Download or read book One Southern Summer written by Heidi McCahan and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2023-06-27 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It’s her second chance summer…if she’s ready for it—in this warm and utterly irresistible Southern small-town novel. When Avery Lansing Crawford left her hometown of Camellia, Alabama, she was the darling of the town. A beauty queen. Now she’s come back a disgraced and divorced mom who’s lost almost everything—her home, her husband, even her design TV show—all while the public watched. And if the humiliation wasn’t bad enough, Avery and her two small children are moving in with her mama…just in time to give everyone in Camellia something to talk about. And oh, they’re talkin’. Especially when Avery reignites her old friendship with Cole Whitaker, who’s offered Avery the opportunity to do something real: a redesign project that would help survivors of human trafficking. It could kick-start both her career and her confidence—not to mention give her a chance to spend more time with Cole. With three generations of strong Southern women around the family dinner table, coming home to Camellia could be the perfect fresh start. Even if Avery is the topic of salacious gossip over sweet tea and her grandmother won’t stop interfering in her love life. But the bonds of family and the promise of second chances just might lead to a future that looks nothing like she expected.
Download or read book One Crazy Summer written by Rita Williams-Garcia and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eleven-year-old Delphine has it together. Even though her mother, Cecile, abandoned her and her younger sisters, Vonetta and Fern, seven years ago. Even though her father and Big Ma will send them from Brooklyn to Oakland, California, to stay with Cecile for the summer. And even though Delphine will have to take care of her sisters, as usual, and learn the truth about the missing pieces of the past. When the girls arrive in Oakland in the summer of 1968, Cecile wants nothing to do with them. She makes them eat Chinese takeout dinners, forbids them to enter her kitchen, and never explains the strange visitors with Afros and black berets who knock on her door. Rather than spend time with them, Cecile sends Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern to a summer camp sponsored by a revolutionary group, the Black Panthers, where the girls get a radical new education. Set during one of the most tumultuous years in recent American history, one crazy summer is the heartbreaking, funny tale of three girls in search of the mother who abandoned them—an unforgettable story told by a distinguished author of books for children and teens, Rita Williams-Garcia.
Download or read book One Sweet Southern Summer written by Janice Maynard and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2024-04-23 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I can't wait for another visit to Blossom Branch!" —RaeAnne Thayne, New York Times bestselling author Two lives spent searching. One summer to never forget. Life in Blossom Branch hasn’t always been sweet for Leah Marks. Growing up in the shadow of her overachieving siblings, the shy psychology grad has struggled to find her own place in the world. So when she inherits a long-forgotten summer camp, Leah sees an opportunity to help other kids who are struggling—and maybe find happiness for herself. Her plan takes an unexpected turn, however, after a scorching encounter with the local fire chief, Lucas Carter. He’s brave, he’s kind…and he’s not quite ready to settle down. Leah is drawn to the rugged firefighter—but she fears she’ll be burned if she gets too close. Still, Leah and Lucas can’t help but fall harder for each other, until the ill-fated uncertainty of their future can no longer be ignored. As another sizzling summer unfolds in Blossom Branch, will they both finally find the home—and the love—they’ve been searching for? Bonus novella! Ice cream store owner Ginny Black is so close to getting her happily-ever-after, she can practically taste it. And then she learns she's pregnant. So when her dream guy, a successful local woodworker, asks her to move in with him, is it because it’s the right thing to do...or because he loves her? Blossom Branch Book 1: The Runaway Bride of Blossom Branch Book 2: One Sweet Southern Summer
Download or read book A Shadow in Summer written by Daniel Abraham and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From debut author Daniel Abraham comes A Shadow in Summer, the first book in the Long Price Quartet fantasy series. The powerful city-state of Saraykeht is a bastion of peace and culture, a major center of commerce and trade. Its economy depends on the power of the captive spirit, Seedless, an andat bound to the poet-sorcerer Heshai for life. Enter the Galts, a juggernaut of an empire committed to laying waste to all lands with their ferocious army. Saraykeht, though, has always been too strong for the Galts to attack, but now they see an opportunity. If they can dispose of Heshai, Seedless's bonded poet-sorcerer, Seedless will perish and the entire city will fall. With secret forces inside the city, the Galts prepare to enact their terrible plan. In the middle is Otah, a simple laborer with a complex past. Recruited to act as a bodyguard for his girlfriend's boss at a secret meeting, he inadvertently learns of the Galtish plot. Otah finds himself as the sole hope of Saraykeht, either he stops the Galts, or the whole city and everyone in it perishes forever. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book So We Can Glow written by Leesa Cross-Smith and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF NPR'S BEST BOOKS OF 2020 LONGLISTED FOR THE 2021 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE A lush, glittering short story collection exploring female obsession and desire by an award-winning author Roxane Gay calls "a consummate storyteller." From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories -- ranging from the 80's and 90's to present day -- expose the hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more. On a hot July night, teenage girls sneak out of the house to meet their boyfriends by the train tracks. Members of a cult form an unsettling chorus as they proclaim their adoration for the same man. A woman luxuriates in a fantasy getaway to escape her past. A love story begins over cabbages in a grocery store, and a laundress's life is consumed by her obsession with a baseball star. After the death of a sister, two high school friends kiss all night and binge-watch Winona Ryder movies. Leesa Cross-Smith's sensuous stories -- some long, some gone in a flash, some told over text and emails -- drench readers in nostalgia for summer nights and sultry days. They recall the intense friendships of teenage girls and the innate bonds between mothers, the first heady rush of desire, and the pure exhilaration of womanhood, all while holding up the wild souls of women so they can catch the light.
Download or read book The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell written by Loraine Despres and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Belle Cantrell felt guilty about killing her husband and she hated that. Feeling guilty, that is. A lady shouldn't do something she's going to feel guilty about later, was a rule Belle kept firmly in mind. So begins The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell, a story of murder, adultery, and regular church attendance, which introduces Belle Cantrell as a beautiful young widow with a rebellious streak, years before she will become grandmother to Sissy LeBlanc, the feisty main character of Loraine Despres's bestselling The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. The year is 1920, prohibition is in full swing, women are clamoring for the vote, and a narrow-minded intolerance is on the rise. Life isn't easy for an unmarried woman, not in a little town like Gentry, Louisiana, especially after she's sent to jail for swimming in an indecent bathing costume with a group of suffragists. It's not as if Belle doesn't know how to behave. She knows the rules. She keeps the Primer of Propriety firmly in mind. But sometimes -- most of the time -- she has to twist the rules a little, or break them, or give them a permanent kink, because they all say the same thing: "Don't." And a girl has got to live. After a year and a half of mourning, Belle decides to get on with her life and kicks off a season of tumult that will change her and Gentry forever. Sexy, sassy, with laugh-out-loud humor and a cast of zany characters you won't forget, The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell is a big comic love story and a page-turner. But it delves deeper, as Belle struggles to find her moral center and stand up to forces that are determined to destroy the soul of a town and the people she loves.
Download or read book The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc written by Loraine Despres and published by William Morrow Paperbacks. This book was released on 2002-08-06 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's a steamy June afternoon in Louisiana, circa 1956, and Sissy LeBlanc is sitting on her front porch, wondering -- half seriously -- if she could kill herself with aspirins and Coca-Cola. She's been living in stifling old Gentry since the day she was born and trapped in a sham of a marriage to PeeWee LeBlanc since she was only seventeen. In short, she's fed up, restless, and ready for an adventure. Sissy just never imagined temptation would come into her life that breathless summer day as she sat smoking on her porch swing. For although she may have been fixated on the taut muscles of the lineman shimmying down the telephone pole across the street, she hadn't allowed herself to imagine that he'd be none other than her high school sweetheart, Parker Davidson, who left town fourteen years before without so much as a wave good-bye. But suddenly, here he is, leaning in for a kiss that will stir up more excitement than Sissy could ever have imagined...
Download or read book A Promise of Forgiveness written by Jo Ann Brown and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Jo Ann Brown’s writing is both powerful and charming. She provides a respite from the cares of the day and gives the invitation to join her for a journey of peace that lingers in the heart.” —Kelly Long, national bestselling author Every little secret is a chain to the past… For Amish widow Naomi Ropp, moving back to her parents’ Bliss Valley home—with her boisterous twin toddler boys—is a chance to start over and bury the painful secrets of her marriage forever. But her life is turned upside down once again when she learns she’s not the only one hiding things. The parents she believed were always open and honest have been keeping a secret her whole life. And now her only confidant is her father’s new employee—a handsome Amish man who was once her childhood tormentor. Samuel King knows more than anyone should about mistakes—and the way he treated Naomi is at the top of his list. But the shock of seeing her pretty face again is quickly overshadowed when they find a slumbering boppli abandoned on his porch. Caring for the sweet newborn together is finally bringing some peace to their troubled pasts. But when a spark leads to growing feelings as they start to look toward the future, Samuel must find a way to convince Naomi to trust the man he's become…and the promise of new love. SECRETS OF BLISS VALLEY Secrets of Bliss Valley A must-read novel from Love Inspired: Stories to Uplift and Inspire.
Download or read book A Wish for Home written by Jo Ann Brown and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-03-30 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A Wish for Home is a moving, fast-paced story about family, secrets, misunderstandings, and figuring out what matters most. This stirring romance is sure to capture readers’ hearts.” –Suzanne Woods Fisher, bestselling author of Mending Fences Caught between who she is…and who she was. Lauren Nolt hasn’t forgiven the Amish community of Lancaster County for shunning her parents. But returning as a successful Englischer working for large developers is just what she needs to get a promotion and give her parents the life they deserve. Coming face-to-face with her childhood bully, Amish widower Adam Hershberger, is the last thing she wants. Yet when her world’s shaken by a shocking discovery, Adam’s the only one she can confide in… Adam’s never forgiven himself for the part he played in Lauren’s past, nor what drove him to do it. But as developers threaten his great-grossdawdi’s farm, she’s the only one who can help. And with his little girl determined to bring him and Lauren together at every turn, keeping his distance is impossible. Now they must learn to trust each other—even as their secret feelings grow stronger. But is love enough to bridge the gap between their very different worlds? SECRETS OF BLISS VALLEY Secrets of Bliss Valley A must-read novel from Love Inspired: Stories to Uplift and Inspire.
Download or read book Rising Danger written by Jerusha Agen and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fast-paced, explosive thriller. I couldn't turn the pages fast enough." -Carrie Stuart Parks, award-winning, bestselling author of Relative Silence It’s up to a K-9 handler and her canine partner to stop a bomber before it’s too late. Someone’s planting explosives on dams in the Twin Cities, and Bristol Bachmann and her bomb-sniffing dog must move quickly to find them before everything ends up underwater. That means relying on the dams’ supervisor—an ex-boyfriend Bristol never thought she’d see again. Hopefully Remington Jones has grown up from the rakish charmer she knew in her academy days. Because lives now depend entirely on them… It’s an environmental terrorist who wants the dams gone, and his bid to set the waters free has lethal consequences. When he sees Bristol and her K-9 working to stop him, he sets his sights on them. Can they evade him in a lethal game of cat and mouse and protect the cities from devastating destruction before the clock runs out? A thrilling must-read novel from Love Inspired: Stories to Uplift and Inspire.
Download or read book Summer Sons written by Lee Mandelo and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2021-09-28 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lee Mandelo's debut Summer Sons is a sweltering, queer Southern Gothic that crosses Appalachian street racing with academic intrigue, all haunted by a hungry ghost. Andrew and Eddie did everything together, best friends bonded more deeply than brothers, until Eddie left Andrew behind to start his graduate program at Vanderbilt. Six months later, only days before Andrew was to join him in Nashville, Eddie dies of an apparent suicide. He leaves Andrew a horrible inheritance: a roommate he doesn’t know, friends he never asked for, and a gruesome phantom that hungers for him. As Andrew searches for the truth of Eddie’s death, he uncovers the lies and secrets left behind by the person he trusted most, discovering a family history soaked in blood and death. Whirling between the backstabbing academic world where Eddie spent his days and the circle of hot boys, fast cars, and hard drugs that ruled Eddie’s nights, the walls Andrew has built against the world begin to crumble. And there is something awful lurking, waiting for those walls to fall. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book The Sweetness of Water Oprah s Book Club written by Nathan Harris and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER / AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK ONE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S FAVORITE BOOKS OF 2021 Winner of the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2022 Carnegie Medal for Excellence Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize In the spirit of The Known World and The Underground Railroad, "a miraculous debut" (Washington Post) and "a towering achievement of imagination" (CBS This Morning)about the unlikely bond between two freedmen who are brothers and the Georgia farmer whose alliance will alter their lives, and his, forever--from "a storyteller with bountiful insight and assurance" (Kirkus) A Best Book of the Year: Oprah Daily, NPR, Washington Post, Time, Boston Globe, Smithsonian, Chicago Public Library, BookBrowse, and the Oregonian A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A July Indie Next Pick In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry--freed by the Emancipation Proclamation--seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother, who was sold away when they were boys. Parallel to their story runs a forbidden romance between two Confederate soldiers. The young men, recently returned from the war to the town of Old Ox, hold their trysts in the woods. But when their secret is discovered, the resulting chaos, including a murder, unleashes convulsive repercussions on the entire community. In the aftermath of so much turmoil, it is Isabelle who emerges as an unlikely leader, proffering a healing vision for the land and for the newly free citizens of Old Ox. With candor and sympathy, debut novelist Nathan Harris creates an unforgettable cast of characters, depicting Georgia in the violent crucible of Reconstruction. Equal parts beauty and terror, as gripping as it is moving, The Sweetness of Water is an epic whose grandeur locates humanity and love amid the most harrowing circumstances.
Download or read book The Widows of Champagne written by Renee Ryan and published by Harlequin. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “History, drama, and passion as effervescent as the resilient LeBlanc women and the champagne that bears their name. I highly recommend!” —Karen White, New York Times bestselling author In this captivating story of resilience, three generations of women battle to save their family’s vineyard from the ravages of WWII. Champagne, 1939 Gabrielle Leblanc Dupree is taking her family’s future into her hands. While she should be preparing for a lavish party to celebrate two centuries of champagne making, she secretly hides Chateau Fouché-Leblanc’s most precious vintages behind a fake wall in the cellar in preparation for the looming war. But when she joins the resistance, the coveted champagne isn’t the most dangerous secret her cellar must conceal… A former Parisian socialite, Gabrielle’s mother, Hélène, lost her husband to another war. Now her home has been requisitioned by the Germans, who pillage vineyards to satisfy the Third Reich’s thirst for the finest champagne. There’s even more at stake than Hélène dares admit. She has kept her heritage a secret…and no one is safe in Nazi-occupied France. Josephine, the family matriarch, watches as her beloved vineyard faces its most difficult harvest yet. As her daughter-in-law and granddaughters contend with the enemies and unexpected allies in their midst, Josephine’s deep faith leads to her own path of resistance. Across years and continents, the Leblanc women will draw on their courage and wits, determined against all odds to preserve their lives, their freedom and their legacy… A must-read novel from Love Inspired: Stories to Uplift and Inspire.
Download or read book Magnolia Summer written by Melanie Dickerson and published by Melanie Dickerson/Gracefaith Press. This book was released on 2018-09 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Truett Beverly dons a disguise to rescue his best friend from a corrupt sheriff. But when he falls hard for newcomer Celia Wilcox, he may regret his reckless manner of trying to right the wrongs in his town. Celia comes home to help care for her younger siblings, but falling for the charming Truett can lead only to trouble.
Download or read book Unclaimed Baggage written by Jen Doll and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR). This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *A New York Times Staff Pick* *An NPR Best Book of 2018* *A Buzzfeed Best YA Book of 2018* In Jen Doll's young adult debut novel, Unclaimed Baggage, Doris—a lone liberal in a conservative small town—has mostly kept to herself since the terrible waterslide incident a few years ago. Nell had to leave behind her best friends, perfect life, and too-good-to-be-true boyfriend in Chicago to move to Alabama. Grant was the star quarterback and epitome of "Mr. Popular" whose drinking problem has all but destroyed his life. What do these three have in common? A summer job working in a store called Unclaimed Baggage cataloging and selling other people's lost luggage. Together they find that through friendship, they can unpack some of their own emotional baggage and move on into the future.
Download or read book The Southern Side of Paradise written by Kristy Woodson Harvey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The internationally bestselling Peachtree Bluff series concludes with this “deliciously authentic Southern tale of family and the often messy, complex relationships between sisters, mothers, and daughters” (Susan Boyer, USA TODAY bestselling author). With the man of her dreams back in her life and all three of her daughters happy, Ansley Murphy should be content. But she can’t help but feel like it’s all a little too good to be true. Her youngest daughter, actress Emerson, is recently engaged and has just landed the role of a lifetime. She seemingly has the world by the tail and yet something she can’t quite put her finger on is worrying her—and it has nothing to do with her recent health scare. When two new women arrive in Peachtree Bluff—one who has the potential to wreck Ansley’s happiness and one who could tear Emerson’s world apart—everything is put in perspective. And after secrets that were never meant to be told come to light, the powerful bond between the Murphy sisters and their mother comes crumbling down, testing their devotion to each other and forcing them to evaluate the meaning of family. “Kristy Woodson Harvey has done it again….The Southern Side of Paradise is full of humor, charm, and family” (Lauren K. Denton, USA TODAY bestselling author) and is the ultimate satisfying beach read.
Download or read book Even As We Breathe written by Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2020-09-08 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nineteen-year-old Cowney Sequoyah yearns to escape his hometown of Cherokee, North Carolina, in the heart of the Smoky Mountains. When a summer job at Asheville's luxurious Grove Park Inn and Resort brings him one step closer to escaping the hills that both cradle and suffocate him, he sees it as an opportunity. The experience introduces him to the beautiful and enigmatic Essie Stamper—a young Cherokee woman who is also working at the inn and dreaming of a better life. With World War II raging in Europe, the resort is the temporary home of Axis diplomats and their families, who are being held as prisoners of war. A secret room becomes a place where Cowney and Essie can escape the white world of the inn and imagine their futures free of the shadows of their families' pasts. Outside of this refuge, however, racism and prejudice are never far behind, and when the daughter of one of the residents goes missing, Cowney finds himself accused of abduction and murder. Even As We Breathe invokes the elements of bone, blood, and flesh as Cowney navigates difficult social, cultural, and ethnic divides. Betrayed by the friends he trusted, he begins to unearth deeper mysteries as he works to prove his innocence and clear his name. This richly written debut novel explores the immutable nature of the human spirit and the idea that physical existence, with all its strife and injustice, will not be humanity's lasting legacy.
