The Virtues of Pennyroyal is the tale of Bernard Mason, a con artist and amateur musician whose debts force him to quit London on a trade ship bound for the anonymous safety of colonial Massachusetts. He surfaces in the burgeoning village of Barnstable, where he quickly ingratiates himself with the devout but naive locals. Over time, Bernard becomes an influential member of the village, marrying into one of the founding families. His son Isaac is a musical prodigy whose abilities assure Be...

Dolen Perkins-Valdezs enchanting and unforgettable novel, based on little-known fact, combines the narrative allure of Cane River by Lalita Tademy and the moral complexities of Edward P. Joness The Known World as it tells the story of four black enslaved women in the years preceding the Civil War.wench \'wench\ n. from Middle English wenchel,1 a: a girl, maid, young woman; a female child.Situated in Ohio, a free territory before the Ci...

The first book in the series, this bestselling novel introduces Margaret of Ashbury, a fourteenth-century Englishwoman with mystical abilitiesMargaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in fourteenth-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task.As she ...

**The bestselling author delivers a Regency tale “that deftly balances fascinating historical detail, adventure, and menace with a passionate romance” (**Library Journal).As Washington burns, Callista Brooke is trapped in the battle between her native England and her adopted homeland. She is on the verge of losing everything, including her life, when a handsome Englishman cuts through the violent crowd to claim that she is his. Callie falls into her protec...

In a country at war, a secret inheritance reveals a dark conspiracy …On a sunlit afternoon in seventeenth-century Dorset, a young girl falls in love with a stranger.But when her Puritan brother tries to force her into an unbearable marriage she flees, taking with her only the gift left to her by her unknown father, a gold pendant sealed by an engraving of an axe, and the words: St Matthew.One of four intricately wrought seals – each holding a secret within – it can,...

Thaddeus Lewis, an itinerant "saddlebag" preacher still mourns the mysterious death of his daughter Sarah as he rides to his new posting in Prince Edward County. When a girl in Demorestville dies in a similar way, he realizes that the circumstances point to murder. But in the turmoil following the 1837 Mackenzie Rebellion he can get no one to listen. Convinced there is a serial killer loose in Upper Canada, Lewis alone must track the culprit across a colony convulsed by dissension, invasio...

Winesburg, Ohio is a series of loosely linked short stories set in the fictional town of Winesburg. The stories are held together by George Willard, a resident to whom the community confide their personal stories and struggles. The townspeople are withdrawn and emotionally repressed and attempt in telling their stories to gain some sense of meaning and dignity in an otherwise desperate life. The work has received high critical acclaim and is considered one of the great American works of th...

New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Chiaverini is back with another enthralling historical novel set during the Civil War era, this time inspired by the life of “a true Union woman as true as steel” who risked everything by caring for Union prisoners of war — and stealing Confederate secrets.Born to slave-holding aristocracy in Richmond, Virginia, and educated by Northern Quakers, Elizabeth Van Lew was a paradox of her time. When her native state se...

Marshall's Bride ~ Book 4Is Marshall Kincaid getting married? Maybe someone should have told him.Lizzie Neuman came to America filled with hopes and dreams for her and her husband. His unexpected death left her stranded in a new country. Not having anywhere to turn, she reluctantly responds to an ad for a mail order bride.Marshall never planned to marry. In his line of work, he had to worry about people he arrested in the past coming after him. He a...

In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora," madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother, madam, murderess, avenge...

LIBRARY JOURNAL'S AWARD-WINNING SELF-e MYSTERY OF 2015!An unseemly lesson…in murder.The year is 1896, and college professor Concordia Wells has her hands full: teaching classes, acting as live-in chaperone to a cottage of lively female students, and directing the student play, Macbeth.But mystery and murder are not confined to the stage, especially when the death of Concordia's sister, Mary, appears to be foul play...

Will sixteen-year-old Ella have the strength to fight for her future with Samuel in the face of treachery, violence, and a shocking tragedy that threatens everything she's ever wanted?Set in a whimsical Lancaster County of fantastic possibility grounded in strong Christian values, sixteen-year-old Amish orphan Ella faces constant abuse as she struggles to do all of her own chores as well as those of her two older cousins. Ella has only her whittling and a deep and abiding faith in ...