A love letter to those in the midst of the breakdown or a reckoning or a rise. A love letter to the wild ones, to the lost souls, to the free. To the seekers and the lovers of leaving and those intent on finding themselves amidst the rubble. Love letters to you. And always, in the end love letters to myself.
An emotionally raw and resonant story of love, loss, and the enduring power of friendship, following the lives of two young women connected by a home for “fallen girls,” and inspired by historical events. “Home for Erring and Outcast Girls deftly reimagines the wounded women who came seeking a second chance and a sustaining hope.”—Lisa Wingate, author of Before We Were Yours In turn-of-the-20th century Texas, the Berachah Home for the Redemption and Protection of Erring Girls is an unprecedented beacon of hope for young women consigned to the dangerous poverty of the streets by birth, circumstance, or personal tragedy. Built in 1903 on the dusty outskirts of Arlington, a remote dot between Dallas and Fort Worth’s red-light districts, the progressive home bucks public opinion by offering faith, training, and rehabilitation to prostitutes, addicts, unwed mothers, and “ruined” girls without forcibly separating mothers from children. When Lizzie Bates and Mattie McBride meet there—one sick and abused, but desperately clinging to her young daughter, the other jilted by the beau who fathered her ailing son—they form a friendship that will see them through unbearable loss, heartbreak, difficult choices, and ultimately, diverging paths. A century later, Cate Sutton, a reclusive university librarian, uncovers the hidden histories of the two troubled women as she stumbles upon the cemetery on the home’s former grounds and begins to comb through its archives in her library. Pulled by an indescribable connection, what Cate discovers about their stories leads her to confront her own heartbreaking past, and to reclaim the life she thought she'd let go forever. With great pathos and powerful emotional resonance, Home for Erring and Outcast Girls explores the dark roads that lead us to ruin, and the paths we take to return to ourselves.
WINNER OF THE NEW AMERICAN VOICES AWARD LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL FOR EXCELLENCE AND THE JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY TIME, TOWN & COUNTRY, KIRKUS, ELECTRIC LITERATURE AND BOOKPAGE! "Stunning…epic…impressive…It is a pleasure to simply live alongside these characters.”—The New York Times "A deep and powerful love story."—NBC The Today Show "A beautifully written novel. I loved so much in this book: the richly imagined setting, the complicated love story, and the heartbreaking way history can tear apart a family." —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful Set against a changing Singapore, a sweeping novel about one boy’s unique gifts and the childhood love that will complicate the fate of his community and country Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing, preferring to spend his days playing with the neighbor girl, Siok Mei. But when he discovers he has the unique ability to locate bountiful, movable islands that no one else can find, he feels a new sense of obligation and possibility—something to offer the community and impress the spirited girl he has come to love. By the time they are teens, Ah Boon and Siok Mei are caught in the tragic sweep of history: the Japanese army invades, the resistance rises, grief intrudes, and the future of the fishing village is in jeopardy. As the nation hurtles toward rebirth, the two friends, newly empowered, must decide who they want to be, and what they are willing to give up. An aching love story and powerful coming-of-age that reckons with the legacy of British colonialism, the World War II Japanese occupation, and the pursuit of modernity, The Great Reclamation confronts the wounds of progress, the sacrifices of love, and the difficulty of defining home when nature and nation collide, literally shifting the land beneath people’s feet.
Two weary souls find each other against all odds... Ashlyn Rivers left her cheating fiancé behind and moved to Ardor Creek to revamp her life. Done with men in general, she has plenty to focus on, like building her new business and renovating her house for the local haunted homes tour. Falling in love is definitely not on the agenda. Scott Grillo lost his family in a tragic accident several years ago. Still processing the loss, he throws himself into his contracting business, pushing away the loneliness and heartache. When Ashlyn blazes into Scott's life, he turns down her request to renovate her house, vowing to squelch the desire she stirs deep inside. But Ashlyn is a force to be reckoned with and Scott finds himself longing for her embrace each day she remains in Ardor Creek. Can these two disillusioned souls reclaim their hearts and choose to love again? Find out in this steamy small town romance! Welcome to Ardor Creek, the small Pennsylvania town where love is in the air! If you like a grumpy hero, a feisty heroine and steamy romance, this book is your jam. The main character is a widower who discusses the loss of his family so please take note of this before reading. Settle in and fall in love with Ardor Creek today! The Ardor Creek Series (also available as audiobooks) #1: Hearts Reclaimed #2: Illusions Unveiled #3: Desires Uncovered #4: Resolutions Embraced #5: Passions Fulfilled #6: Futures Entwined Search terms: romance, widower, grumpy sunshine, second chance romance, later in life romance, small town romance, first in series, friends to lovers, holiday romance, hot romance, steamy romance * * * * If you’re a fan of Lucy Score, Melanie Harlow, Amy Daws, Kayley Loring, Adriana Locke, Claire Kingsley, & Nicole Snow, the Ardor Creek series is perfect for you!
"A perfect dark cowboy romance. I loved Jake's dominance and pure love for Conor. I loved the estate and ranch. I loved the swoony sexiness. 5 Stars." ~ Pepper Winters, New York Times Bestselling Author I try to forget her. It’s impossible. Growing up together, Conor and I shared all our firsts. First love, first kiss, first... Not all our firsts. We were sixteen the night she was violently assaulted while I helplessly watched. I’ll never forget the sounds of her suffering. Or my inconsolable agony when she left Oklahoma. Years later, she returns to honor our teenage pact. Except the boy she loved is gone, replaced by a ruthless cattle rancher knotted with secrets. She doesn’t know my dark cravings or the trails of sin that lead to her. I don’t deserve her, but one truth remains. She’s mine. Contains: dark cowboy, alpha, dark romance, dominance, country music, western, Oklahoma, rural, small town, ranch, contemporary romance, suspense, murder, abuse, musician, guitar, second chance, coming of age, country boy, country girl
“What does it mean to be lonely?” Thomas Dumm asks. His inquiry, documented in this book, takes us beyond social circumstances and into the deeper forces that shape our very existence as modern individuals. The modern individual, Dumm suggests, is fundamentally a lonely self. Through reflections on philosophy, political theory, literature, and tragic drama, he proceeds to illuminate a hidden dimension of the human condition. His book shows how loneliness shapes the contemporary division between public and private, our inability to live with each other honestly and in comity, the estranged forms that our intimate relationships assume, and the weakness of our common bonds. A reading of the relationship between Cordelia and her father in Shakespeare’s King Lear points to the most basic dynamic of modern loneliness—how it is a response to the problem of the “missing mother.” Dumm goes on to explore the most important dimensions of lonely experience—Being, Having, Loving, and Grieving. As the book unfolds, he juxtaposes new interpretations of iconic cultural texts—Moby-Dick, Death of a Salesman, the film Paris, Texas, Emerson’s “Experience,” to name a few—with his own experiences of loneliness, as a son, as a father, and as a grieving husband and widower. Written with deceptive simplicity, Loneliness as a Way of Life is something rare—an intellectual study that is passionately personal. It challenges us, not to overcome our loneliness, but to learn how to re-inhabit it in a better way. To fail to do so, this book reveals, will only intensify the power that it holds over us.
There are qualities we all yearn to experience in our lives—peace, simplicity, grace, connection, clarity. Yet these qualities evade us because each of them arises from an experience of wholeness, and we live in a culture that enforces divisions within each of us. In Radical Wholeness, Philip Shepherd shows the countless ways in which we are persuaded to separate from the body and live in the head. Disconnected from the body’s intelligence, we also disconnect from the wholeness of the present. This schism within us is the primary source of stress not just in our personal lives, but for the systems of the planet. Drawing from neuroscience, anthropology, physics, the arts, myth, personal stories and his experiences helping people around the world to experience wholeness, Philip Shepherd illuminates what true wholeness means and offers practices designed to help readers soften into the intelligence of the body. Radical Wholeness is a call to action: to recover wholeness and experience a new way of being.
A masterful epic of magic, politics, war, and the power of love and hate—from the renowned author of The Fionavar Tapestry and Children of Earth and Sky. Tigana is the magical story of a beleaguered land struggling to be free. It is the tale of a people so cursed by the black sorcery of a cruel despotic king that even the name of their once-beautiful homeland cannot be spoken or remembered... But years after the devastation, a handful of courageous men and women embark upon a dangerous crusade to overthrow their conquerors and bring back to the dark world the brilliance of a long-lost name...Tigana. Against the magnificently rendered background of a world both sensuous and barbaric, this sweeping epic of a passionate people pursuing their dream is breathtaking in its vision, changing forever the boundaries of fantasy fiction.
A rugged and ruined naval officer comes to claim his bride in an unforgettable tale of love, revenge and redemption from the national bestselling author of Marry in Scandal. Lady Rose Rutherford—rebel, heiress, and exasperated target of the town's hungry bachelors—has a plan to gain the freedom she so desperately desires: she will enter into a marriage of convenience with the biggest prize on the London marriage mart. There's just one problem: the fierce-looking man who crashes her wedding to the Duke of Everingham — Thomas Beresford, the young naval officer she fell in love with and secretly married when she was still a schoolgirl. Thought to have died four years ago he's returned, a cold, hard stranger with one driving purpose—revenge. Embittered by betrayal and hungry for vengeance, Thomas will stop at nothing to reclaim his rightful place, even if that means using Rose—and her fortune—to do it. But Rose never did follow the rules, and as she takes matters into her own unpredictable hands, Thomas finds himself in an unexpected and infuriating predicament: he's falling in love with his wife....
From USA Today Bestselling Author Aly Martinez comes the standalone spin-off of RELEASE featuring Nora Stewart and her journey to happily ever after. Choices. Everyone makes them. From mundane to unimaginable, one choice can change the trajectory of your entire life. My mother's choice was to abandon us with our abusive father. My brother's choice was to go to prison for killing the boy who assaulted his soulmate.Camden Cole's choice was to fall in love with a shattered girl who had absolutely nothing to offer him but heartbreak. It was one summer beneath the trees, but with Camden, I had a place where I belonged. A friend who was always waiting for me. A boy who I caught staring at me more often than not.He was mine, but when the world closed in and secrets exploded all around us, it was my choice to let him go. Choices. Everyone makes them. But mine would ruin us all.Reclaim is a standalone that can be read and enjoyed independently. However, it will contain spoilers for Release.