The #1 New York Times bestselling author and “inspirational fiction superstar” (Publishers Weekly) presents this high stakes love story of danger, passion, and faith. She was a child caught in a riptide in the Caribbean Sea. He was a teenager from the East Coast on vacation with his family. He dove in to save her, and that single terrifying moment changed both of their lives forever. Ten years later Jack Ryder is a daring undercover agent with the FBI and Eliza Lawrence still lives on that pristine island. She’s an untainted princess in a kingdom of darkness and evil, on the brink of a forced marriage with a dangerous neighboring drug lord, a marriage arranged by her father. This time when Jack and Eliza meet, there’s a connection neither of them can explain. Both of their lives are on the line, and once again, the stakes are deadly high. Can they join forces in a complicated and dangerous mission, pretending to have a breathtaking love…without really falling? Sometimes miracles happen not once, but twice…along a distant shore.
On the stormy night of September 16, 1967, young Marine Alvin Simpson faced the terrors of a long night at sea on a Higgins boat during a typhoon. Men all around him were convulsing, sickened by the waves, the cold, and diesel smoke. The trials of that night on the open sea strengthened Alvins faith in God as he remembered to pray the way his grandfather had taught him. And it was this faith that sustained him through the many months and battles yet to come during his time in Vietnam. Distant Shore: A Memoir is the story of Alvins life, written to share with his daughter Tara, her children, and their posterity. He tells his story as an apology to Tara for not being able to answer her questions about Vietnam while she was growing up. His story takes the reader from the streets of Cleveland to the jungles of Vietnam. Alvin shares his own family history and the values he learned growing up in a close-knit African American community. Born on July 4, 1946, Alvin praises his mother for raising him and four siblings as a single parent. He credits his grandfather, a Presbyterian preacher, for being his model of spirituality. Alvins boyhood dream of becoming a Marine became reality when he enlisted after high school graduation. He served with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, 3rd Marine Division in 1967 and 1968 in the Republic of South Vietnam, attaining the rank of Sergeant. After being released from the Marine Corps, Alvin began his college education at The Ohio State University, where he also ran varsity track. He earned his B.S. in Education in 1972 and his M.A. in Education in 1974. Alvins career as a Social Studies teacher for Columbus Public Schools began in 1972. He also coached track and field and was named Coach of the Year in 1996 and 2001. After 32 years of teaching and mentoring students, Alvin retired in 2004. Once a Marine, always a Marine is the credo Alvin lives by. Today he is active in several veterans groups and has journeyed to the Wall many times to pay respects to friends who left the world in Vietnam. We see dimly in the present what is small and what is great. The Present Crisis James Russell Lowell
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Hannah examines whether love and commitment are enough to sustain a marriage when two people who have put their individual dreams on ice get a chance to defrost them . . . in fast-moving prose punctuated by snappy asides.”—People Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young, raised two daughters, and weathered the storms of youth as they built a family. From a distance, their lives look picture perfect. But after the girls leave home, Jack and Elizabeth quietly drift apart. When Jack accepts a wonderful new job, Elizabeth puts her own needs aside to follow him across the country. Then tragedy turns Elizabeth’s world upside down. In the aftermath, she questions everything about her life—her choices, her marriage, even her long-forgotten dreams. In a daring move that shocks her husband, friends, and daughters, she lets go of the woman she has become—and reaches out for the woman she wants to be.
Sara Donati's debut novel, Into the Wilderness, was hailed as "epic in scope, emotionally intense...an enrapturing, grand adventure" (BookPage) and "a captivating saga...definitely the romance of the year when it comes to transcending genre boundaries" (Booklist). Author Diana Gabaldon called it "one of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place." Now, in her second novel, this award-winning master storyteller once again blends fact and fiction, and re-creates her beloved characters from Into the Wilderness in an eloquent, enthralling tale of romance and adventure. Elizabeth and Nathaniel Bonner have settled into their life together at the edge of the New-York wilderness in the winter of 1794 when Elizabeth gives birth to healthy twins. But soon the events in Canada draw Nathaniel far away from his new family. Word has reached them that Nathaniel's father has been arrested by crown officials in British Canada. Nathaniel reluctantly leaves Hidden Wolf Mountain to set out for the distant city, determined to see his father freed. Instead Nathaniel is imprisoned and finds himself in imminent danger of being hanged as an American spy. In a desperate bid to save her husband, Elizabeth bundles her infants and sets out on the long trek to Montreal. Accompanied by her stepdaughter, Hannah, their wise friend Curiosity Freeman, and Runs-from-Bears, a Mohawk warrior and lifelong friend of Nathaniel's, Elizabeth journeys through the snowy wilderness and across treacherous waterways. But she soon discovers that freeing Nathaniel will take every ounce of her courage and inventiveness. It is a struggle that threatens her with the loss of what she loves most: her children. Torn apart, the Bonners must embark on yet another perilous voyage...this time all the way across the ocean to the heart of Scotland, where a wealthy earl claims kinship with Nathaniel's father, Hawkeye. In his heart, the Mahican tribe of Hawkeye's youth is the truest kin he will ever know, just as Nathaniel will always remain loyal to the Mohawk nation. But with this journey a whole new world opens up to Nathaniel and Elizabeth--and a destiny they could never have imagined awaits them.... A sweeping epic of romance and adventure, Dawn on a Distant Shore establishes Sara Donati as one of today's most gifted storytellers. With well-drawn characters and an evocative love story that is intricately woven into the rich history of our nation's past, this extraordinary novel will enthrall readers like few others--and sweep them away to a whole other time and place. A sweeping epic of romance and adventure, Dawn on a Distant Shore establishes Sara Donati as one of today's most gifted storytellers. With well-drawn characters and an evocative love story that is intricately woven into the history of our nation's past, this extraordinary novel will enthrall readers like few others--and sweep them away to a whole other time and place. -->
In an extraordinary blend of narrative history, personal recollection, & oral testimony, the author presents a sweeping history of Asian Americans. He writes of the Chinese who laid tracks for the transcontinental railroad, of plantation laborers in the canefields of Hawaii, of "picture brides" marrying strangers in the hope of becoming part of the American dream. He tells stories of Japanese Americans behind the barbed wire of U.S. internment camps during World War II, Hmong refugees tragically unable to adjust to Wisconsin's alien climate & culture, & Asian American students stigmatized by the stereotype of the "model minority." This is a powerful & moving work that will resonate for all Americans, who together make up a nation of immigrants from other shores.
his admiration for the heroic virtues of their inhabitants, and the mystical strain in his nature, his sense of wonder before the elemental and infinite. These early Monhegan paintings, with their uncompromising clarity, their concentration on the stark forms of the island, and their romantic delight in great expanses of sea, cold northern sky, and brilliant light, were among his most moving works."--Lloyd Goodrich "[We see] Kent's fascination with the wild and remote places of the earth, his admiration for the heroic virtues of their inhabitants, and the mystical strain in his nature, his sense of wonder before the elemental and infinite. These early Monhegan paintings, with their uncompromising clarity, their concentration on the stark forms of the island, and their romantic delight in great expanses of sea, cold northern sky, and brilliant light, were among his most moving works."--Lloyd Goodrich
'An ancient brooding castle... a dispossessed child... a lifelong passion for one errant man... wars, crises and feuds... ' WashINGTON POST. Reay Tannahill's great bestseller is the story of an extraordinary woman's determination to win back her birthright – the remote and beautiful West Highland castle of Kinveil – sold by her father to a Glasgow merchant when she was seven years old. It is also the intricate picture of a family in the heyday of the British Empire, an epic story spanning almost a hundred years and stretching from Edinburgh to the Crimea, from an expanding America to the India of the Raj.
The Distant Shores of Freedom analyses literary works in English written by Vietnamese refugees in the US. Fiction and memoirs by Vietnamese Americans recover stories and memories that are often different from mainstream American ones and that difference enables readers to think of the US war in Vietnam from perspectives that are missing in mainstream representations. Dwelling not only on the war and its aftermaths, Vietnamese American writings also ponder over the existential issues of exile; the idea of home; the pain of marginality and racism; the question of community formation within the US; and the complexity of diasporic lives. Subarno Chattarji raises critical questions such as who gets to speak and write, and to what ends and purposes? Who reads Vietnamese American writings and how can we account for these publications in the US over a period of time? What can and cannot be written or spoken? What is remembered and what is silenced? What traumas and memories are articulated? These questions point towards a larger context of diaspora studies as well as 'the rituals of cultural memory' that complicate our understanding of the Vietnam War and its aftermaths.
Weaving a tapestry of fact and fiction, Sara Donati’s epic novel sweeps us into another time and place . . . and into a breathtaking story of love and survival in a land of savage beauty. It is December of 1792. Elizabeth Middleton leaves her comfortable English estate to join her family in a remote New York mountain village. It is a place unlike any she has ever experienced. And she meets a man unlike any she has ever encountered—a white man dressed like a Native American: Nathaniel Bonner, known to the Mohawk people as Between-Two-Lives. Determined to provide schooling for all the children of the village, Elizabeth soon finds herself locked in conflict with the local slave owners as well as with her own family. Interweaving the fate of the Mohawk Nation with the destiny of two lovers, Sara Donati’s compelling novel creates a complex, profound, passionate portait of an emerging America. Praise for Into the Wilderness “My favorite kind of book is the sort you live in, rather than read. Into the Wilderness is one of those rare stories that let you breathe the air of another time, and leave your footprints on the snow of a wild, strange place. I can think of no better adventure than to explore the wilderness in the company of such engaging and independent lovers as Elizabeth and her Nathaniel.”—Diana Gabaldon “Each time you open a book you hope to discover a story that will make your spirit of adventure and romance sing. This book delivers on that promise.”—Amanda Quick “A beautiful tale of both romance and survival…Here is the beauty as well as the savagery of the wilderness and, at the core of it all, the compelling story of the love of a man and a woman, both for the untamed land and for one another.”—Allan W. Eckert “Lushly written . . . Exemplary historical fiction.”—Kirkus Reviews “Epic in scope, emotionally intense.”—BookPage
Dorothy is a retired schoolteacher who has recently moved to a housing estate in a small village. Solomon is a night-watchman, an immigrant from an unnamed country in Africa. Each is desperate for love. And yet each harbors secrets that may make attaining it impossible. With breathtaking assurance and compassion, Caryl Phillips retraces the paths that lead Dorothy and Solomon to their meeting point: her failed marriage and ruinous obsession with a younger man, the horrors he witnessed as a soldier in his disintegrating native land, and the cruelty he encounters as a stranger in his new one. Intimate and panoramic, measured and shattering, A Distant Shore charts the oceanic expanses that separate people from their homes, their hearts, and their selves.
