3 generations, 3 second chances The Prequel Grace Baron had always been the good wife, despite a marriage based on a careless indiscretion, and sustained not by love, but by old-fashioned morality. She’d raised her daughter, bit her tongue, and silently lived with her guilt. Now that she’s a widow, she can’t help being glad for her sudden freedom. Howard Scott’s gentle, old-fashioned courting makes Grace feel alive again. Would marrying Howard be the trap Grace fears, or would it finally give her a kind of freedom she’d never imagined? Secrets Schoolteacher Kelly Baron raised her child alone. Now that her daughter’s grown and married, Kelly can finally start her new life, responsible only for herself. She has just one more thing to do: help her mother. To do so, she must return to Heritage Springs, Kentucky, the place she’d fled years before. Newly divorced lawyer Rob Scott seeks solace for his heartache in his small-town roots. The last thing he’s looking for is a relationship. Then he runs into Kelly, the girl who’d disappeared from his life years ago, leaving behind only hurt and unanswered questions. Kelly’s kept her secret all these years. But sometimes the only way to build a future is to face the past. Nom de Plume Divorced, with her dreams of a big, happy family smashed to pieces, C.B Lyons takes her son to live near family. Typing manuscripts for a famous author is the perfect job until she discovers the hidden truth about the reclusive writer. Madison Mallory is a best-selling romance author with a secret. “She” is a “he.” The original Madison is in a nursing home. Her son, Jamie Madison, is determined she’ll have the best care possible. Even if that taking up his mother’s pen name. Writing about romance is one thing. Making it work in real life is harder. When C.B.’s ex wants his family back, can the author and his assistant find a way to write their own happily-ever-after ending?

In Niceville, a pleasant Southern town where evil lurks just beneath the surface, two back-to-back airplane crashes set off a spellbinding chain reaction of murder, inadvertent kidnapping, and double-dealing. Detective Nick Kavanaugh must balance his investigation into the accidents with family concerns and a long-buried mystery. He and his wife Kate, a family lawyer, have taken in Kate’s sister and her two children, escaping their abusive father Byron Deitz. The Kavanaughs are also caring for the orphaned Rainey Teague, who recently survived a strange kidnapping and has come back a very different child. Rainey was not the last person to vanish from a Niceville street; most recently, an administrator from Rainey’s school, and—even worse—Kate’s father, a local historian, have gone missing. Using her father’s files, Kate and Nick start to unearth their town’s bloodstained past, trying to discover the truth behind generations of disappearances. But a sinister someone—or something—stands in their way.

When Minnie Mullins sold her deceased husband's barbershop to Howard, a personable young stranger, little did she realize the portent of his sudden appearance in her community. Everywhere Jake goes something happens to get him drawn into resolving a mystery, even worse than when he was a cop. Like the Tennessee country music icon and his religious counterpart. Jake came to Knoxville to visit his "Dutch Uncle," only to find him incarcerated for murder. Albia is a typical mid-western county seat town of four thousand people, minus one. When an early blizzard finally relinquishes what it is hiding, the area will never be the same again. The snow-covered secret not only rewrites the community's history, but determines its future as well, and all the residents are affected.

Grace Baron had always been the good wife, in spite of a marriage based on a careless indiscretion, and sustained not by love, but by old-fashioned morality. She’d raised her daughter, bit her tongue, and silently lived with her guilt. Now that she’s a widow, she can’t help being glad for her sudden freedom. She’d never live her life like that again. Without a sense of control. Without deliberately making a choice about her future. And that future would never involve getting married again. Small town lawyer Howard Scott has buried two wives. His steadfast belief that it’s never too late to find true love keeps him open to whatever joy life has to offer. He doesn’t want another socialite wife. This time he wants a hometown girl. Someone stable, maybe a little naïve, but feisty enough to keep him on his toes. Someone like Grace Baron. Howard’s gentle, old-fashioned courting makes Grace feel alive again. Would marrying Howard be the trap Grace fears, or would it finally give her a kind of freedom she’d never imagined?

Professional bull rider Judd Romeo is a contender for the world title. He defies death for a living. But now he must deal with the death of his mother by settling her estate. Returning home to Kentucky, he runs smack dab into the arms of his high school sweetheart, a woman he's never forgotten. Veterinarian Mandy Sullivan learned early on that risk-takers are trouble. Having custody of her sister's child, she is working hard to be both mother and father to the abandoned girl, and doesn't count on trouble showing up next door. Mandy discovers she can't avoid the famous cowboy, and she's never quite put him out of her mind. When Mandy's sister comes back threatening to take away the little girl she loves as her own, will Mandy finally realize Judd is not the same man he once was?

When Savannah Mast's fiance dumps her a week before their wedding, she flees California for the safety of her Amish grandmother's farm near Nappanee, Indiana. She's not planning on staying long but becomes unexpectedly entangled in the search for a missing Amish girl. She can't leave--especially not when her childhood friend Tommy Miller is implicated as a suspect. When Savannah accompanies her grandmother to Plain Patterns, a nearby quilt shop, the owner and local historian, Jane Berger, relates a tale about another woman's disappearance back in the 1800s that has curious echoes to today. Inspired by the story, Savannah does all she can to find the Amish girl and clear Tommy's name. But when her former fiance shows up, begging her to return to California and marry him after all, she must choose between accepting the security of what he has to offer or continuing the complicated legacy of her family's faith.

Long before the official establishment of the Commonwealth, intrepid pioneers ventured west of the Allegheny Mountains into an expansive, alluring wilderness that they began to call Kentucky. After blazing trails, clearing plots, and surviving innumerable challenges, a few adventurers found time to pen celebratory tributes to their new homeland. In the two centuries that followed, many of the world’s finest writers, both native Kentuckians and visitors, have paid homage to the Bluegrass State with the written word. In The Kentucky Anthology, acclaimed author and literary historian Wade Hall has assembled an unprecedented and comprehensive compilation of writings pertaining to Kentucky and its land, people, and culture. Hall’s introductions to each author frame both popular and lesser-known selections in a historical context. He examines the major cultural and political developments in the history of the Commonwealth, finding both parallels and marked distinctions between Kentucky and the rest of the United States. While honoring the heritage of Kentucky in all its glory, Hall does not blithely turn away from the state’s most troubling episodes and institutions such as racism, slavery, and war. Hall also builds the argument, bolstered by the strength and significance of the collected writings, that Kentucky’s best writers compare favorably with the finest in the world. Many of the authors presented here remain universally renowned and beloved, while others have faded into the tides of time, waiting for rediscovery. Together, they guide the reader on a literary tour of Kentucky, from the mines to the rivers and from the deepest hollows to the highest peaks. The Kentucky Anthology traces the interests and aspirations, the achievements and failures and the comedies and tragedies that have filled the lives of generations of Kentuckians. These diaries, letters, speeches, essays, poems, and stories bring history brilliantly to life. Jesse Stuart once wrote, “If these United States can be called a body, Kentucky can be called its heart.” The Kentucky Anthology captures the rhythm and spirit of that heart in the words of its most remarkable chroniclers.