Historical Letters

When good-natured but accident-prone Ruth Caldwell moves from the East to California, she finds adventure, love, and God's protection from peril.

Cathy Marie Hake is author of over 30 Christian romances and has won many honors, including the Inspirational Readers Choice award.

A heartbreaking letter. A girl locked away. A mystery to be solved. 1956. When Ivy Jenkins falls pregnant she is sent in disgrace to St Margaret's, a dark, brooding house for unmarried mothers. Her baby is adopted against her will. Ivy will never leave. Present day. Samantha Harper is a journalist desperate for a break. When she stumbles on a letter from the past, the contents shock and move her. The letter is from a young mother, begging to be rescued from St Margaret's. Before it is too late.

The death of one’s spirit should come with a great deal of noise: weeping and wailing, if not thunder or the roar of a fire. Elizabeth could not have imagined a spirit forced into darkness by something so mundane as the scratch of pen on paper. Elizabeth Bennet has been certain of many things in her life: her place in society, the love of her family, her ability to choose her own future, and her ability to accurately judge the character of those she meets. Three days after the Netherfield Ball, a near tragedy shakes that foundation.

One day, 14-year-old Sophie Amundsen comes home from school to find two notes in her mailbox, with one question on each: "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" From that irresistible beginning, Sophie becomes obsessed with questions that take her far beyond what she knows of her Norwegian village. Through those letters, she enrolls in a kind of correspondence course, covering Socrates to Sartre, with a mysterious philosopher, while receiving letters addressed to another girl.

On the eve of a world war, a forbidden love will blossom in the garden of a stately home, where one young woman will make a choice that will change her life forever. As the storm clouds of war gather, Cordelia seeks refuge in the grounds of her family estate. Handsome landscaper Isaac has recently arrived to tend to the gardens, and the connection between him and Cordelia is as immediate as it is forbidden. Isaac begins to secretly teach her how to cultivate the gardens, so when he and all the young men are called away to war, Cordelia takes over.

1883. Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his tiny London apartment to find a gold pocket watch on his pillow. Six months later, the mysterious timepiece saves his life, drawing him away from a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker, Keita Mori, a kind, lonely immigrant from Japan. Although Mori seems harmless, a chain of unexplainable events soon suggests he must be hiding something. When Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist, unwittingly interferes, Thaniel is torn between opposing loyalties.

A sophisticated, pause-resisting double love story spanning 40 years-an unforgettable Brief Encounter for our times. It is 1960. When Jennifer Stirling wakes up in the hospital, she can remember nothing-not the tragic car accident that put her there, not her husband, not even who she is. She feels like a stranger in her own life until she stumbles upon an impassioned letter, signed simply "B", asking her to leave her husband. Years later, in 2003, a journalist named Ellie discovers the same enigmatic letter in a forgotten file in her newspaper's archives.

What happens when two little sisters become self-appointed matchmakers? Best friends Tillie and Lula are tired of watching Tillie’s older sister and Lula’s older brother admire each other from afar. Determined to bring their siblings together, they hatch a most brilliant plan. After all, it’s perfectly acceptable to indulge in mischief if it’s for a good cause, right? Meredith Waller has an excellent reputation as a wedding dress seamstress in the frontier town of Ellis Creek in 1880s Montana Territory. There’s just one problem: all of the wedding dresses she has sewn have been for others.

When the tragic death of her gamester father leaves her destitute and alone, society beauty Sylvia Stafford finds work as a governess in a merchant's household in Cheapside. Isolated from the fashionable acquaintance of her youth, she resigns herself to lonely spinsterhood, until a mysterious visitor convinces her to temporarily return to her former life - and her former love.

Countess Amelia Amesbury has her work cut out. As well as balancing her alter ego—secret advice columnist, Lady Agony—and the blackmailer threatening to reveal her real identity, her sister has also announced she's getting married. It's joyous news, but places all the planning for a high society wedding firmly at Amelia's door. Luckily, her good friend and local vicar Mr. Cross has agreed to the expedited nuptials, so that's one less thing to worry about. Until Cross is found dead at the church. Now in between bridal arrangements, Amelia must follow the clues Mr. Cross left behind.

Former correspondents E. and Henerey, accustomed to loving each other from afar, did not anticipate continuing their courtship in an enigmatic underwater city. When their journey through the Structure in E.'s garden strands them in a peculiar society preoccupied with the pleasures and perils of knowledge, E. and Henerey come to accept—and, more surprisingly still, embrace—the fact that they may never return home.

In The Letter of Marque, Jack is once again aboard his beloved Surprise but stripped of his post captaincy for a crime he did not commit. Bought by Stephen, the Surprise has become a privateer. Sailing into French waters, the two concoct a desperate mission which, if successful, may redeem Aubrey from his state of disgrace.

Upon returning to the city of Khelathra-Ven after five years fighting a war in another universe, Captain John Wyndham finds himself looking for somewhere to live, and expediency forces him to take lodgings at 221b Martyrs Walk. His new housemate is Miss Shaharazad Haas, a consulting sorceress of mercurial temperament and dark reputation.

Helen Codrington is unhappily married. Emily 'Fido' Faithfull hasn’t seen her once-dear friend for years. After bumping into Helen on the streets of Victorian London, Fido finds herself reluctantly helping her to carry on an affair with a young army officer. The women’s friendship quickly unravels amid courtroom accusations of adultery, counter-accusations of cruelty and attempted rape, and the appearance of a mysterious 'sealed letter' that could destroy more than one life….

Carmel, a forty year old Irish woman is living a life that’s fine, not exciting or awful, just fine. She has a house, a husband, it’s all ok. She never had kids, but that’s just life, right? She knows she should be grateful. She’s better off than a lot of people. Then one day, out of the blue, she gets a Facebook message, from a total stranger. With information that could transform her life, for better or for much worse.

Lt. Mellie Blake is looking forward to beginning her training as a flight nurse. She is not looking forward to writing a letter to a man she’s never met - even if it is anonymous and part of a morale-building program. Lt. Tom MacGilliver, an officer stationed in North Africa, welcomes the idea of an anonymous correspondence - he’s been trying to escape his infamous name for years. As their letters crisscross the Atlantic, Tom and Mellie develop a unique friendship despite not knowing the other’s true identity. When both are transferred to Algeria, the two are poised to meet face-to-face for the first time.

Considered his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter is Hawthorne's story of Hester Prynne and her daughter, Pearl, conceived through an adulterous affair with a Puritan pastor in 17th century Boston. From start to finish, the book explores the themes of law, guilt, and sin. Since its appearance in 1850, this magnificent book has been a perennial favorite among young and old, though it was extremely controversial when it was first published.

In 1959, Hollywood ingenue Mercy Welles seems to have the world at her feet. Far removed from her Nebraska roots, she has crafted herself into a glamorous Oscar-nominated actress engaged to an up-and-coming director… Until she shockingly vanishes without a trace, just as her career is taking off. Almost sixty years later, Kit O’Neill, a junior television producer in Manhattan, is packing up her recently deceased grandmother’s attic, only to discover a long-lost box of souvenirs that reveal that the grandmother who raised her and her sister was, in fact, the mysterious Mercy Welles.

England, 1575. The inn yards of London are closed due to plague and the playing troupe, The Earl of Worcester's Men, are on the road, touring the market towns of the Midlands. When Tyburn accidentally intercepts a coded letter from a hidden Jesuit priest in Warwickshire, he is entangled in a murderous and deadly conspiracy. Stalked by unknown enemies, he must race to uncover the conspirators and hunt down the Jesuit to clear his name... or die a traitor's death.

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history....Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of-a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history.