Susan Meissner

April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.

The Nature of Fragile Things

Alana Kerr

Secrets of a Charmed Life

In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters - Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa - a chance at a better life. But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without - and what they are willing to do about it.

As Bright as Heaven

Tavia Gilbert

A Fall of Marigolds

From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II. Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences. But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her. The Last Year of the War tells a little-known story of World War II with great resonance for our own times and challenges the very notion of who we are when who we've always been is called into question.

The Last Year of the War

Only the Beautiful

"In 1946, two European women, having married American soldiers, board the Queen Mary to reunite with their husbands. But as they journey to the United States, secrets are revealed that will alter their lives forever"--

A Bridge Across the Ocean

Ariel Lawhon

Kristina McMorris

A Story of the Angels of Bataan

When We Had Wings

A new novel of Hollywood's Golden Age, told with the dual narrative of the present day. When a hat worn by Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind ends up in Christine McAllister's vintage clothing boutique by mistake, her efforts to return it to its owner take her on a journey more enchanting than any movie. And in 1938, Violet Mayfield goes to Hollywood after her dream of having a family falls apart. There, she meets enigmatic Audrey Duvall, a once-rising film star. Their adventures together among Hollywood's glitterati enthral Violet until each woman's deepest desires collide.

Stars Over Sunset Boulevard

Lauren breaks from family tradition and accepts a job from Abigail Boyles to transcribe a diary written by Marcy Boyles, allegedly killed during the Salem witch trials, but finds herself affected by the diary more than she expected.

A Novel

The Shape of Mercy

Recommended for readers of Sarah Dunant, this new novel about disillusionment, love, and family takes readers from California to the piazzas of Florence, plunging them into a fascinating world of art and history.

The Girl in the Glass

What options does a Christian woman have after she's brutally assaulted by a stranger one night...and becomes pregnant? That's the heartrending situation Claire Holland faces. Happily married and the mother of two when she is attacked, Claire begins an incredible journey on the painful pathway to trusting God "in all things." When Claire's husband, Dan, confesses he could never become a father to the expected child, Claire's decision to put the baby up for adoption creates a sense of tremendous loss for Claire...and for her 12-year-old daughter, Kate. Then, 16 years later, the relinquished child re-enters the lives of the Holland family, with unexpected consequences. This wonderful and warm first novel isn't a "love story....but a "life story, presenting the twin themes of learning to trust God in tragic circumstances and reaping the rewards that eventually come with sacrificial loving.

Why the Sky Is Blue

While interviewing two Holocaust survivors for a sociology project, cousins Tally and Chase soon realize that the whole family is grappling with hidden secrets, echoes of the past, and the realization that ignoring tragic situations won't make them go away. Original.

White Picket Fences

A map to paradise 

a novel

A sound among the trees

Il segreto di Isabel

La sciarpa ricamata

Back home again after his father'sstroke Luke treis to unravel the mystery of Norah, his childhood friend plagued by misfortune.

In All Deep Places

After her husband leaves her, Jane Lindsay finds an old ring in a box of relics from a British jumble sale and discovers a Latin inscription in the band along with just one other word: "Jane." Feeling instant connection to the mysterious ring bearing hernamesake, Jane begins a journey to learn more about the ring--and perhaps about herself and the lives of a sixteenth century dressmaker, Lucy Day, and the innocent young woman known in history as Lady Jane Grey.

Lady in Waiting

Nádherný šál, zdobený vyšitými "ohnivými květy" aksamitníky, propojuje přes sto let jak příběhy dvou žen, tak i dvě velké newyorské katastrofy, které jim tragicky zasáhly do života. Osudy dvou žen jsou přes vzdálenost století provázány podobným zážitkem - zatímco zdravotní sestra Clara v roce 1911 zažila tragický požár textilní továrny v New Yorku, v němž přišla o přítele, o téměř sto let mladší textilní výtvarnice Taryn v roce 2001 prožila z bezprostřední blízkosti teroristický útok na "dvojčata" Světového obchodního centra, v jehož zřícených věžích zahynul její manžel. Jejich osudy, kromě podobnosti zážitků i způsobu, jakým své trauma prožívají, jsou doslova provázány neobvykle krásnou šálou s vyšitými květy afrikánů - aksamitníků. Ani jedné z nich tento šál vlastně nepatřil, ale oběma zasáhl velmi výrazně do života. Obě ženy musejí zpracovat svůj žal a ztrátu, a na cestě k nové naději a možné lásce je tento šál provází.

Susan Meissner

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