Historical Homes

In 1970, Violet Hawkins’ only wish at 18 is to escape her life in the Dayton, Ohio, foster-care system and make her way to the west coast to enjoy a mellow life and find the love she’s been missing all her life. She makes it to San Francisco, but soon learns she needs a job if she’s to live properly.

1943. A German aircraft crashes into a house in Worthing, and causes complete devastation to the local community. Three strangers meet for the first time that day - Pip, Stella and Lillian. Lillian's little girl, Flora, has been hurt in the crash and is rushed to hospital. As she comes through her ordeal, she finds her mother and her two new ‘aunties’ by her bedside.

Ann Scarlet is no thief, but when the Yankee sheriff catches her she might just steal his heart. Ann has a single goal when journeying from her home in Savannah to Red River Rock Falls, Nebraska in 1875: find Whitaker and get back the land deed he stole from her brother. It seems simple enough, until Sheriff Crambert finds her with her hands full of money as she rifles through a pile of land deeds.

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.

A person's past catches up with them when they least expect and often does it in under a minute. Jesse's did. His threw him on a horse in the dark of night, dragging him down to Texas to answer for it. This third book of the ARLH saga dives into Jesse's past and collides head-on with his present, leaving the wayward man questioning all he thought he knew about himself.

Shelby Lenoir Maynard, nicknamed Turtle, has never much trusted girls her own age, spending her days instead with her brother and his pack of friends. But when a mysterious Sri Lankan girl of Moorish descent moves to town, Turtle invites her to their secret haven: the Blue Hole. Turtle could not have imagined how much that simple gesture would alter the rest of her life, or the lives of those she loves. As tensions rise, it becomes clear there are those in Pisgah Ridge who reject the presence of anyone different - and those who would welcome the new refugee family.

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.

Brought to the New World from Ireland, young Joseph Forsyth is soon betrayed by his alcoholic father and separated from his beloved family. As he grows older, he finds his kind nature exploited by others - including an alluring young woman named Lucy - until he gets swept away by the conflict that divides a nation.

The story of Lottie reveals the life of a rare woman who never completely loses the innocence of her dreams - although she leaves home as a prostitute and works the girlie tent in a traveling carnival. Her marriage to Foster and the birth of her son are part of her dream. Having Ben care for her following Foster's death, being accepted into the home of Margaret Phelps, Ben's mother, and meeting Arthur Ledford, the father of Ben's fiancee, are fragments of the dream as well.

Hidden within the depths of the boreal forest lies a secret that could change everything for Ashenee, a young Cree woman born to a traditional family. In her isolated community, they follow the customs and beliefs of their ancestors, blissfully unaware of the countless missing aboriginal women from other nearby communities. As Ashenee embarks on a journey to her mother's village, she begins to sense a foreboding presence, a warning that something is amiss.

The summer of 1939 turned out to be the last summer of author Lucy Lipiner's childhood. On September 1, when she was six years old, her parents roused Lucy and her older sister from their beds, and with other relatives in tow fled their town of Sucha and the invasion by Nazi Germany.

At eight years old, Raeford "Junebug" Hurley has known more than his share of hard lessons. After the sudden death of his parents, he goes to live with his grandparents on a farm surrounded by tobacco fields and lonesome woods. There he meets Fancy Stroud and her twin brother, Lightning, the children of black sharecroppers on a neighboring farm. As years pass, the friendship between Junebug and bright, compassionate Fancy takes on a deeper intensity.

The First World War is over and air mechanic Wally Shiers has promised to return home to his fiancée, Helena Alford. But Wally never reckoned on charismatic fighter pilot Ross Smith and an invitation to compete in the world's most audacious air race. A £10,000 prize has been offered for the first airmen to fly from England to Australia. Smith is banking on an open-cockpit Vickers Vimy, a biplane with a fuselage that looks ominously like a coffin. And who can resist a hero?

When a bitter feud between her father and her employer reveals a secret from the past that threatens to destroy her family, Meriel Evans turns to her lifelong friend Leo for support. Can a young woman overcome the tension between her work and home? Meriel Evans has worked for her father's estate agency ever since she left school. While happy there, she knows she must carve a career of her own, so lands a job with Cwm Derw’s Ace Estate Agency.

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.

The United States has always been a nation of immigrants---never more so than in 1917 when the nation entered the First World War. Of the 2.5 million soldiers who fought with U.S. armed forces in the trenches of France and Belgium, some half a million---nearly one out of every five men---were immigrants. In The Long Way Home, David Laskin, author of the prizewinning history The Children's Blizzard, tells the stories of 12 of these immigrant heroes.

After seven years in prison, Duncan Malone has returned home to Washita, Texas, to reclaim his land that now belongs to strangers. But his homecoming isn't a warm one; his mother lies in a catatonic state, and the residents of Washita aren't taking well to a murderer living amongst them. Franki Taylor is seven-months pregnant, alone, and forced to run her grandfather's farm as he succumbs to pneumonia.

In post-Civil War New York City, sixteen-year-old Aislynn Denehy cannot find a job, she has no place to live and no family to help her. Some might think this is a problem; Aislynn believes it is an opportunity. No formulaic romance, this well-researched love story depicts life as it truly was for the thousands of women who went west reaching for a new life. Aislynn's journey begins in a New York City tenement and leads her across the frontier to a Utah mining camp where she must cope with the three very different men in her life: smart, solicitous Tim; good-natured, good-guy Johnny; and the intense but intriguing Liam Moran. Life in the roughshod camp brings small joys and devastating losses. Susan Denning's engaging debut novel races through authentic experiences involving historical events until it erupts in an unexpected ending.

Trapped in what appears to be an endless bloodbath - vividly presented with Heffernan's meticulous historical research - three boys gradually begin to change until their close-knit childhood ties are little more than a fractured memory. By war's end, one boy is dead, one returns a physically crippled and emotionally compromised man, and the third comes home as an unfeeling psychopath. The novel turns on the subsequent murder of the psychopath, and the offer of redemption for the wounded young man.

In 1958 Detroit, neighbors on Alder Avenue struggle to care for one another amid a city rife with conflicts that threaten their peaceful street. Grace, Alder’s only expectant mother, eagerly awaits her firstborn; her best friend, Julia, prepares to welcome twin nieces; and Malina sets the tone with her stylish dresses, tasteful home, and ironfisted stewardship of St. Alban’s bake sale. Life erupts when childlike Elizabeth disappears while in the care of Grace and Julia. All the ladies fear that the recent murder of a black woman at the factory on Willingham Avenue where their husbands work may portend what has become of Elizabeth.