Download or read book Secrets of a Charmed Life A Novel By Susan Meissner Conversation Starters written by dailyBooks and published by . This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrets of a Charmed Life: A Novel by Susan Meissner | Conversation Starters A Brief Look Inside: A 7-year-old desperately wants to keep her sister and does what she thinks is right. A 15-year-old is determined to take responsibility for her growth and development and does what she thinks is right. A mother, father, sister, and brother all do what they think is right; and one fateful night, the sky explodes and a blitz of bombings that lasts for weeks begins. The repercussions of that night—the pain, loneliness, loss, regret, and death—play out over 20 years… Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner is a beautifully written tale of life’s choices and their consequences. Readers come face to face with how small actions create lasting ripples that ebb and flow through time, and eventually, everyone has to face their choices. EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPER than the surface of its pages. The characters and its world come alive, and even after the last page of the book is closed, the story still lives on, inciting questions and curiosity. Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed to bring us beneath the surface of the page and invite us into this world that continues to lives on. These questions can be used to… Create Hours of Conversation: • Foster a deeper understanding of the book • Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups • Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately • Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen before Disclaimer: This book you are about to enjoy is an independent resource to supplement the original book, enhancing your experience of Secrets of a Charmed Life. If you have not yet purchased a copy of the original book, please do before purchasing this unofficial Conversation Starters.
Download or read book Secrets of a Charmed Life written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of A Bridge Across the Ocean and The Last Year of the War journeys from the present day to World War II England, as two sisters are separated by the chaos of wartime... Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden—one that will test her convictions and her heart. 1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population, hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed...
Download or read book Conversations on Secrets of a Charmed Life a Novel by Susan Meissner written by Daily Books and published by . This book was released on 2016-12-17 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secrets of a Charmed Life: A Novel By Susan Meissner A 7-year-old desperately wants to keep her sister and does what she thinks is right. A 15-year-old is determined to take responsibility for her growth and development and does what she thinks is right. A mother, father, sister, and brother all do what they think is right; and one fateful night, the sky explodes and a blitz of bombings that lasts for weeks begins. The repercussions of that night-the pain, loneliness, loss, regret, and death-play out over 20 years... Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner is a beautifully written tale of life's choices and their consequences. Readers come face to face with how small actions create lasting ripples that ebb and flow through time, and eventually, everyone has to face their choices. A Brief Look Inside: EVERY GOOD BOOK CONTAINS A WORLD FAR DEEPERthan the surface of its pages. The characters and its world come alive, and even after the last page of the book is closed,the story still lives on, inciting questions and curiosity.Conversation Starters is peppered with questions designed tobring us beneath the surface of the pageand invite us into this world that continues to lives on. These questions can be used to... Create Hours of Conversation: * Foster a deeper understanding of the book* Promote an atmosphere of discussion for groups* Assist in the study of the book, either individually or corporately* Explore unseen realms of the book as never seen beforeDisclaimer: This book you are about to enjoy is an independent resource to supplement the original book, enhancing your experience of Secrets of a Charmed Life. If you have not yet purchased a copy of the original book, please do before purchasing this unofficial Conversation Starters.Read it on your PC, Mac, iOS or Android smartphone, tablet and Kindle devices.
Download or read book As Bright as Heaven written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-01-22 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War comes a novel set during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, telling the story of a family reborn through loss and love. In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters—Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa—a chance at a better life. But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without—and what they are willing to do about it. As Bright as Heaven is the compelling story of a mother and her daughters who find themselves in a harsh world not of their making, which will either crush their resolve to survive or purify it.
Download or read book The Last Year of the War written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-07 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the acclaimed author of Secrets of a Charmed Life and As Bright as Heaven comes a novel about a German American teenager whose life changes forever when her immigrant family is sent to an internment camp during World War II. In 1943, Elise Sontag is a typical American teenager from Iowa—aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity. The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences. But when the Sontag family is exchanged for American prisoners behind enemy lines in Germany, Elise will face head-on the person the war desires to make of her. In that devastating crucible she must discover if she has the will to rise above prejudice and hatred and re-claim her own destiny, or disappear into the image others have cast upon her. The Last Year of the War tells a little-known story of World War II with great resonance for our own times and challenges the very notion of who we are when who we’ve always been is called into question.
Download or read book A Fall of Marigolds written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautiful scarf connects two women touched by tragedy in this compelling, emotional novel from the author of As Bright as Heaven and The Last Year of the War. September 1911. On Ellis Island in New York Harbor, nurse Clara Wood cannot face returning to Manhattan, where the man she loved fell to his death in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. Then, while caring for a fevered immigrant whose own loss mirrors hers, she becomes intrigued by a name embroidered onto the scarf he carries...and finds herself caught in a dilemma that compels her to confront the truth about the assumptions she’s made. What she learns could devastate her—or free her. September 2011. On Manhattan’s Upper West Side, widow Taryn Michaels has convinced herself that she is living fully, working in a charming specialty fabric store and raising her daughter alone. Then a long-lost photograph appears in a national magazine, and she is forced to relive the terrible day her husband died in the collapse of the World Trade Towers...the same day a stranger reached out and saved her. But a chance reconnection and a century-old scarf may open Taryn’s eyes to the larger forces at work in her life. “[Meissner] creates two sympathetic, relatable characters that readers will applaud. Touching and inspirational.”—Kirkus Reviews
Download or read book A Sound Among the Trees written by Susan Meissner and published by WaterBrook. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A house shrouded in time. A line of women with a heritage of loss. As a young bride, Susannah Page was rumored to be a Civil War spy for the North, a traitor to her Virginian roots. Her great-granddaughter Adelaide, the current matriarch of Holly Oak, doesn’t believe that Susannah’s ghost haunts the antebellum mansion looking for a pardon, but rather the house itself bears a grudge toward its tragic past. When Marielle Bishop marries into the family and is transplanted from the arid west to her husband’s home, it isn’t long before she is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings misfortune to the women who live there. With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must sort out the truth about Susannah Page and Holly Oak— and make peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.
Download or read book Secrets of a Charmed Life written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of A Bridge Across the Ocean and The Last Year of the War journeys from the present day to World War II England, as two sisters are separated by the chaos of wartime... Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden—one that will test her convictions and her heart. 1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population, hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed...
Download or read book The Nature of Fragile Things written by Susan Meissner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear. From the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity.
Download or read book Wish You Well written by David Baldacci and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2000-10-01 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following a family tragedy, siblings Lou and Oz must leave New York and adjust to life in the Virginia mountains--but just as the farm begins to feel like home, they'll have to defend it from a dark threat in this New York Times bestselling coming-of-age story. Precocious twelve-year-old Louisa Mae Cardinal lives in the hectic New York City of 1940 with her family. Then tragedy strikes--and Lou and her younger brother, Oz, must go with their invalid mother to live on their great-grandmother's farm in the Virginia mountains. Suddenly Lou finds herself growing up in a new landscape, making her first true friend, and experiencing adventures tragic, comic, and audacious. When a dark, destructive force encroaches on her new home, her struggle will play out in a crowded Virginia courtroom...and determine the future of two children, an entire town, and the mountains they love.
Download or read book A Window to the World written by Susan Meissner and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2005-01-01 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Megan Diamond retreats back into her shell when tragedy strikes, taking her best friend Jen away from her, but as the years pass, Megan learns that it is better to risk getting hurt by those she loves than to close her heart off forever.
Download or read book The Shape of Mercy written by Susan Meissner and published by WaterBrook Press. This book was released on 2012-07-10 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Transcribing the journal entries of a victim of the Salem witch trials, Lauren realizes that the secrets of Mercy's story extend beyond the pages of her diary, and forces her to take a startling new look at her own life.
Download or read book The Sparrow Sisters written by Ellen Herrick and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A haunting, magical, modern-day fairytale. A feast for the senses.” —Sarah Addison Allen, New York Times–bestselling author of First Frost With echoes of the alchemy of Practical Magic, the lushness of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt, and the darkly joyful wickedness of the Witches of Eastwick, Ellen Herrick’s debut novel spins an enchanting love story about a place where magic whispers just beneath the surface and almost anything is possible, if you aren’t afraid to listen. The Sparrow Sisters are as tightly woven into the seaside New England town of Granite Point as the wild sweet peas that climb the stone walls along the harbor. Sorrel, Nettie and Patience are as colorful as the beach plums on the dunes and as mysterious as the fog that rolls into town at dusk. Patience is the town healer and when a new doctor settles into Granite Point he brings with him a mystery so compelling that Patience is drawn to love him, even as she struggles to mend him. But when Patience Sparrow’s herbs and tinctures are believed to be implicated in a local tragedy, Granite Point is consumed by a long-buried fear—and its three hundred year old history resurfaces as a modern day witch-hunt threatens. The plants and flowers, fruit trees and high hedges begin to wither and die, and the entire town begins to fail; fishermen return to the harbor empty-handed, and blight descends on the old elms that line the lanes. It seems as if Patience and her town are lost until the women of Granite Point band together to save the Sparrow. As they gather, drawing strength from each other, will they be able to turn the tide and return life to Granite Point? The Sparrow Sisters is a beautiful, haunting, and thoroughly mesmerizing novel that will capture your imagination.
Download or read book Reading Group Choices written by Reading Group Choices and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Middle of Somewhere written by Sonja Yoerg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-09-01 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A troubled, young widow hikes from Yosemite Valley deep into the wilderness on the John Muir Trail to elude her shameful past in this emotionally gripping story from the author of House Broken. With her thirtieth birthday looming, Liz Kroft is heading for the hills—literally. Her emotional baggage weighs her down more than her backpack, but a three-week trek promises the solitude she craves—at least until her boyfriend, Dante, decides to tag along. His broad moral streak makes the prospect of confessing her sins more difficult, but as much as she fears his judgment, she fears losing him more. Maybe. They set off together alone under blue skies, but it’s not long before storms threaten and two strange brothers appear along the trail. Amid the jagged, towering peaks, Liz must decide whether to admit her mistakes and confront her fears, or face the trail, the brothers and her future alone.
Download or read book The Last Chinese Chef written by Nicole Mones and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2008 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This exhilarating story is the transporting tale of how the sensual, romantic elements of haute Chinese cuisine become the perfect ingredients to lift the troubled soul of a grieving American woman.
Download or read book The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street written by Susan Jane Gilman and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2014-06-10 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clever and complex woman builds an ice cream empire after immigrating from Russia in this stunning novel of power, Prohibition, and performance set against the backdrop of early 20th-century America. In 1913, little Malka Treynovsky flees Russia with her family. Bedazzled by tales of gold and movie stardom, she tricks them into buying tickets for America. Yet no sooner do they land on the squalid Lower East Side of Manhattan, than Malka is crippled and abandoned in the street. Taken in by a tough-loving Italian ices peddler, she manages to survive through cunning and inventiveness. As she learns the secrets of his trade, she begins to shape her own destiny. She falls in love with a gorgeous, illiterate radical named Albert, and they set off across America in an ice cream truck. Slowly, she transforms herself into Lillian Dunkle, "The Ice Cream Queen" -- doyenne of an empire of ice cream franchises and a celebrated television personality. Lillian's rise to fame and fortune spans seventy years and is inextricably linked to the course of American history itself, from Prohibition to the disco days of Studio 54. Yet Lillian Dunkle is nothing like the whimsical motherly persona she crafts for herself in the media. Conniving, profane, and irreverent, she is a supremely complex woman who prefers a good stiff drink to an ice cream cone. And when her past begins to catch up with her, everything she has spent her life building is at stake.
