Deep within the whispering pines of Alaska lived a young man named Chris and his daughter, Sapphire. In the five years since he lost the love of his life, Samantha, life just hasn’t been the same. As the years pass, Chris continues his work as a tree farmer and volunteer firefighter. One day after working, he receives a call from dispatch to head to an alarm fire. This is where he meets a beautiful woman named Destiny and her daughter, Holly. Feeling bad for the two, he finds them a place to live at his parent’s bed and breakfast. Slowly, Chris begins to let his guard down and his heart soften. This story is filled with romance and surprises as Chris realizes the journey you take can lead you on a path you never thought was possible—everlasting true love.
"When otherworldly forces descend on their town of Whispering Pines, conspiracy theorist Rae, who's searching for her lost father, and Caden, who's haunted by the ghost of his brother, must band together to save their home"--Provided by publisher.
A moving and powerful story about brother and sister, Joe and Annie, who flee from a pitiful existence as servants. They embark on a tough and perilous journey to Manchester in search of their mother who was forced to leave them at the workhouse when they were very young. Their future is tainted by the horrors of their past and as Annie is increasingly troubled by spirits, Joe is forced to make a tough decision. Driven by the lust for freedom, he sells Annie to a fair owner who plans to use her as a medium, and sets about creating a new identity for himself on the streets of Manchester. But the voices of the past won't leave Joe alone and ultimately he finds himself gravitating back to Annie and their original quest to discover the whereabouts of their mother.
Jim Downing is a seventy-year-old man living in a nursing home in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He is not there by choice, but his poor health has required it. For different reasons, he never married and is alone in the world. His family lives far from him and is unable to assist him in any way. His life takes a quick change when a new health professional enters into his life and squelches the cynical ways he has developed over the ten years at Whispering Pines. Oddly enough, he develops a love for her, but feels he must hide it for fear of being seen simply as an old man infatuated with a younger woman. But when a miraculous event occurs later in Jim's life, he gets another chance at living and finding a true love. Author Dr. Morris Paschall is new to the fictional writing scene. For the most part, his writing has been confined to numerous human interest stories for a local newspaper and articles for educational purposes. He earned doctorate from a Texas University and has spent most of his professional life as an administrator at a community college in the same state. His experience in both the private and public educational scenes has given him opportunities to view different personalities at many age levels. Those experiences have helped him develop the characters in this book.
When Sam's best friend gets her first boyfriend, she's not ready to spend the summer listening to the two of them call each other "pookie." Sick of being a third wheel, Sam applies to be a counselor-in-training at Whispering Pines camp in the New York Catskills. But what she doesn't realize is that it's not going to be all Kumbaya sing-alongs and gooey s'mores. If Ashley, the alpha queen of Whispering Pines, doesn't ruin Sam's summer, then her raging crush on the surfer-blond and flirtatious Hunter just might. At least she has playful Cole, who's always teasing her, but is oh-so-comfortable to hang out with, and the singular gang of girls that become fast friends with Sam-they call themselves the Sleepaway Girls.
A rich romp through untold American history featuring fabulous characters, The Wild Vine is the tale of a little-known American grape that rocked the fine-wine world of the nineteenth century and is poised to do so again today. Author Todd Kliman sets out on an epic quest to unravel the mystery behind Norton, a grape used to make a Missouri wine that claimed a prestigious gold medal at an international exhibition in Vienna in 1873. At a time when the vineyards of France were being ravaged by phylloxera, this grape seemed to promise a bright future for a truly American brand of wine-making, earthy and wild. And then Norton all but vanished. What happened? The narrative begins more than a hundred years before California wines were thought to have put America on the map as a wine-making nation and weaves together the lives of a fascinating cast of renegades. We encounter the suicidal Dr. Daniel Norton, tinkering in his experimental garden in 1820s Richmond, Virginia. Half on purpose and half by chance, he creates a hybrid grape that can withstand the harsh New World climate and produce good, drinkable wine, thus succeeding where so many others had failed so fantastically before, from the Jamestown colonists to Thomas Jefferson himself. Thanks to an influential Long Island, New York, seed catalog, the grape moves west, where it is picked up in Missouri by German immigrants who craft the historic 1873 bottling. Prohibition sees these vineyards burned to the ground by government order, but bootleggers keep the grape alive in hidden backwoods plots. Generations later, retired Air Force pilot Dennis Horton, who grew up playing in the abandoned wine caves of the very winery that produced the 1873 Norton, brings cuttings of the grape back home to Virginia. Here, dot-com-millionaire-turned-vintner Jenni McCloud, on an improbable journey of her own, becomes Norton’s ultimate champion, deciding, against all odds, to stake her entire reputation on the outsider grape. Brilliant and provocative, The Wild Vine shares with readers a great American secret, resuscitating the Norton grape and its elusive, inky drink and forever changing the way we look at wine, America, and long-cherished notions of identity and reinvention.
This unique edition of carefully collected detective mysteries has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. That Affair Next Door Lost Man's Lane The Circular Study The Leavenworth Case A Strange Disappearance X Y Z: A Detective Story Hand and Ring The Mill Mystery The Forsaken Inn Cynthia Wakeham's Money Agatha Webb One of My Sons The Filigree Ball The Millionaire Baby The Chief Legatee' The Woman in the Alcove The Mayor's Wife The House of the Whispering Pines Three Thousand Dollars Initials Only Dark Hollow The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow The Old Stone House and Other Stories A Memorable Night The Black Cross A Mysterious Case Shall He Wed Her? A Difficult Problem The Gray Madam The Bronze Hand Midnight in Beauchamp Row The Staircase at the Hearts Delight The Hermit of ——— Street Room Number 3 The Ruby and the Caldron The Little Steel Coils The Amethyst Box The Thief The House in the Mist The Golden Slipper The Second Bullet An Intangible Clue The Grotto Spectre The Dreaming Lady The House of Clocks The Doctor, His Wife, and The Clock Missing: Page Thirteen ... Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) was an American poet and novelist. Green has been called "the mother of the detective novel". Her main character was detective Ebenezer Gryce of the New York Metropolitan Police Force, but in three novels he is assisted by the nosy society spinster Amelia Butterworth, the prototype for Miss Marple. She also invented the 'girl detective': in the character of Violet Strange, a debutante with a secret life as a sleuth. Indeed, as journalist Kathy Hickman writes, Green "stamped the mystery genre with the distinctive features that would influence writers from Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle to contemporary authors of suspenseful "whodunits". She was one of the first writers of detective fiction in America and distinguished herself by writing well plotted, legally accurate stories.
Summer has finally arrived and fifteen-year-old Harper McCallister intends to spend her days at the mall shopping or by the pool at her country club. But after receiving her latest heart-stopping credit card bill, Harper's parents makes other plans, and ship her off to camp. Suddenly, the clueless yet ever-popular Harper is the new girl at the bottom of a social ladder she can't climb in wedge sandals and expensive clothes. She seems to be winning over super-cute camp "Lifer" Ethan, though, and if she can manage to make a few friends--and stay out of trouble--she just might find a whole new summer state of mind. A fresh and funny summer-camp companion novel to Jen Calonita's hit Sleepaway Girls.
Heidi Lang’s novel Wrong Way Summer is a moving summer road-trip story for fans of Crenshaw and The Someday Birds. A Junior Library Guild Selection Claire used to love her dad’s fantastical stories, especially tales about her absent mom—who could be off with the circus or stolen by the troll king, depending on the day. But now that she’s 12, Claire thinks she’s old enough to know the truth. When her dad sells the house and moves her and her brother into a converted van, she’s tired of the tall tales and refuses to pretend it’s all some grand adventure, despite how enthusiastically her little brother embraces this newest fantasy. Claire is faced with a choice: Will she play along with the stories her dad is spinning for her little brother, or will she force her family to face reality once and for all? Equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking, Wrong Way Summer is a road-trip journey and coming-of-age story about one girl’s struggle to understand when a lie is really a lie and when it’s something more: hope. “This is a sweet story about family, truth, protection, friendship, and first crushes . . . Not only does the author construct a story that draws the reader in, she also provides a love and understanding of the art of storytelling.” —School Library Connection
Explore the rich world of the Weird and Strange in the inaugural issue of Strange Stories. Featuring flash and short fiction, film scripts, novelettes and a novella, you'll get all the familiar pulp feelings reading these fresh works from authors around the globe.
