Historical Homes

After a merciless winter, spring has sprung in 1880 Stockholm, and the city awaits the arrival of the SS Vega, the first ship to have sailed the Northeast Passage. Life is busy at the orphanage, but twelve-year-old Mika quickly notices that the older orphans are up to something—and it doesn’t look good. When Constable Hoff approaches her with information about thefts around the city, Mika becomes even more concerned about what the other kids are up to—and what they might be planning for the Vega celebration.

When a ghostly figure is sighted in the murky tunnels beneath Edinburgh, Zinnie and her sisters suddenly find their underground home filled with curious visitors. Among them is the owner of a new museum - the House of Wonders - who seems to know more about the ‘ghost’ than he should.

The year is 1915, and the war is raging on.... The war was not 'over by Christmas' after all, and as 1915 begins, the Hunters begin to settle into wartime life. Diana, the eldest Hunter daughter, sees her fiance off to the front but doesn't expect such coldness from her future mother-in-law. David's battalion is almost ready to be sent to the front, but how will Beattie's fragile peace of mind endure?

When Louisiana Elefante's granny wakes her up in the middle of the night to tell her that the day of reckoning has arrived and they have to leave home immediately, Louisiana isn't overly worried. But this time, things are different. This time, Granny intends for them never to return. Separated from her best friends, Raymie and Beverly, Louisiana struggles to oppose the winds of fate (and Granny) and find a way home. But as Louisiana's life becomes entwined with the lives of the people of a small Georgia town she starts to worry that she is destined only for good-byes.

Almost Home is the story of the pilgrims' journey to America and of God's providence and provision. Several of the characters in the story - Mary Chilton, Constance Hopkins, and Elizabeth Tilley - were actual passengers on the Mayflower. Mary Chilton was a young girl when she left her home in Holland and traveled to America onboard the Mayflower with her parents. The journey was filled with trials, joys, and some surprises, but when she reached the New World, she experienced a new life, new freedom, and new home.

After waving her sweetheart Luke off to war, Nell Davenport encounters an unexpected entanglement that will change Hollywood forever. With combat raging across Europe and the Pacific, jobs of all kinds are now open to women on the home front. Nell sets her sights on the publicity department of the Warner Bros. movie studios as she develops a surprising bond with Humphrey Bogart. But when a captivating 19-year-old is cast opposite Bogie in To Have and Have Not, the newcomer’s arrival will alter the course of Nell’s blossoming friendship.

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.

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.

From Pasadena to Cambridge to New York, Washington, D.C., India, Ceylon, Paris, Marseilles, Santa Barbara, and Maine, Bob Spitz re-creates an extraordinary life. He takes us beyond the image of Julia as the tall, eccentric woman with a funny voice who taught America how to cook, to establish her as a genuine rebel and beloved icon, a woman who redefined herself in middle age, helped to change the role of women in America, set the standard for how to create a public personality in the modern media world.

Israel Meir Lau, one of the youngest survivors of Buchenwald, was just eight years old when the camp was liberated in 1945. Descended from a 1,000-year unbroken chain of rabbis, he grew up to become Chief Rabbi of Israel--and like many of the great rabbis, Lau is a master storyteller. Out of the Depths is his harrowing, miraculous, and inspiring account of life in one of the Nazis' deadliest concentration camps, and how he managed to survive against all possible odds.

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?

Award-winning author of A Room of My Own and A Place Called Morning, Ann Tatlock delivers a soul-searching inspirational story of faith and friendship.

Alone and pregnant, she was following in the footsteps of more than a century’s worth of lost souls. Shunned by society for her sins and offered no comfort for her pain, Bridget gave birth to a boy, John, who died at the home in a horrendous state of neglect less than two years later. Her second child was once again delivered into the care of the nuns and was taken from her, never to be seen or heard from again.

As Julia Child once said, “It is hard to imagine a civilization without onions.” Historically, she’s been right—and not just in the kitchen. Uniquely flourishing in just about every climate and culture around the world, onions have provided the essential basis not only for sautés, stews, and stir fries, but for medicines, metaphors, and folklore. Abundantly commonplace yet extraordinarily indispensable, the onion is Kurlansky's newest global food fixation as he sets out to explore how and why the crop reigns over Wales to Italy and everywhere in between.

1940, Great Paxford, Cheshire: In Britain's darkest hour, an extraordinary community of women strive to protect the Home Front. When a plane crashes in the village, every one of their lives will change forever. The women of Great Paxford are no strangers to hardship and the extraordinary power of what women can achieve when they work together. Can Frances, Sarah, Pat, Steph and the women of the WI survive their greatest challenge yet?

Award-winning Florida novelist Patrick Smith's first novel, The River Is Home, revolves around a Mississippi family's struggle to cope with changes in their rural environment. Poor in material possessions, Skeeter's kinfolk are rich in their appreciation of their beautiful natural surroundings. The river on which they live—with its food supply, steamboats, and floods—figures strongly in their lives as the source of life, change, and death. Though their life is a simple one, it's filled with friendship, loyalty, love, and compassion.

Birdie Jennings dreams of a big life beyond her small town of Mt. Sterling, Kentucky—beyond her mundane job tying tobacco leaves at Wrights Factory, beyond her position as the baby of the family. Her life changes when she meets smooth-talking Jimmy Walker. Jimmy makes big promises for an exciting life together, and Birdie is quickly swept off her feet. But some short years after they marry, Jimmy disappears without a trace, leaving Birdie hurt and alone with their two toddlers. Out of money and out of options, Birdie moves back home with her overbearing mother.

It's 1941, and the war rumbles on. Nowhere is immune to the effects of war, not even Ambridge. But in England's favourite village, something else is occupying the residents. When a prominent villager dies, the main beneficiary's name is a mystery, and no one knows who is set to inherit the estate, cottage and all. The name is hidden within a locked box, and the villagers much uncover the password to find out the name of the beneficiary.

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn't need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she's set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange - cut short by the soldier's evident interest in Betty - but Liz can't forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

The first time Isabel meets her father-in-law, Omar, he’s already dead - an apparition appearing uninvited on her wedding day. Her husband, Martin, still unforgiving for having been abandoned by his father years ago, confesses that he never knew the old man had died. So Omar asks Isabel for the impossible: persuade Omar’s family - especially his wife, Elda - to let him redeem himself.