"An intense, powerful novel of love and loss, deception and deliverance."-Nancy Haddock, national bestselling author of Always The VampireHannah cannot move on.She pines for Jacob, the boy who saved her life when she drowned, bringing her back from the brink of death by breathing life into her.But Jacob is gone now, buried.Levi's love for Hannah burns just as strong. But he knows how much Hannah loved his brother Jacob. He also knows the troubling event that took Jacob out of their lives. And he lives with that lie every day.So when a stranger named Akiva comes to their community, he carries with him two secrets that will change their lives forever: he is in fact Jacob, whom Hannah had lost. And he is now a vampire.When passions stir and secrets are revealed, Hannah must choose between light and dark, between the one she has always loved and the new possibility of love. But it's more than a choice of passion; it's a decision that will determine the fate of her soul.Praise for Plain Fear: Forsaken"This is a haunting, heartbreaking story told with such beauty and intensity, it took my breath away. You don't want to miss this one!" -Lenora Worth, author of the New York Times bestseller Body of Evidence "In a word...captivating. Leanna Ellis creates a world seemingly simplistic but teeming with complexity. Her take on vampires is fresh, dark, and at times heartbreaking. Forsaken is a book you won't want to miss." -Elisabeth Naughton, author of Tempted"Leanna Ellis has written an emotionally powerful story with an unusual twist to the vampire legend." -Nina Bangs, USA Today Bestselling Author"With Forsaken, Leanna Ellis takes readers on a thrilling journey to the dark side of Amish life and beyond. Leanna Ellis's keen eye for detail, sensitive prose and knowledge of the Amish brings Forsaken to vivid, wonderful life. Forsaken exemplifies the ultimate literary juxtaposition of good and evil, and is made all the more powerful by Ellis's ability to paint a vivid and realistic picture Amish life." -Linda Castillo, New York Times bestselling authorAbout the AuthorLeanna Ellis is the winner of the National Readers' Choice Award and Romance Writers of America's Golden Heart Award. She has written numerous books for Harlequin/Silhouette and has published four books with B&H Publishing. She lives in Texas with her husband, two children, and wide assortment of pets.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Her heart leapt, fluttering and gaining strength at the whisper of her name. Hannah Schmidt shifted and stirred under her quilt. "Jacob?" His name came to her lips like a repeated prayer. "Jacob."She sat up and looked around the small, unadorned room. Shadows hung like curtains, heavy and oppressive, leaving the room dark as the soul. She held her breath, waiting to hear the voice again, but it didn't come.After a few minutes, she shoved off the quilt and sat on the edge of her single, narrow bed, her back rigid as she listened to the house settling around her. Dat's snores rose upward through the floorboards in a low, rhythmic rumbling from her parents' downstairs bedroom. Her little sister, Katie, slept down the hallway, and in the next bed Rachel, her older sister by two years, slept peacefully, her dreams probably filled with details of her upcoming wedding. The thought twisted in Hannah's stomach like a knife, the smooth edge slicing away at her own unrealized dreams.Lifting the green shade covering the window, Hannah stared out at the night blanketing the countryside, the frost forming along the rows of dried corn stalks and empty fields. Its coolness seeped through her nightclothes and raised chill bumps along her skin.Hannah. The voice whispered in her head again. Come to me.The tightness in her chest eased at the sound of the now familiar voice. The first time she'd heard the whispering, she'd jumped, looked around, searched for the source. Was it on the wind or in her head? Was it her imagination or something more? Someone calling to her...maybe even from the grave? Jacob.Now, the voice called, and she obeyed.She dressed quickly, her fingers fastening the straight pins with practiced precision, and she moved across the room and knelt in front of the cedar hope chest. Lifting the lid, she pushed aside a quilt she'd begun making when Jacob left on his cross-country trek, every stitch purposed with the belief that they would lay beneath it together as husband and wife, but the seams remained unfinished, the quilt squares unattached. At the bottom of the chest was a flashlight and a slim, hardcover book, both of which she laid in her lap and tucked her apron around in a makeshift pocket, securing the ends of the apron in the waist, then she closed the lid without a sound and slipped out of the room.Careful on the stairs, she avoided each step that creaked and groaned. Dat's snores grew louder as she descended. Stealing through the kitchen past the wooden slab table, the lone calendar on the wall set to October, the propane-fueled refrigerator, she came to a drawer and hesitated only a moment before tugging it open slowly and quietly. She selected a carving knife, the blade sharp, which pricked her dress material as it clinked against the flashlight in her apron, the heavy handle knocking against her belly.When she stepped outside onto the back porch, the coolness of the night made her shiver, but she tiptoed down the steps, careful not to make a sound and awaken her grandfather, who lived in the smaller attached house. The ruts of the gravel drive guided her toward Slow Gait Road, and her footsteps crunched too loudly in the stillness. The cooling air brushed her face like a caress. She should have worn her coat, but it was too late to go back. She didn't want to be late in case he was waiting for her.Darkness shadowed her and with it came uneasiness. On her father's farm, she felt safe, but stepping beyond its boundaries gave her an eerie uncertainty. But nothing would hold her back. At the end of the lane, she pulled the small flashlight from her apron and continued down the dirt road, the beam of yellow light arcing over the bits of dried grass and buggy wheel tracks. Overhead an abundance of stars, like angelic hosts, peeked through the parting clouds to watch over her.At the juncture in the road, she detoured across a field, passing a giant oak and three small bushes that, come next summer, would produce blueberries, and she took a path she'd traveled often. She came to a wooden fence and hoisted herself over its rails. The knife, still buried in her apron, clunked against the wood and the point jabbed her hip. Hooking her leg around the top rail, she grabbed the knife and held it with one hand while she clambered down the other side.She had never felt more alive, her heart palpitating, every nerve vibrating, her ears sensitive to every crunch of footstep, every rattle of leaf in the wind. She listened fiercely for his voice, his direction. She watched for any shadow, shift, or sudden appearance.The circle of light from the flashlight bounced jerkily with each step, then settled on the solid granite tombstones, small and plain and jutting out of the field, many leaning from the weight of years. She walked among them as if those buried there were only sleeping and whispered hello to friends and relatives, even Grandma Ruth, sliding her finger along the top of the stone as a gentle greeting.When she was a young girl, she had come here for her friend Grace's grandfather's funeral and wondered what it would be like to speak to these souls now that they had moved on from this life. Was their pain gone as the Bible promised? Every tear wiped away by the hand of God? Or were they only asleep, nestled in their caskets, awaiting a holy touch or a sacred trumpet blast?She had imagined lying several feet under the topsoil, nestled inside her own casket in the dark, hearing the footsteps of friends and loved ones overhead, hearing their whispered prayers, their questions and confessions. Of course, Dat said all of those buried here were not really in this place because their souls had moved on. And yet...still...even now, she wondered.One day after Jacob had returned from his journey to New Orleans, his determination to be baptized fierce, his devotion equal, she had mentioned these wonderings to him. He hadn't dismissed her questions exactly but had only said, "There's much we don't understand, Hannah."A week later, he had joined the company of the dearly departed.Now, with her path direct and certain, she moved toward his grave.But a noise from behind stopped her. Was it a cricket lamenting the end of warm weather? Surely by this time of year the crickets were long gone. Had she heard something else? Her ears strained, her heart yearned. She glanced back and swung the light around, arcing it over the grave markers. The emptiness of the field beyond proved her foolishness. Of course, Jacob wasn't here. It was impossible. But maybe...just maybe she'd hear his voice again.She knelt beside the granite in the thick, dry grass and planted the butt of the flashlight at the base of the marker. Pale yellow light slanted upward across the carved name: Jacob Fisher.Leaning against the stone slab, she pulled the small book from her apron. Jacob had given it to her years ago and had often read to her as they sat in the barn's loft or beneath the shade of an elm or along the creek, their feet submerged in cool water. The cover was worn, the edges slightly frayed, and her hand trembled as she turned the thick pages. The poems spoke of love and loss and echoed what was in her heart. She began reading aloud the words that had become so familiar to her: "Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young..."Her throat tightened, and she paused. Living without Jacob made her life feel empty and incomplete, like a well gone dry-no longer useful, no longer worth anything. A wind stirred the brittle grass and the hair at her nape, drying the sweat from her vigorous walk and giving her a shivering chill. Again, she glanced over her shoulder, not from fear but hope. One day she would turn around and find him standing there, watching her, smiling at her. He would somehow come for her.Oh, come, Jacob. Come back. Views: 53
Tyneside, 1923 Catherine McMullen, or Kitty as she is known, is seventeen, restless and rebellious. Resentful of her mother Kate's new husband, she yearns for stories of the father she never knew. Catherine is sure he must have been special as her mother risked everything for him. But when her gossipy aunt divulges that he was a wealthy gentleman, it only serves to heighten Catherine's discontent with Jarrow - the grimy, impoverished town she calls home. Eager to catch a glimpse of the lifestyle that might have been hers, Catherine takes a position as a lady's companion in a grand house. But her illusions are shattered when she realises she has been employed as no more than a skivvy. She decides to try for a job as an officer in charge of the laundry at the notorious workhouse. There her young eyes are confronted with the horrors and indignities of poverty, and she becomes even more determined to rise above her wretched surroundings. Braving the ridicule of fellow staff, Catherine embarks on a quest for knowledge. Soon the ill-educated and streetwise Kitty McMullen is a ghost from the past, and the well-spoken, well-read Catherine leaves the north-east to follow her dreams. But hardship and heartbreak are not far behind, and there are battles to be fought and won before the child of Jarrow finally comes home. Views: 53
Ferguson is the most brilliant British historian of his generation ...
he writes with splendid panache The Times One of the world's leading
historians -- Hamish McRae Independent [Praise for The Ascent of Money]
Beautifully written... Breathtakingly clever -- Martin Van Weyer Sunday
Telegraph [Praise for The Ascent of Money] The tales he tells of boom
and bust, of triumph and disaster, of bubbles that inflate... are the
very essence of financial history -- Bill Emmott Financial Times
[Praise for The Ascent of Money] An often enlightening and enjoyable
tour through the underside of great events, a lesson in how the most
successful great powers have always been underpinned by smart money Views: 53
*More and more every day I find myself drawn into the puzzle of her speech, determined to unravel meaning in each sentence, because now I'm sure it's there, if I only listen to her in a way I have failed to listen for thirty years. - From Vital Signs* by Tessa McWattAfter thirty years of marriage, producing three now-grown children, Mike and Anna have settled into entrenched domesticity. She is skillful and poised and still beautiful, an instructor of English at the city college. He is a successful graphic artist on the verge of retirement, his awards and ambitions and accomplishments largely behind him. Though the couple's erotic life has dimmed somewhat, he still considers her ravishing. But their apparent balance is thrown asunder when Anna breaks the normal silence of their breakfast table with uncontrollable babble about hummingbirds. After an emergency consultation with a neurologist, they have a diagnosis: confabulation, or the scrambling of time, memories and language due to a dangerous aneurysm in Anna's brain that could burst at any moment. Not knowing how much time they have left with the beloved Anna, Mike and the kids rally together to support her through the terror of her disintegrating mind. But the unbearable strain of the situation is worsened by another worry that is haunting Mike: he suspects that his two eldest children, Charlotte and Fred, know of his past infidelity.Several years ago, Anna and Mike took a trip to Egypt, hoping the shared adventure would thwart their mid-life marriage blues. Instead, the trip deepened the chasm, his sexual jealousy and insecurities swamping her attempts at intimacy. Their estrangement worsened when they returned home to discover that their youngest daughter, Sasha, was in hospital, having overdosed on drugs. Anna was furious with Mike for his cool response at the time, which she interpreted as unfeeling. Two weeks later Mike began his affair, with a much younger woman dissimilar to Anna in all respects. He persisted in the romance for three years, feeling young and vital and once again in control, at least for a time.The affair is long over but today, as Anna disappears into a terrifying collapse of time and language, Mike is wracked by his dilemma: should he keep his silence about the affair and spare his family more pain, or should he seize the opportunity to be wholly honest with the woman he loves, possibly in the last days of her life? Perhaps the answer lies in his drawings, the means of communication with which he is most comfortable. Can he codify his emotions into pictures? Can he articulate his love and regret and sorrow to his wife - and to himself - without having to say the heart-rending words out loud?Narrated by a terrified male protagonist whose deep yearning for forgiveness might only be granted by a woman in the grips of dementia, Tessa McWatt's Vital Signs is a thought-provoking and mesmerizing literary accomplishment - a compassionate and visceral study of a marriage at the brink of catastrophe. Views: 53
Mrs Ali’s much loved home is suddenly under threat – a road widening scheme threatens to destroy both it and the family business, the Marriage Bureau for Rich People. Meanwhile, Mrs Ali’s niece, Pari, a young Muslim widow, adopts a destitute Hindu boy, and this unorthodox arrangement offends both Muslim and Hindu in the sleepy eastern Indian town of Vizag. The Ali family are plunged into crisis, threated by police action, social boycott and excommunication. There is one plan that might just keep Pari and her son together, and the home Mr and Mrs Ali have shared for many years intact, but it’s a desperate gamble. Do they risk everything for a small chance of success? But can they afford not to? Views: 53
Nick Bailey considers himself a hardboiled reporter for London's hungriest tabloid. But even Bailey is left reaching for answers when he gets a midnight assignment to investigate a body hanging from the infamous Blackfriars Bridge. Someone, it seems, is killing priests, and a mystery that will serve up much more than headlines is the latest twist in a deadly conspiracy, one centuries in the making, a plot that will reach all the way to the South Lawn of the White House.In this tale of intrigue and bitter religious rivalry, Ray O'Hanlon sets a conflict that has simmered for four hundred years on a collision course with an American President and a British Prime Minster who are battling a present day crisis that threatens global peace. Both are confronting an uncertain future. But it's what is coming at them from the distant past that poses the greatest danger, a threat to their very lives.From Publishers WeeklyIn Irish Echo editor O'Hanlon's first novel, a shaky assassination thriller, tabloid reporter Nick Bailey gets a tip about the police discovery of a dead priest found hanging off London's Blackfriars Bridge, where Roberto Calvi, a banker implicated in a Vatican financial scandal, died similarly in 1982. Bailey learns that another priest belonging to the same order also apparently took his own life several months earlier. As the journalist pursues his inquiries, the author throws in a number of other story lines, including the schemes of a group of London businessmen in 1607 to realign England politically with Catholic Spain, the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, and a plan to kill the American president on the White House grounds. Readers will wonder how it all turns out, but they may feel cheated by the end. 5-city author tour. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved. Review“The South Lawn Plot has everything a good thriller could want – duplicitous politicians and secretive priests, a body dangling under Blackfriars Bridge, and a canny reporter who thinks he has seen it all, but hasn't. A splendid page-turner.” -Benjamin Black, New York Times bestselling author of Christine Falls and Elegy for April"...a marvelous novel, with a layered, hard-driving narrative, vivid characters, abiding mysteries, and the past that has not passed."-Pete Hamill, New York Times bestselling author of A Drinking Life and Forever"There's a lot to recommend here…. [A] tangled plot whose strands gradually twine together to create a rope of intrigue that may be too strong to be broken. Throw in MI5, MI6 and a few American agencies and you've got a potboiler. A very satisfying read." -Suspense Magazine"The South Lawn Plot is an altogether more thought provoking book than most of its genre. Pulse pounding for sure, but also introspective and delighting in its brilliantly assembled plot twists. Most thrillers can entertain, but O'Hanlon's has the added power to surprise and unsettle." -The Irish Voice"For those who like their history mixed with religion and presented as a murderous puzzle that keeps exploding in our own tormented time, this will be a book to remember and even treasure.” -Thomas Fleming, New York Times bestselling author of The Intimate Lives of the Founding Fathers“A far flung thriller set in contemporary times and in England, just after the Gunpowder Plot. A fast-paced page-turner. O'Hanlon takes the reader around the globe, casting his mind to an Irish hillside, the countryside of Essex, the back alleys of London, a Taipei penthouse and the corridors of power at No. 10 Downing St. and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. What follows is a cavalcade of characters and details that lead, whether from the 1600s or the 21st century, to the American president's residence. It might remind some of "The Da Vinci Code" or the works of Michael Connelly.” -The (Gannett) Journal News."With his debut novel, Ray O’Hanlon has placed himself somewhere between Dan Brown and Michael Connelly within the realm of suspense writing....[He] has formed a fascinating world of words; I look forward to his next one." - Irish America Magazine Views: 53
What's better than a wedding? Four weddings! Meet the women of Vows, Connecticut's most fabulous event planners, who know how to create the perfect celebration—but have to face their own jitters when it's their turn to walk down the aisle. Set a date with the #1 New York Times bestselling series filled with a "likable cast" and "effortless wit." (Publishers Weekly)Vision in WhiteBed of RosesSavor the MomentHappy Ever After Views: 53
