Download or read book The River Wife written by Jonis Agee and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2008-05-27 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From acclaimed novelist Jonis Agee, whom The New York Times Book Review called “a gifted poet of that dark lushness in the heart of the American landscape,” The River Wife is a sweeping, panoramic story that ranges from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 through the Civil War to the bootlegging days of the 1930s. When the earthquake brings Annie Lark’s Missouri house down on top of her, she finds herself pinned under the massive roof beam, facing certain death. Rescued by French fur trapper Jacques Ducharme, Annie learns to love the strong, brooding man and resolves to live out her days as his “River Wife.” More than a century later, in 1930, Hedie Rails comes to Jacques’ Landing to marry Clement Ducharme, a direct descendant of the fur trapper and river pirate, and the young couple begin their life together in the very house Jacques built for Annie so long ago. When, night after late night, mysterious phone calls take Clement from their home, a pregnant Hedie finds comfort in Annie’s leather-bound journals. But as she reads of the sinister dealings and horrendous misunderstandings that spelled out tragedy for the rescued bride, Hedie fears that her own life is paralleling Annie’s, and that history is repeating itself with Jacques’ kin. Among the family’s papers, Hedie encounters three other strong-willed women who helped shape Jacques Ducharme’s life–Omah, the freed slave who took her place beside him as a river raider; his second wife, Laura, who loved money more than the man she married; and Laura and Jacques’ daughter, Maddie, a fiery beauty with a nearly uncontrollable appetite for love. Their stories, together with Annie’s, weave a haunting tale of this mysterious, seductive, and ultimately dangerous man, a man whose hand stretched over generations of women at a bend in the river where fate and desire collide. The River Wife richly evokes the nineteenth-century South at a time when lives changed with the turn of a card or the flash of a knife. Jonis Agee vividly portrays a lineage of love and heartbreak, passion and deceit, as each river wife comes to discover that blind devotion cannot keep the truth at bay, nor the past from haunting the present.

Download or read book The River Widow written by Ann Howard Creel and published by Lake Union Publishing. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1937 on a tobacco farm on the banks of the Ohio River, Adah Branch is forced to make hard decisions and take action, to save herself from her husband Lester and then her stepdaughter from his family.

Download or read book The River Rose written by Gilbert Morris and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2012 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When two very different people jointly inherit the same steamboat in Memphis during the mid-19th century, their shared need for a new livelihood steers them toward falling in love.

Download or read book Fate Moreland s Widow written by John Lane and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2015-02-10 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corruption, infatuation, and conflicting loyalties collide in a rural Southern mill town in this debut novel by an award-winning poet and environmentalist. On a placid Blue Ridge mountain lake on Labor Day Weekend in 1935, three locals in an overloaded boat drown, and the cotton mill scion who owns the lake is indicted for their murders. Decades later Ben Crocker—a reluctant participant in the aftermath of this long-forgotten tragedy—is drawn back into the morally ambiguous world of mill fortunes and foothills justice. The son of mill workers in Carlton, South Carolina, Crocker works as bookkeeper to the owner, George McCane. And when McCane decides to lay off families connected to the Uprising of ‘34, Crocker finds himself in the ill-fitting position of enforcer. But days after the evictions, a surprise indictment lands McCane in jail and sinks Crocker even deeper into the escalating tensions. While traversing mountain communities in McCane’s defense, Crocker must also negotiate with labor organizers and fend off his family’s skepticism of his social aspirations. Meanwhile, hanging over Crocker’s upended life is his infatuation with Novie Moreland—the young widow of a man McCane is accused of killing. Looking back on this crucial period of his life, Crocker knows he must seek out Novie Moreland once more if he is ever to find closure with the past. Foreword by New York Times best-selling author Wiley Cash

Download or read book The Magic of Ordinary Days written by Ann Howard Creel and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-06-25 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inspiration for the beloved film that became a TikTok sensation An extraordinary tale of one woman’s journey of resilience, courage, and self-discovery amidst the turmoil of World War II. Olivia Dunne, a studious minister’s daughter who dreams of becoming an archaeologist, never thought that WWII would affect her quiet life in Denver. But when an exhilarating flirtation reshapes her life, she finds herself in a rural Colorado outpost, married to a man she hardly knows. Overwhelmed by loneliness, Olivia tentatively tries to establish a new life, finding much-needed friendship and solace in two Japanese-American sisters from a nearby internment camp. When Olivia unwittingly becomes an accomplice to a crime that tests her beliefs about trust and love, she must confront her own desires and reconcile them with the harsh realities of the world around her.

Download or read book A Widow for One Year written by John Irving and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking—it was coming from her parents’ bedroom.” This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character—a “difficult” woman. By no means is she conventionally “nice,” but she will never be forgotten. Ruth’s story is told in three parts, each focusing on a critical time in her life. When we first meet her—on Long Island, in the summer of 1958—Ruth is only four. The second window into Ruth’s life opens on the fall of 1990, when she is an unmarried woman whose personal life is not nearly as successful as her literary career. She distrusts her judgment in men, for good reason. A Widow for One Year closes in the autumn of 1995, when Ruth Cole is a forty-one-year-old widow and mother. She’s about to fall in love for the first time. Richly comic, as well as deeply disturbing, A Widow for One Year is a multilayered love story of astonishing emotional force. Both ribald and erotic, it is also a brilliant novel about the passage of time and the relentlessness of grief.

Download or read book The Widow Nash written by Jamie Harrison and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2017 Reading the West Award A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice "What keeps you reading is not just the quality of the writing, which is just absolutely wonderful, but also to find out: Is [Dulcy] going to [remake herself]? Can this be successful? Or is she going to be found out?" ―Nancy Pearl, Morning Edition, NPR Dulcy Remfrey has traveled the globe with her eccentric father, Walton, a wealthy entrepreneur obsessed with earthquakes and catastrophe, searching to cure his long battle with syphilis through any crackpot means necessary. Their deep connection is tested, however, when Walton returns from an African expedition without any of the proceeds from the sale of his gold mine. It seems he's lost his mind along with the great sum of money, his health declining rapidly. Her father's business partner (and her ex–fiancé) insists Dulcy come to Seattle to decipher her father's cryptic notebooks—a dozen in all, wrapped in brightly colored silk—which may hold clues to the missing funds. Yet when her father dies before they can locate the money, Dulcy falls under suspicion. Petrified of being forced to spend the rest of her life with her ex–love, Dulcy decides to disappear from the train bringing her father's body home. Is it possible to disappear from your old life and create another? Dulcy travels the West reading stories about her presumed death and settles into a small Montana town where she is reborn as Mrs. Nash, a wealthy young widow with no burden of family. But her old life won't let go so easily, and soon her ex–fiancé is on her trail, threatening the new life she is so eager to create. The Widow Nash is a riveting narrative, filled with a colorful cast of characters, rich historical details, and epic set pieces. Europe in summer. New York in fall. Africa in winter. The lively, unforgettable town of Livingston, Montana. And in Dulcy, Jamie Harrison has created an indelible heroine sure to capture the hearts of readers everywhere. "This gorgeously written historical novel follows Dulcy, a young woman in 1904 who attempts to flee her late father's business problems―and her violent ex–fiance's grasp―by traveling west and posing as a wealthy widow." ―Entertainment Weekly

Download or read book The Mill River Recluse written by Darcie Chan and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2011-05-18 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The sensational New York Times bestseller The Mill River Recluse reminds us that friendship, family, and love can come from the most unexpected places. Perfect for fans of Maeve Binchy. From the outside, Mill River looks like any sleepy little Vermont town where everyone knows everyone and people never need to lock their doors. There are newcomers for whom this appeals, from police officer Kyle Hansen and his daughter Rowen, who are starting over after heartache, to Claudia Simon, the schoolteacher who is determined to reinvent herself. But on closer inspection, there are those in Mill River—including a stealthy arsonist, a covetous nurse, and a pilfering priest—who have things they wish to hide. None more than the widow Mary McAllister, who for the past sixty years has secluded herself in her marble mansion overlooking the town. Most of the residents have never even seen the peculiar woman. Only the priest, Father O’Brien, knows the deep secrets that keep Mary isolated—and that, once revealed, will forever change the community. Praise for The Mill River Recluse “[Darcie] Chan’s sweet novel displays her talent. . . . A comforting book about the random acts of kindness that hold communities together.”—Kirkus Reviews “A heartwarming story.”—Examiner “A real page-turner.”—IndieReader

Download or read book Last Night in Twisted River written by John Irving and published by Random House. This book was released on 2009-10-27 with total page 577 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1954, in the cookhouse of a logging and sawmill settlement in northern New Hampshire, an anxious twelve-year-old boy mistakes the local constable’s girlfriend for a bear. Both the twelve-year-old and his father become fugitives, forced to run from Coos County—to Boston, to southern Vermont, to Toronto—pursued by the implacable constable. Their lone protector is a fiercely libertarian logger, once a river driver, who befriends them. In a story spanning five decades, Last Night in Twisted River depicts the recent half-century in the United States as “a living replica of Coos County, where lethal hatreds were generally permitted to run their course.” What further distinguishes Last Night in Twisted River is the author’s unmistakable voice—the inimitable voice of an accomplished storyteller.

Download or read book Only the River written by Anne Raeff and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2020-05-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A family displaced by World War II finds a new home in Central America, only to watch their fortunes rise and fall on the back of a revolution—from the California Book Award silver medalist and Simpson Literary Prize finalist. Fleeing the ravages of wartime Vienna, Pepa and her family find safe harbor in the small town of El Castillo, on the banks of the San Juan River in Nicaragua. There her parents seek to eradicate yellow fever while Pepa falls under the spell of the jungle and the town’s eccentric inhabitants. But Pepa’s life―including her relationship with local boy Guillermo―comes to a halt when her family abruptly moves to New York, leaving the young girl disoriented and heartbroken. As the years pass, Pepa’s and Guillermo’s lives diverge, and Guillermo’s homeland slips into chaos. Nicaragua soon becomes engulfed in revolutionary fervor as the Sandinista movement vies for the nation’s soul. Guillermo’s daughter transforms into an accidental revolutionary. Pepa’s son defies his parents’ wishes and joins the revolution in Nicaragua, only to disappear into the jungle. It will take decades before the fates of these two families converge again, revealing how love, grief, and passion are intertwined with a nation’s destiny. Spanning generations and several wars, Only the River explores the way displacement both destroys two families and creates new ones, sparking a revolution that changes their lives in the most unexpected ways.

Download or read book The Widow s House written by Carol Goodman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-03-07 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This chilling novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of The Lake of Dead Languages blends the gothic allure of Daphne DuMaurier’s Rebecca and the crazed undertones of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper with the twisty, contemporary edge of A.S.A. Harrison’s The Silent Wife—a harrowing tale of psychological suspense set in New York’s Hudson Valley. When Jess and Clare Martin move from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to their former college town in the Hudson River valley, they are hoping for rejuvenation—of their marriage, their savings, and Jess's writing career. They take a caretaker's job at Riven House, a crumbling estate and the home of their old college writing professor. While Clare once had dreams of being a writer, those plans fell by the wayside when Jess made a big, splashy literary debut in their twenties. It's been years, now, since his first novel. The advance has long been spent. Clare's hope is that the pastoral beauty and nostalgia of the Hudson Valley will offer some inspiration. But their new life isn't all quaint town libraries and fragrant apple orchards. There is a haunting pall that hangs over Riven House like a funeral veil. Something is just not right. Soon, Clare begins to hear babies crying at night, see strange figures in fog at the edge of their property. Diving into the history of the area, she realizes that Riven House has a dark and anguished past. And whatever this thing is—this menacing force that destroys the inhabitants of the estate—it seems to be after Clare next…

Download or read book What the River Washed Away written by Muriel Mharie Macleod and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-01 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'I ain’t know nothing except he’s a bad man Mambo.' Inspired by real-life events, this is the remarkable and uncompromising story of one young woman’s refusal to accept her fate in 1920s Louisiana Jobs and Jesus from the big town don't ever seem to make it out here. Not down through the hackberry woods to the shack where I live with my Mambo. Not now Pappy’s gone. No, here’s where the old ways squat, where devil’s work heals and some say harms. That don’t mean the big town don’t visit though – white folks with their shirt sleeves, liquor stink, and nasty ways. More dark in them than even Mambo can hold off. But I got me a friend now, fierce and vengeful, and we got a powerful secret that’s gonna change everything.

Download or read book The Wife and the Widow written by Christian White and published by Affirm Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set against the backdrop of an eerie island town in the dead of winter, The Wife and the Widow is a mystery/thriller told from two perspectives: Kate, a widow whose grief is compounded by what she learns about her dead husband’s secret life; and Abby, an island local whose world is turned upside down when she’s forced to confront the evidence that her husband is a murderer. But nothing on this island is quite as it seems, and only when these women come together can they discover the whole story about the men in their lives. Brilliant and beguiling, The Wife and the Widow takes you to a cliff edge and asks the question: how well do we really know the people we love?

Download or read book The Whiskey Sea written by Ann Howard Creel and published by Lake Union Publishing. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fiercely independent young woman risks her heart and her freedom smuggling liquor in the 1920s.

Download or read book A Virgin River Christmas written by Robyn Carr and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2013-10-29 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Welcome back to Virgin River with the books that started it all... Last Christmas Marcie Sullivan said a final goodbye to her husband, Bobby. This Christmas she wants to find the man who saved his life and gave her three more years to love him. Fellow marine Ian Buchanan dragged Bobby's shattered body onto a medical transport four years ago, then disappeared once their unit arrived stateside. Since then, Marcie's letters to Ian have gone unanswered. Marcie tracks Ian to the tiny mountain town of Virgin River and finds a man as wounded emotionally as Bobby was physically. As Marcie pushes her way into his reclusive life, she discovers a sweet soul beneath a rough exterior. Ian doesn't know what to make of the determined young widow who forces him to look into his painful past and the uncertain future. But it is a season of miracles and maybe, just maybe, it's time to banish the ghosts and open his heart.

Download or read book Widows written by Ariel Dorfman and published by Seven Stories Press. This book was released on 2002-07-09 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in a Greek village in 1942, and purportedly written from his imagination by a Danish man before he was picked up by the Gestapo and not seen again, here is Ariel Dorfman’s haunting and universal parable of individual courage in the face of political oppression. Widows forms a testament to the disappeared—those living under totalitarian regimes the world over, who are taken away for "questioning" and never return. One by one, the bodies of men wash up on the shore of the river, where they are claimed by the women of the local town as husbands and fathers, even though the faces of the dead men are unrecognizable. A tug-of-war ensues between the local police, who insist that the women couldn’t possibly recognize their loved ones, and the women demanding the right to bury their beloveds. As it evolves, the stand-off reveals itself to be a power struggle between love, dignity and honor, and the lesser god of brute force. A lesson in how power really works, and how it can be made to work differently.

Download or read book The Underground River written by Martha Conway and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-20 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice Set aboard a nineteenth century riverboat theater, this is the moving, page-turning story of a charmingly frank and naive seamstress who is blackmailed into saving runaways on the Underground Railroad, jeopardizing her freedom, her livelihood, and a new love. It’s 1838, and May Bedloe works as a seamstress for her cousin, the famous actress Comfort Vertue—until their steamboat sinks on the Ohio River. Though they both survive, both must find new employment. Comfort is hired to give lectures by noted abolitionist, Flora Howard, and May finds work on a small flatboat, Hugo and Helena’s Floating Theatre, as it cruises the border between the northern states and the southern slave-holding states. May becomes indispensable to Hugo and his troupe, and all goes well until she sees her cousin again. Comfort and Mrs. Howard are also traveling down the Ohio River, speaking out against slavery at the many riverside towns. May owes Mrs. Howard a debt she cannot repay, and Mrs. Howard uses the opportunity to enlist May in her network of shadowy characters who ferry babies given up by their slave mothers across the river to freedom. Lying has never come easy to May, but now she is compelled to break the law, deceive all her new-found friends, and deflect the rising suspicions of Dr. Early who captures runaways and sells them back to their southern masters. As May’s secrets become more tangled and harder to keep, the Floating Theatre readies for its biggest performance yet. May’s predicament could mean doom for all her friends on board, including her beloved Hugo, unless she can figure out a way to trap those who know her best.