Ellie Craig grieves the loss of three infant children, and when long-hidden secrets are brought to light, she must find a way to contact the family of her long-lost father. Meanwhile her husband, Matthew, faces controversy in his church and competition from a new arrival in Beldon Grove, who claims to be both a minister and the son of the town's founder. Will Matthew find the courage to reclaim his church? And will his unexpected travel companion help Ellie's heart mend? Book two in the AT HOME IN BELDON GROVE series, The Promise of Morning engages readers with themes of overcoming tragedy, finding strength to meet daunting challenges, and trusting your heart to love again.
When Branna O'Donnell heads back to Lake Howling, Oregon, she's not sure what to expect. It's a place that holds plenty of memories, both good and bad, but Branna is determined to find some peace there from the demons of her past. However, she soon realizes that living in a small town again comes with complications, and one of them is named Jake McBride. Once the town golden boy, Dr. McBride has returned from Iraq angry and, like her, shouldering a few emotional scars. They strike sparks off each other from the outset, and Branna knows that if she gives in to the attraction between them it's going to result in a world of pain. The problem is she's not sure how to walk away.
Lucy Marsh has lost everything but her determination to provide for her brother and sister. When she realizes her father's death was no accident, she decides to accept a proxy marriage in order to get her siblings out of harm's way. But trouble follows her to Wichita Falls, Texas, and nothing there is as she expected.
As temporary guardian of her sister's two children, big-city magazine columnist Jenna Gardner is forced to face her past. She isn't in Mirror Lake for long before she realizes that everything has changed. And it's not her past throwing her off-kilter now--it's handsome next-door neighbor, Dev McGuire. Though Dev gets under her skin, he quickly proves himself an excellent father figure for the children. Soon he's encouraging Jenna to believe in second chances. But it'll take a leap of faith to believe that her future just might be in Mirror Lake after all.
Devastated by her father's death days after her triumphant graduation from Oberlin College, Amanda Stewart is all alone in the world. To fulfill a promise she made to her father, she resolves to start a school to educate and uplift their race. Sorting through her father's papers, she discovers he had carried on a mysterious correspondence with a plantation in Milford, Georgia. When she arrives in Milford to investigate, the mayor tells her to leave. Virgil Smithson, Milford's mayor, blacksmith and sometimes preacher man with a gift for fiery oratory, doesn't want anything to do with a snobby schoolteacher from up North. He must organize his fellow citizens into a new town and raise his young daughter alone. Still, his troubled past haunts him. He cannot forget the promise he made to his daughter's mother as she died: that their child would learn to read and write. If only he didn't have secrets that the new schoolteacher seems determined to uncover.
Determined to keep a promise to her dying father, win a scholarship to a prestigious art program, thirteen-year-old Maggie buys a tweed coat at a thrift store and ends up with more than she knows what to do with.
Katy Leonard returns to Lark Creek to scatter Gran's ashes in the garden of her home. Alone and jobless, she must find some way to make Rose Cottage a paying concern if she hopes to keep her inheritance. The return of Lark Creek's favourite son, singing sensation, Travis Roberts, offers Katy hope of using his fame to win a spot on a home renovation show. But Travis is battling demons of his own. Injured in a motorbike accident and hiding out in his farmhouse, Travis fears he might never be able to play his music again. Can two people who have lost the most important things in their lives work together to overcome their losses and make a new future for themselves and the place they call home?
Beloved Author Lauraine Snelling Launches New Immigrant Series When Signe, her husband, Rune, and their three boys arrive in Minnesota from Norway to help a relative clear his land of lumber, they dream of owning their own farm and building a life in the New World. But Uncle Einar and Aunt Gird are hard, demanding people, and Signe and her family soon find themselves worked nearly to the bone in order to repay the cost of their voyage. At this rate, they will never have land or a life of their own. Signe tries to trust God but struggles with anger and bitterness. She has left behind the only life she knew, and while it wasn't an easy life, it wasn't as hard as what she now faces. When a new addition to the family arrives, Signe begins to see how God has been watching over them throughout their ordeal. But after all that has happened, can she still believe in the promise of a bright future?
Acting Sheriff Ben Logan hasn't heard from Leigh Somerall in a very long time, but it doesn't mean he can get her--or their whirlwind romance of ten years ago--out of his head. When she calls out of the blue, it is with a strange request to protect her brother, Tony. When Tony dies just days later, Ben is charged with a different task--protecting Leigh and her nine-year-old son, TJ, from the killers. But how can Ben keep an eye on Leigh if she's doing everything in her power to avoid him? And could the secret that Leigh is keeping change Ben's life forever? Suspense, intrigue, and a touch of romance make A Promise to Protect perfect for readers who like their stories with a hearty dose of mystery.
Women in today’s advanced capitalist societies are encouraged to “lean in.” The media and government champion women’s empowerment. In a cultural climate where women can seemingly have it all, why do so many successful professional women—lawyers, financial managers, teachers, engineers, and others—give up their careers after having children and become stay-at-home mothers? How do they feel about their decision and what do their stories tell us about contemporary society? Heading Home reveals the stark gap between the promise of gender equality and women’s experience of continued injustice. Shani Orgad draws on in-depth, personal, and profoundly ambivalent interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to take care of their children while their husbands continued to work in high-powered jobs. Despite identifying the structural forces that maintain gender inequality, these women still struggle to articulate their decisions outside the narrow cultural ideals that devalue motherhood and individualize success and failure. Orgad juxtaposes these stories with media and policy depictions of women, work, and family, detailing how—even as their experiences fly in the face of fantasies of work-life balance and marriage as an egalitarian partnership—these women continue to interpret and judge themselves according to the ideals that are failing them. Rather than calling for women to transform their feelings and behavior, Heading Home argues that we must unmute and amplify women’s desire, disappointment, and rage, and demand social infrastructure that will bring about long-overdue equality both at work and at home.
