their real home of Cliffehaven isn't easy. The safety of Somerset makes separation bearable until danger strikes and rocks Anne's world. Back in Cliffehaven Peggy Reilly is running the Beach View Boarding House with her usual love and warmth. The war is taking its toll, however, and Peggy longs to have her scattered family home again.

Home Fires is the powerful saga of the Gordon family--real people, names unchanged. Spanning nearly five decades, from the end of World War II to the early 1990s, their story has the scope, depth, wealth of incident, and emotional intensity of a great novel, and an abundance of humor, scandal, warmth, and trauma--the recognizable components of family life. This is also a masterful chronicle of the turbulent postwar era, illuminating the interplay between private life and profound cultural changes.

Young history Professor Jack Turner gets a surprise visit from his friend, Police Sgt. Joe Boyd. Joe has started a new hobby that's also helping him lose some weight: metal detecting. Joe asks if he can do this on Jack's lakefront property, which includes more than a dozen acres of woods. Intrigued by a hobby that combines physical exercise and Jack's love of history, Jack asks to tag along. Neither man has any idea that this seemingly harmless hobby will cause their paths to cross with a 70-year-old mystery involving tragedy, smuggling, multiple murders, and stolen Nazi loot.

Long ago and far away...There was a castle. But not just any castle. This was a castle that glittered and sparkled and rose majestically above the banks of the winding Winono River: the Castle Corona.

Clinton has died and May is left to fend for herself in a city where she knows almost no one and has no way of earning a living. Not knowing where Oba had wound up and realizing she can't return to her uncle's home after all he'd put her through, she decides to journey to the Amish community where she spent her first years, before her parents' died. Perhaps the relatives who once turned her away had had a change of heart and would be willing to take her in or help her get settled on her own.

It began in Ireland in the mid 1700s. The water in Ireland, indeed throughout Europe, was famously undrinkable, and the gin and whiskey that took its place devastated civil society. It was a disease ridden, starvation-plagued, alcoholic age, and Christians like Arthur Guinness—as well as monks and even evangelical churches—brewed beer that provided a healthier alternative to the poisonous waters and liquors of the times. This is where the Guinness tale began.

Twelve-year-old Nova is eagerly awaiting the launch of the space shuttle Challenger - it's the first time a teacher is going into space, and kids across America will watch the event on live TV in their classrooms. Nova and her big sister, Bridget, share a love of astronomy and the space program. They planned to watch the launch together. But Bridget has disappeared, and Nova is in a new foster home. While foster families and teachers dismiss Nova as severely autistic and nonverbal, Bridget understands how intelligent and special Nova is, and all that she can't express.

In the town of Placid, Wisconsin, in 1871, Georgie Burkhardt is known for two things: her uncanny aim with a rifle and her habit of speaking her mind plainly. But when Georgie blurts out something she shouldn't, her older sister Agatha flees, running off with a pack of "pigeoners" trailing the passenger pigeon migration. And when the sheriff returns to town with an unidentifiable body - wearing Agatha's blue-green ball gown - everyone assumes the worst.... Except Georgie.

Ten-year-old Pearl Spence is a daydreamer, playing make-believe to escape life in Oklahoma's Dust Bowl in 1935. The Spences have their share of misfortune, but as the sheriff's family, they've got more than most in this dry, desolate place. They're who the town turns to when there's a crisis or a need. Pearl is proud of her loving, strong family, though she often wearies of tracking down her mentally impaired older sister or wrestling with her grandmother's unshakable belief in a God. Then a mysterious man bent on revenge tramps into her town of Red River.

It is 1940 and Staff Nurse Polly Brown has been granted a posting at Cliffehaven Memorial Hospital to be near her badly injured husband, Adam. But her decision has meant that she has had to part with their five-year-old daughter, Alice, who is travelling to safety in Canada. Polly's heart is torn in two as she says goodbye to Alice and heads to the Beach View boarding house, where she throws herself into her work. But as she confronts the fact that Adam may not survive his injuries, a shocking telegram arrives at Beach View.

Movie star Nicky Tallon selects architect Wren Fontaine to renovate Turnbull House, where he’ll be filming his next movie. Even to Wren, used to old homes, this one is special: a two-hundred-year-old federal-style home on a private island in New York harbor, designed by the most celebrated architect of the day. But Turnbull House hides many secrets, such as the disappearance of the sea captain who built it. That’s just a historical curiosity, until a studio executive no one likes is killed.

The Terrible Truth About the Truth is an all-in-one dramatic, romantic, horrific, true story, not without some humor. As a Tutsi who experienced a number of close calls during the Tutsis genocide conducted by extremists Hutus, Emma identifies herself as a Tutsi and a genocide survivor, but many of her compatriots question that reality.

Almost overnight, they take over the Springerville. They snatch up the real estate. Turn old-fashioned stores into fancy boutiques. Transform the schools. And bring crime and corruption with them. Now one of these invaders—a predatory media mogul from New York—is running for mayor and plans to turn Springerville into a sprawling urban enclave . . . just like the ones the northerners left behind . . . Not if Gus Fuller can stop it. A former army sergeant and lifelong townie, Gus runs the old luncheonette his grandfather built—and plans to give the media mogul a run for his money.

Following the breakdown of her marriage, Theo has bought a tumbledown cottage on the banks of the river Tamar which divides Cornwall and Devon. The peace and tranquillity of Boatman’s Cottage, nestled by the water, is just what she needs to heal. Yet soon after her arrival, Theo discovers a stash of hidden letters tied with a ribbon, untouched for more than a century. The letters—sent from the battlefields of France during WWI—tell of a young servant from the nearby manor house, Abbotswood, and his love for a woman he was destined to lose.

1943, Seattle. While raging war reshapes the landscape of Europe, its impact is felt thousands of miles away too. Before the war, Nora Kinney was one of countless housewives and mothers in her comfortable Capitol Hill neighborhood. Now, with her doctor husband stationed in North Africa, Nora feels compelled to do more than tend her victory garden or help with scrap metal drives . . .

From renowned author Lindsey Davis, creator of the much-loved character, Marcus Didius Falco and his friends and family, comes the second novel in her all-new series set in Ancient Rome. We first met Flavia Albia, Falco's feisty adopted daughter, in The Ides of April. Albia is a remarkable woman in what is very much a man's world: Young, widowed and fiercely independent, she lives alone on the Aventine Hill in Rome and makes a good living as a hired investigator.

Charlie West went to bed one night an ordinary high school student. He woke up a hunted man. Terrorists are trying to kill him. The police want to arrest him for the stabbing death of his best friend. He doesn't know whose side he's one or who he can trust. With his pursuers closing in on every side, Charlie makes his way back to his hometown to find some answers.

Patrick O’Connor has seen far too much of the cruel and unforgiving world. Life has beaten him down relentlessly. Out of hope and out of options, he makes the terrifying and desperate decision to return home to the family he has lied to for years. The family he knows will never forgive him.