Born into a world beyond her understanding, Mercy is confused by her childhood experiences of abandonment, neglect, and abuse. She stubbornly questions the cultural expectations and gender inequality for women during the 1960s. Although she struggles with insecurities, she learns to bravely navigate her own destiny and persists in overcoming insurmountable odds. Despite her rigid upbringing, Mercy dreams of a life beyond her beloved Appalachian Mountains, as well as a life-long commitment to locate her birth mother.
Now available for the first time as an eBook, this beloved novel by New York Times bestselling author Nancy Thayer tells the uplifting story of a single mom seeking independence and struggling to find her way. Nell St. John is not living the life she imagined for herself—not by a long shot. She was once a glamorous young actress married to influential director, Marlow St. John. Together, the A-list couple was the toast of the town. But then Marlow’s star fades and tensions at home skyrocket. Marlow takes up with another woman and abandons Nell, leaving her to pay the bills and raise their two boisterous young children. A string of attractive suitors is not the answer to her lack of fulfillment, but what is? When she’s offered a job at a posh clothing boutique on Nantucket, Nell uproots her young family and moves to the island. Soon, her college age ex-stepdaughter Clary, who has her own romantic troubles, moves in with her, and Clary and Nell fall in love with island life and its gentler pace. Nell also captures the attention of an eccentric man about town. And in that carefree, romantic summer of tender passion, she looks within and discovers much more than she ever dreamed possible. Includes a captivating preview of Nancy Thayer’s upcoming novel Nantucket Sisters! Praise for the novels of Nancy Thayer “The queen of beach books.”—The Star-Ledger “Thayer has a deep and masterly understanding of love and friendship, of where the two complement and where they collide.”—Elin Hilderbrand “Thayer’s gift for reaching the emotional core of her characters [is] captivating.”—Houston Chronicle “One of my favorite writers.”—Susan Wiggs “Thayer portrays beautifully the small moments, inside stories and shared histories that build families.”—The Miami Herald “Thayer’s sense of place is powerful, and her words are hung together the way my grandmother used to tat lace.”—Dorothea Benton Frank
The year was 1951, and Nell Peters, just out of high school in the north woods of Wisconsin, was about to join the army. Feeling woefully unworldly, she asked the undertaker's grandson to initiate her into sex before she ventured off. She wasn't in the WACs long before she found herself pregnant and heading home to face the kind of adventure she hadn't looked for. An outrageous fortune, but of a piece with Nell's whole story, from her harrowing birth in a snowstorm to her current occupation running a perpetual garage sale to benefit disabled veterans. Sometimes funny, sometimes gritty, always wildly candid and sexual, this is a remarkable account of a woman's life lived in extremity.
Winner of the 2018 IRDA for fantasy #1 Best Seller in Canadian Dark Fantasy 99% liked it (Goodreads) A deformed genius plots vengeance while struggling to survive. A wastrel prince comes of age, finding a power he never imagined. Two worlds are destined to collide. Only one can be king. "This dark fantasy epic will be held up against George R.R. Martin's masterwork, A Song of Ice and Fire. Read this book now so you can act pompous around your friends when HBO turns it into a television series." - Goodreads "Kings of Paradise presents a brutal world of complex yet simple politics, reminiscent of Game of Thrones. An intriguing low-magic world packed with interesting cultures to be further delved. Nell shows considerable skill in displaying his world distinctly through the eyes of his different characters." - Fantasybookreview.co.uk Ruka, called a demon at birth, is a genius. Born malformed and ugly into the snow-covered wasteland of the Ascom, he was spared from death by his mother's love. Now he is an outcast, consumed with hate for those who've wronged him. But to take his vengeance, he must first survive. Across a vast sea in the white-sand island paradise of Sri Kon, Kale is fourth and youngest son of the Sorcerer King. And at sixteen, Kale is a disappointment. As the first prince ever forced to serve with low-born marines, Kale must prove himself and become a man, or else lose all chance of a worthy future, and any hope to win the love of his life. Though they do not know it, both boys are on the cusp of discovery. Their worlds and lives are destined for greatness, or ruin. But in a changing world where ash meets paradise, only one man can be king... The first installment of an epic, low- fantasy trilogy. Kings of Paradise is a dark, bloody, coming-of-age story shaped by culture, politics, and magic. "The novel's brilliant world works on so many levels; it has a rich political landscape, moral complexity, and immense environmental challenges, all told in beautiful, thoughtful prose." - Indiereader "A must for lovers of fantasy, especially those who enjoy losing themselves in a epic tale." - Reader's Favorite "The world that Mr. Nell has created is pretty incredible. But the thing that really made me love this story was the characters he filled that world with." - Goodreads "If Kale changes, Ruka grows and festers like a storm. Without a doubt, the darker of the two characters, I feel Richard Nell has created a compelling and classic character here." Goodreads
Boston girl Molly Sutton moves to a small village in France to lick her wounds after a divorce. Castillac is charming, the croissants amazing, the wine delectable. Molly's new life is full of contentment, if a bit short on excitement. But then a girl goes missing...and Molly's world gets turned upside down. Truth be told, no one in the village feels safe. They struggle to believe such darkness could exist in a friendly village, where people spend most of their time thinking about nothing more frightening than what to have for lunch. And when the missing girl's distraught parents come to stay at Molly's bed and breakfast, she is drawn into the case, like it or not. Will Molly and the French detective figure out what happened to Amy Bennett before someone else disappears?
When she was twenty-seven, Nell Stevens—a lifelong aspiring novelist—won an all-expenses-paid fellowship to go anywhere in the world to write. Would she choose a glittering metropolis, a romantic village, an exotic paradise? Not exactly. Nell picked Bleaker Island, a snowy, windswept pile of rock in the Falklands. Other than sheep, penguins, paranoia, and the weather, there aren’t many distractions, but as Nell soon discovers, total isolation and 1,085 calories a day are far from ideal conditions for literary production. With deft humor, this memoir traces her island days and slowly reveals the life and people she has left behind in pursuit of her writing. It seems that there is nowhere she can run—an island or the pages of her notebook—to escape the big questions of love, art, and, ambition.
As compelling as fiction, The Mystery of Beautiful Nell Cropsey tells the dramatic story of the disappearance of nineteen-year-old Nell Cropsey from her riverside home in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, in November 1901. Bloodhounds, detectives, divers, and even a psychic were brought in to search for her, and the case immediately became a national sensation. Bland Simpson, who first heard the tale as an Elizabeth City schoolboy, weaves this true story into a colorful nonfiction account, told in three first-person voices: Nell's sister Ollie; famous newspaper editor W. O. Saunders, who covered the case as a young reporter; and Jim Wilcox, Nell's beau, who was implicated in the case. Nell and Jim's romance, her disappearance, the great search, the trials, and their aftermath are artfully reconstructed from interviews, court records, and newspaper accounts.
Although the book is scholarly in approach, its plain and lively style, its original theories and its new treatment of Dickens' female characters ensures its accessibility and appeal to the general reader as well as to the specialist student.
A New York Times Bestseller This terrific new book…[explores] the ‘notion of whiteness,’ an idea as dangerous as it is seductive." —Boston Globe Telling perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history, eminent historian Nell Irvin Painter guides us through more than two thousand years of Western civilization, illuminating not only the invention of race but also the frequent praise of “whiteness” for economic, scientific, and political ends. A story filled with towering historical figures, The History of White People closes a huge gap in literature that has long focused on the non-white and forcefully reminds us that the concept of “race” is an all-too-human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed as it has been driven by a long and rich history of events.
