Download or read book The Undertaker s Assistant written by Amanda Skenandore and published by Kensington. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enthralling novel of historical fiction for fans of Lisa Wingate and Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Undertaker’s Assistant is a powerful story of human resilience set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans that features an extraordinary and unforgettable heroine at its heart. “The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.” Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies—and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer’s shortcomings. Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters—with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline—introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place . . .

Download or read book The Daughter written by Sara Blaedel and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thrilling novel from #1 international bestselling author Sara Blaedel, author of The Forgotten Girls "One of the best I've come across." -- Michael Connelly "Sara Blaedel is a force to be reckoned with. She's a remarkable crime writer who time and again delivers a solid, engaging story that any reader in the world can enjoy." -- Karin Slaughter "One can count on emotional engagement, spine-tingling suspense, and taut storytelling from Sara Blaedel." -- Sandra Brown Already widowed by the age of forty, Ilka Nichols Jensen, a school portrait photographer, leads a modest, regimented, and uneventful life in Copenhagen. Until unexpected news rocks her quiet existence: Her father--who walked out suddenly and inexplicably on the family more than three decades ago--has died. And he's left her something in his will: his funeral home. In Racine, Wisconsin. Clinging to this last shred of communication from the father she hasn't heard from since childhood, Ilka makes an uncharacteristically rash decision and jumps on a plane to Wisconsin. Desperate for a connection to the parent she never really knew, she plans to visit the funeral home and go through her father's things--hoping for some insight into his new life in America--before preparing the business for a quick sale. But when she stumbles on an unsolved murder, and a killer who seems to still be very much alive, the undertaker's daughter realizes she might be in over her head . . .

Download or read book The Second Life of Mirielle West written by Amanda Skenandore and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord with readers of Fiona Davis, Tracey Lange, and Marie Benedict. Based on the true story of America’s only leper colony, The Second Life of Mirielle West brings vividly to life the Louisiana institution known as Carville, where thousands of people were stripped of their civil rights, branded as lepers, and forcibly quarantined throughout the entire 20th century. For Mirielle West, a 1920’s socialite married to a silent film star, the isolation and powerlessness of the Louisiana Leper Home is an unimaginable fall from her intoxicatingly chic life of bootlegged champagne and the star-studded parties of Hollywood’s Golden Age. When a doctor notices a pale patch of skin on her hand, she’s immediately branded a leper and carted hundreds of miles from home to Carville, taking a new name to spare her family and famous husband the shame that accompanies the disease. At first she hopes her exile will be brief, but those sent to Carville are more prisoners than patients and their disease has no cure. Instead she must find community and purpose within its walls, struggling to redefine her self-worth while fighting an unchosen fate. As a registered nurse, Amanda Skenandore’s medical background adds layers of detail and authenticity to the experiences of patients and medical professionals at Carville – the isolation, stigma, experimental treatments, and disparate community. A tale of repulsion, resilience, and the Roaring ‘20s, The Second Life of Mirielle West is also the story of a health crisis in America’s past, made all the more poignant by the author’s experiences during another, all-too-recent crisis. PRAISE FOR AMANDA SKENANDORE’S BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY “Intensely emotional…Skenandore’s deeply introspective and moving novel will appeal to readers of American history.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book More Work for the Undertaker written by Margery Allingham and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "More Work for the Undertaker" by Margery Allingham. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Download or read book The Undertaker s Assistant written by Amanda Skenandore and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2019-07-30 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enthralling novel of historical fiction for fans of Lisa Wingate and Ellen Marie Wiseman, The Undertaker’s Assistant is a powerful story of human resilience set during Reconstruction-era New Orleans that features an extraordinary and unforgettable heroine at its heart. “The dead can’t hurt you. Only the living can.” Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies—and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer’s shortcomings. Tall and serious, Effie keeps her distance from the other girls in her boarding house, holding tight to the satisfaction she finds in her work. But despite her reticence, two encounters—with a charismatic state legislator named Samson Greene, and a beautiful young Creole, Adeline—introduce her to new worlds of protests and activism, of soirees and social ambition. Effie decides to seek out the past she has blocked from her memory and try to trace her kin. As her hopes are tested by betrayal, and New Orleans grapples with violence and growing racial turmoil, Effie faces loss and heartache, but also a chance to finally find her place . . .

Download or read book Between Earth and Sky written by Amanda Skenandore and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2018-04-24 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Amanda Skenandore’s provocative and profoundly moving debut, set in the tragic intersection between white and Native American culture, a young girl learns about friendship, betrayal, and the sacrifices made in the name of belonging. On a quiet Philadelphia morning in 1906, a newspaper headline catapults Alma Mitchell back to her past. A federal agent is dead, and the murder suspect is Alma’s childhood friend, Harry Muskrat. Harry—or Asku, as Alma knew him—was the most promising student at the “savage-taming” boarding school run by her father, where Alma was the only white pupil. Created in the wake of the Indian Wars, the Stover School was intended to assimilate the children of neighboring reservations. Instead, it robbed them of everything they’d known—language, customs, even their names—and left a heartbreaking legacy in its wake. The bright, courageous boy Alma knew could never have murdered anyone. But she barely recognizes the man Asku has become, cold and embittered at being an outcast in the white world and a ghost in his own. Her lawyer husband, Stewart, reluctantly agrees to help defend Asku for Alma’s sake. To do so, Alma must revisit the painful secrets she has kept hidden from everyone—especially Stewart. Told in compelling narratives that alternate between Alma’s childhood and her present life, Between Earth and Sky is a haunting and complex story of love and loss, as a quest for justice becomes a journey toward understanding and, ultimately, atonement.

Download or read book The Nurse s Secret written by Amanda Skenandore and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The unflinching, spellbinding new book from the acclaimed author of The Second Life of Mirielle West. Based on the little-known story of America’s first nursing school, a young female grifter in 1880s New York evades the police by conning her way into Bellevue Hospital’s training school for nurses, while a spate of murders continues to follow her as she tries to leave the gritty streets of the city behind… “A spellbinding story, a vividly drawn setting, and characters that leap off the pages. This is historical fiction at its finest!” —Sara Ackerman, USA Today bestselling author of The Codebreaker’s Secret Based on Florence Nightingale’s nursing principles, Bellevue is the first school of its kind in the country. Where once nurses were assumed to be ignorant and unskilled, Bellevue prizes discipline, intellect, and moral character, and only young women of good breeding need apply. At first, Una balks at her prim classmates and the doctors’ endless commands. Yet life on the streets has prepared her for the horrors of injury and disease found on the wards, and she slowly gains friendship and self-respect. Just as she finds her footing, Una’s suspicions about a patient’s death put her at risk of exposure, and will force her to choose between her instinct for self-preservation, and exposing her identity in order to save others. Amanda Skenandore brings her medical expertise to a page-turning story that explores the evolution of modern nursing—including the grisly realities of nineteenth-century medicine—as seen through the eyes of an intriguing and dynamic heroine. PRAISE FOR AMANDA SKENANDORE’S THE SECOND LIFE OF MIRIELLE WEST “In this superior historical, the author’s diligent research, as well as her empathetic depiction of those subjected to forced medical isolation, make this a winner.” —Publishers Weekly

Download or read book The Cowkeeper s Wish written by Tracy Kasaboski and published by Douglas & McIntyre. This book was released on 2018-09-15 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the 1840s, a young cowkeeper and his wife arrive in London, England, having walked from coastal Wales with their cattle. They hope to escape poverty, but instead they plunge deeper into it, and the family, ensconced in one of London’s “black holes,” remains mired there for generations. The Cowkeeper’s Wish follows the couple’s descendants in and out of slum housing, bleak workhouses and insane asylums, through tragic deaths, marital strife and war. Nearly a hundred years later, their great-granddaughter finds herself in an altogether different London, in southern Ontario. In The Cowkeeper’s Wish, Kristen den Hartog and Tracy Kasaboski trace their ancestors’ path to Canada, using a single family’s saga to give meaningful context to a fascinating period in history—Victorian and then Edwardian England, the First World War and the Depression. Beginning with little more than enthusiasm, a collection of yellowed photographs and a family tree, the sisters scoured archives and old newspapers, tracked down streets, pubs and factories that no longer exist, and searched out secrets buried in crumbling ledgers, building on the fragments that remained of family tales. While this family story is distinct, it is also typical, and so all the more worth telling. As a working-class chronicle stitched into history, The Cowkeeper’s Wish offers a vibrant, absorbing look at the past that will captivate genealogy enthusiasts and readers of history alike.

Download or read book The Undertakers written by Nicole Glover and published by John Joseph Adams. This book was released on 2021 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nicole Glover delivers the second book in her exciting Murder & Magic series of historical fantasy novels featuring Hetty Rhodes and her husband, Benjy, magic practitioners and detectives living in post-Civil War Philadelphia. Nothing bothers Hetty and Benjy Rhodes more than a case where the answers, motives, and the murder itself feel a bit too neat. Raimond Duval, a victim of one of the many fires that have erupted recently in Philadelphia, is officially declared dead after the accident, but Hetty and Benjy's investigation points to a powerful Fire Company known to let homes in the Black community burn to the ground. Before long, another death breathes new life into the Duval investigation: Raimond's son, Valentine, is also found dead. Finding themselves with the dubious honor of taking on Valentine Duval as their first major funeral, it becomes clear that his passing was intentional. Valentine and his father's deaths are connected, and the recent fires plaguing the city might be more linked to recent community events than Hetty and Benji originally thought. The Undertakers continues the adventures of murder and magic, where even the most powerful enchantments can't always protect you from the ghosts of the past . . .

Download or read book The Lies We Tell written by Debra Webb and published by MIRA. This book was released on 2019-09-17 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this thriller by the author of The Secrets We Bury, danger continues for a doctor grappling with an enigmatic past and the threat of a serial killer. Doctor Rowan Dupont knows a serial killer is coming for her. Julian Addington has been waiting. Watching. And it’s only a matter of time before he strikes. But what Julian doesn’t know is that Rowan is ready for him. And more than anything she wants answers. How well did the depraved killer actually know her mother? And how many lies have been spun in the years since she took her own life? Working alongside her childhood friend Police Chief Billy Brannigan, Rowan is determined to get to the bottom of her mother’s puzzling suicide once and for all—even if it means exposing an unsettling past. It certainly seems like her family’s Victorian funeral home has borne witness to more than one dark secret, but when a recent double homicide leads to an even grislier discovery, separating the truth from the lies might be the last thing Rowan does. Praise for the novels of USA Today–bestselling Author Debra Webb “Rife with tension. . . . A gripping read.” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Sandra Brown on The Longest Silence “You will fly through the pages of this action-packed thriller!” —#1 New York Times–bestselling author Lisa Gardner on No Darker Place “Webb weaves incredible twists and turns and a mind-blowing conclusion.” —RT Book Reviews on The Longest Silence

Download or read book Mortuary Confidential written by Todd Harra and published by Citadel. This book was released on 2021-12-28 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From rookie mistakes and runaway corpses to screaming dead men and unusual requests, a collection of stories by funeral directors.

Download or read book The Bone Magician written by F. E. Higgins and published by Feiwel & Friends. This book was released on 2011-02-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pin Carpue is on his own in the world. His mother is dead and his father is missing after being labeled a suspect in a rash of murders. Pin finds a job working for the local undertaker as a body watcher, making sure people are really dead before they're buried. The body he's supposed to be watching tonight is currently surrounded by three people engaged in a most unusual ceremony. An old man, a bone magician, and his young female assistant are waking a woman so her grieving fiancé can have one last goodbye with her. Pin can't believe it will work, but then the dead woman sits up and speaks. Pin is determined to discover how the magic works. He cannot believe they are raising the dead. He cannot believe his father is a murderer. Then Pin himself nearly becomes the killer's next victim. As this mysterious tale unfolds with delicious creepiness, Pin will learn more about the bone magician, the girl Juno, and a hideous creature called the Gluttonous Beast that is kept in a local tavern where people pay for a glimpse. Once again, F.E. Higgins delivers a story that is full of intrigue and suspense.

Download or read book Strange Nervous Laughter written by Bridget McNulty and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-05-12 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the hottest summer Durban has ever known, this debut novel follows six quirky characters as they muddle their way through life.

Download or read book Mistle Child written by Ari Berk and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silas visits the ancestral home of the Umber family to learn ancient family secrets in this “dark and gothic” (School Library Journal) contemporary ghost story, the second book in the Undertaken trilogy. Silas Umber has finally come into his own as the Undertaker of Lichport when an invitation arrives: a mysterious word carved into the door of his house. Intrigued, Silas ventures beyond the marshes to visit Arvale Manor, the ancestral estate of the Umber family. There, he discovers that the extended Umber family may be dead, but they are not gone: Indeed, many of them still dwell in Arvale, waiting for an Undertaker to return and preside over the Door Doom, an archaic rite that grants a terrible power to summon and bind the dead in judgment, forcibly sending them to their eternal rest. As Silas reluctantly assumes the mantle of Janus, the Watcher at the Threshold, he begins to learn more about his strange and ancient family. And deep below the earth, in the catacombs and sunken towers, grim spirits grow restless at his arrival—hungry for freedom and eager for vengeance. As the only living Undertaker at Arvale Manor, Silas must put an ancient wrong to right, as he discovers that even a house of ghosts can be haunted by its past—for in matters of family, we are who we were.

Download or read book Lady of Ashes written by Christine Trent and published by Kensington Books. This book was released on 2012-03-01 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A female undertaker in Victorian London suspects death by unnatural causes in a mystery “rich with historical incidents and details” (Publishers Weekly). Only a woman with an iron backbone could succeed as an undertaker in Victorian England, but Violet Morgan takes great pride in her trade. While her husband, Graham, is preoccupied with elevating their station in society, Violet is cultivating a sterling reputation for Morgan Undertaking. She is empathetic, well-versed in funeral fashions, and comfortable with death’s role in life—until its chilling rattle comes knocking on her own front door. Violet’s peculiar but happy life soon begins to unravel as Graham becomes obsessed with his own demons and all but abandons her as he plans a vengeful scheme. And the solace she's always found in her work evaporates like a departing soul when she suspects that some of the deceased she's dressed have been murdered. When Graham disappears, Violet takes full control of the business and is commissioned for an undertaking of royal proportions. But she's certain there's a killer lurking in the London fog, and the next funeral may be her own. With equal parts courage, compassion, and intrigue, Christine Trent tells an unrestrained tale of love and loss in the rigidly decorous world of Victorian society. Praise for the novels of Christine Trent “Genuinely engrossing.”—Publishers Weekly “Exuberant, sparkling, beguiling. . .brims with Dickensian gusto!”—Barbara Kyle, author of The Queen's Lady “Winningly original…glittering with atmospheric detail!”—Leslie Carroll, author of Royal Affairs

Download or read book Greeks Bearing Gifts written by Philip Kerr and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An NPR Book of the Year A Crime Reads Best Crime Book of 2018 A vicious murder puts Bernie Gunther on the trail of World War 2 criminals in Greece in this riveting historical thriller in Philip Kerr's New York Times bestselling series. Munich, 1956. Bernie Gunther has a new name, a chip on his shoulder, and a dead-end career when an old friend arrives to repay a debt and encourages "Christoph Ganz" to take a job as a claims adjuster in a major German insurance company with a client in Athens, Greece. Under the cover of his new identity, Bernie begins to investigate a claim by Siegfried Witzel, a brutish former Wehrmacht soldier who served in Greece during the war. Witzel's claimed losses are large , and, even worse, they may be the stolen spoils of Greek Jews deported to Auschwitz. But when Bernie tries to confront Witzel, he finds that someone else has gotten to him first, leaving a corpse in his place. Enter Lieutenant Leventis, who recognizes in this case the highly grotesque style of a killer he investigated during the height of the war. Back then, a young Leventis suspected an S.S. officer whose connection to the German government made him untouchable. He's kept that man's name in his memory all these years, waiting for his second chance at justice... Working together, Leventis and Bernie hope to put their cases--new and old--to bed. But there's a much more sinister truth to acknowledge: A killer has returned to Athens...one who may have never left.

Download or read book Risk Assessment of Radon in Drinking Water written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1999-06-24 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Safe Drinking Water Act directs the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate the quality of drinking water, including its concentration of radon, an acknowledged carcinogen. This book presents a valuable synthesis of information about the total inhalation and ingestion risks posed by radon in public drinking water, including comprehensive reviews of data on the transfer of radon from water to indoor air and on outdoor levels of radon in the United States. It also presents a new analysis of a biokinetic model developed to determine the risks posed by ingestion of radon and reviews inhalation risks and the carcinogenesis process. The volume includes scenarios for quantifying the reduction in health risk that might be achieved by a program to reduce public exposure to radon. Risk Assessment of Radon in Drinking Water, reflecting research and analysis mandated by 1996 amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act, provides comment on a variety of methods to reduce radon entry into homes and to reduce the concentrations of radon in indoor air and in water. The models, analysis, and reviews of literature contained in this book are intended to provide information that EPA will need to set a new maximum contaminant level, as it is required to do in 2000.