Decades of Loss, an Unsolved Mystery, and a Rift Spanning Three Generations Hazel DeFord is a woman haunted by her past. While berry picking in a blackberry thicket in 1943, ten-year old Hazel momentarily turns her back on her three-year old sister Maggie and the young girl disappears. Almost seventy years later, the mystery remains unsolved and the secret guilt Hazel carries has alienated her from her daughter Diane, who can’t understand her mother’s overprotectiveness and near paranoia. While Diane resents her mother’s inexplicable eccentricities, her daughter Meghan—a cold case agent—cherishes her grandmother’s lavish attention and affection. When a traffic accident forces Meghan to take a six-week leave-of-absence to recover, all three generations of DeFord women find themselves unexpectedly under the same roof. Meghan knows she will have to act as a mediator between the two headstrong and contentious women. But when they uncover Hazel’s painful secret, will Meghan also be able to use her investigative prowess to solve the family mystery and help both women recover all that’s been lost?

Decades of Loss, an Unsolved Mystery, and a Rift Spanning Three Generations Hazel DeFord is a woman haunted by her past. While berry picking in a blackberry thicket in 1943, ten-year old Hazel momentarily turns her back on her three-year old sister Maggie and the young girl disappears. Almost seventy years later, the mystery remains unsolved and the secret guilt Hazel carries has alienated her from her daughter Diane, who can’t understand her mother’s overprotectiveness and near paranoia. While Diane resents her mother’s inexplicable eccentricities, her daughter Meghan—a cold case agent—cherishes her grandmother’s lavish attention and affection. When a traffic accident forces Meghan to take a six-week leave-of-absence to recover, all three generations of DeFord women find themselves unexpectedly under the same roof. Meghan knows she will have to act as a mediator between the two headstrong and contentious women. But when they uncover Hazel’s painful secret, will Meghan also be able to use her investigative prowess to solve the family mystery and help both women recover all that’s been lost?

In our chaotic, high-tech age, the lines between work and home, public and private, are becoming increasingly blurred. In this changing time, Jackson explores the ever-changing role of home in our lives and sets out to update our idea of home. What's Happening to Home? goes beyond debates about square footage and working moms, to shed light on the larger questions surrounding the idea of home. How can we find refuge without shortchanging the work lives so many of us value? How can we preserve times and spaces for intimacy and reflection without returning to rigid ideals of the past? Jackson offers an inspiring and illuminating look at the future of home, the centerpiece of our lives. - Author website.

As our health-care system challenges institutions to offer high-quality but cost-effective service, Reiki can be an important tool that can help maximize patient care and minimize recovery time. This is the first book to show how this ancient art of touch therapy can work within our mainstream health care system.

Royal Academy, London 1919: Lily has put her student days in St. Ives, Cornwall, behind her—a time when her substitute mother, Mrs. Ramsay, seemingly disliked Lily’s portrait of her and Louis Grier, her tutor, never seduced her as she hoped he would. In the years since, she’s been a suffragette and a nurse in WWI, and now she’s a successful artist with a painting displayed at the Royal Academy. Then Louis appears at the exhibition with the news that Mrs. Ramsay has died under suspicious circumstances. Talking to Louis, Lily realizes two things: 1) she must find out more about her beloved Mrs. Ramsay’s death (and her sometimes-violent husband, Mr. Ramsay), and 2) She still loves Louis. Set between 1900 and 1919 in picturesque Cornwall and war-blasted London, Talland House takes Lily Briscoe from the pages of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and tells her story outside the confines of Woolf’s novel—as a student in 1900, as a young woman becoming a professional artist, her loves and friendships, mourning her dead mother, and solving the mystery of her friend Mrs. Ramsay’s sudden death. Talland House is both a story for our present time, exploring the tensions women experience between their public careers and private loves, and a story of a specific moment in our past—a time when women first began to be truly independent.

Ugandan Mary Tendo worked for many years in the white middle-class Henman household in London, cleaning for Vanessa and looking after her only child, Justin. More than ten years after Mary has left, Justin - now twenty-two - is too depressed to get out of bed. To his mother's surprise, he asks for Mary. When Mary responds to Vanessa's cry for help and returns from Uganda to look after Justin, the balance of power in the house shifts dramatically. Both women's lives change irrevocably as tensions build towards a climax on a snowbound motorway. 'Beautifully observed, intelligent and moving ... a carefully wrapped surprise that gets better and better with the unravelling.' The Scotsman 'A moving, funny, engrossing book.' The Observer 'Gee satirises the liberal conscience of the chattering classes with uncomfortable perception in this hugely enjoyable novel ... her portrayal of Britain's new underclass of immigrant workers is presented with her trademark stinging clarity.' Metro 'Maggie Gee is a superb and pitiless analyser of middleclass angst. Elegant, humorous and surprising, this is a classy performance.' The Times 'It's amazing how many details, characters, stories within stories, Maggie Gee's unquenchable exuberance crams into this comparatively short book.' The Spectator An intelligent and satisfying read.' The Sunday Times 'A masterful study in Africa/UK relations which manages to be supremely uncomfortable without being cynical, and clever without being calculating.' Big Issue 'The Flood was chillingly predictive. My Cleaner is a calmer, happier novel. Yet a gnawing tragedy lies in the shadows, all the more poignant for the deftness with which it's brushed aside.' The Independent

What if you had one year to save everything you loved? ONE PRINCESS. Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets— and her peaceful kingdom. But she's frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge – maybe even, someday, love. TWO GODS. But the fiery Princess never expects her disquiet to manifest by way of Feradach, an uncanny supernatural being tasked with rooting out rot and stagnation, who appears in DunBroch on Christmas Eve with the intent to demolish the realm – and everyone within. Only the intervention of the Cailleach, an ancient entity of creation, gives Merida a shred of hope: convince her family to change within the year – or suffer the eternal consequences. THREE VOYAGES. Under the watchful eyes of the gods, Merida leads a series of epic journeys to kingdoms near and far in an attempt to inspire revolution within her family. But in her efforts to save those she loves from ruin, has Merida lost sight of the Clan member grown most stagnant of all – herself? FOUR SEASONS TO SAVE DUNBROCH – OR SEE IT DESTROYED, FOREVER.

The state's case against Chuck Delgado is foundering as things heat up and turn deadly. Frank and Loretta can help, but will they risk their hearts' desires to do the right thing? And will Maggie embrace an old love? Return to the world of Rosemont as the people of Westbury seek their happy ending.

Presents the text of Alice Walker's story "Everyday Use"; contains background essays that provide insight into the story; and features a selection of critical response. Includes a chronology and an interview with the author.

In seventeenth-century Scotland, saying the wrong thing can lead to banishment—or worse. Accused of being a witch, sixteen-year-old Maggie Blair is sentenced to be hanged. She escapes, but instead of finding shelter with her principled, patriotic uncle, she brings disaster to his door. Betrayed by one of her own accusers, Maggie must try to save her uncle and his family from the king’s men, even if she has to risk her own life in the process. Originally published in the UK, this book has a powerful blend of heart-stopping action and thought-provoking themes.