This story is about LAURINA (a young girl) wondering what was the other half of her family heritage/genealogy). Where did her ideas and thoughts come from. Her inner self kept saying she was much more. At the age of 7, she grew up with a mother, stepfather and siblings of her mother and stepfather. She always felt like an outsider in the family she lived with. She was pretty much treated like a second class member of the family. She knew in her inner self she was capable of much more and felt that her other side came from a great family. Laurina was the oldest in the family and got stuck with baby sitting and cleaning. As she grew older, her inner sense knew there was more to her life and self worth.

A collection of recipes, memories, and stories inspired by the authors' grandmother, Laurina Ecobelli, whose family operated Ecobelli's Tam O'Shanter Inn on Route 50 in Ballston Spa for more than 40 successful years.

Just before Christmas, in Ireland in the late 1980s. Violence, religious terror, hostility and exclusion determine everyday life in a district near Belfast. "Sandy is what keeps me alive," Laurina says to her mother one day. It's the day the eleven-year-old girl begins to struggle against an unimaginably dreary life. At the new school everyone is against Laurina and her sister Sandy because they are not honest Catholics like the other kids say. While the mother tries to get through every day with whatever jobs to feed her children, they are also despised for their apparent poverty. When they are then separated from their mother, their world collapses. Only one classmate is gradually bringing Laurina's trust and hope back - but this boy of all people is hiding a big, serious secret... A social drama set in Ireland in the late 1980s, it tells the story of a girl who would go through hell for her little sister.

BEHIND THE KITCHEN DOOR....A Shotgun Wedding, begins in the rural countryside of North Carolina and takes the reader on an adventure and experiences to some of the most exciting cities that one only hears about. From the big, historical city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with all its rich history of America, to the tall skyscrapers and exciting nightlife of Manhattan in New York City, to the sprawling city of Los Angeles, California and to Europe and the romantic, "La Ville-Lumiere" (The City Of Light), Paris, France and the French Riviera. It is a story of love, romance, racism, miscegenation, betrayals, triumphs and tragedies. It is the story of Alene, a pretty, smart,teenager who has to endure a lot of tragedies in her young life and of her family’s struggle in America’s rural south from the mid 1920’s through the Great Depression in the 1930 ́s, dealing with racial segregation and Jim Crow laws. She has to grow up much too fast due to the passing of her mother, after giving birth to her baby sister. Alene who was thirteen and the oldest of eight children, helped her father to raise her younger siblings until her father remarried. She gets pregnant by her boyfriend Julius at age seventeen and tells her father, who beats her mercilessly. She and Julius are forced to go to court and tell the judge where they had sex. They are made to marry. She leaves Julius because of beatings and abuse and move up north to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On her way up north, she experiences first-hand Jim Crow laws of the south, starting with segregated interstate train cars. Once in Philadelphia she meets four young women and they form a lasting friendship. Alene meets and fall in love with Mitch at a jazz club. She becomes seriously ill with tuberculosis, and her father comes and takes her and her little boy back home. Her doctor admits her to a sanitarium for treatment but later tells her and her family that the disease is much worst than he thought. She dies a few months later of the illness.

Hawks Effect is a Sci Fi story, consisting of four Volumes, which is published as a serialized novel, beginning with the first volume "Emergence" in 10 Episodes. This is Episode 1: Street smart former dancer turned con artist, Laurina Hawks, receives a cryptic message from her sister who is working abroad in America. Turning to her brother Abel for help in decoding the message, they discover that she is in danger. Undaunted, Laurina decides to go to Phoenix Arizona to rescue her. Since travel airfare and lodging are expensive, and her funds are low, she must pull one last con to finance the trip. An accident after the meeting propels her into unfamiliar surroundings where danger lurks at every turn. Each person she meets has their own agenda. Now, someone wants her dead. As her resolve to save her sister is tested again and again, Laurina soon discovers that there are worse things than having Scotland Yard on your tail.

Smoke In the Kitchen is about second chance. This book, set in Freetown, Sierra Leone, tells the story about 43 year old Sara Moses who happens to find life's purpose where she least expects. The challenging situation she faces is not uncommon to Sara. Following the untimely death of her fiance and her unborn daughter, her life becomes empty and meaningless. With much persuasion from her sister, she picks herself up, dusts herself off, and begins a new life. She falls in love and marries Benjamin Moses, a government official. Still plagued by her challenging circumstances including her desire to have children, she starts the process of adopting two children. This doesn't go well due to retaliation from an unknown source. Feeling devastated Sara channels her energy by forming a reforestation society and encourages an entire nation to replant the forest. At the end, Sara provides a second chance to nature as well as to two innocent children."

Harriet and Henry have just met. They’re super keen on each other, but both of them are scared that their past experiences are too much for the relationship to handle. Follow their story as they learn how to overcome the fear of new love by letting go of the past. Through this unique integration of fact and fiction, you will learn how to manage expectations, identify and release emotional triggers, improve communication, and set healthy boundaries in your relationship. If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of entering a new relationship after having been hurt in the past, Scared Lovers will help you to put the hurt behind you and create the relationship of your dreams.

In this thoroughly comprehensive, utterly captivating culinary guidebook, acclaimed food writer Waverley Root traverses Italy from Lombardy to Sicily, and across 3,000 years of invasions. An exhaustive catalog of the country’s gastronomic legacy, The Food of Italy explains the regional delicacies, the traditions, and the history that define the way Italians eat. From the legally enforced frugality of the Renaissance table to the enduring Saracen luxury of Sicilian desserts, from the lasagna of Bologna to the saltimbocca of Rome, Root explores the secrets and customs of a cuisine so nuanced that even the basic ragu Bolognese has some two hundred variations. A culinary adventurer who made his mark decades before Anthony Bourdain appeared on the scene, Root shares the stories of an elephant forced to spend the winter of 1551 in the South Tyrol and the dishes named after him, the proper way to bottle Chianti, and the mysteries surrounding the origin of tortellini. Essential reading for travelers—of the armchair and ticketed variety, alike—The Food of Italy, which features decorative maps (that may not be legible for all readers) and illustrations, brings the subtleties of the Italian palate into any home.

In 1877, the citizens of Chippewa Falls, Minnesota, are recovering from the devastation of a five-year grasshopper infestation. Throughout the years that follow, countless hardships, trials, and life-threatening dangers will plague the settlers as they struggle for survival amidst the harsh environs and crude conditions of the state's southwest plains. But Chippewa Falls' determined townsfolk, as well as the area's farmers and prairie dwellers, refuse to admit defeat on the edge of America's frontier. The community comes together - fighting the elements of the majestic Minnesota landscape to build a place for themselves and their families for generations to come. Against this challenging backdrop and across the span of the next two decades, four young women - Laurina, Millicent, Pearl, and Amy - each find a faith that sustains them in the tough, uncertain times...a joy that surpasses all understanding..and the love of a man that compels them to stay.

Lady Caroline has one mission in mind, helping her mother maintain their estates after her father’s death, while knights posing as the earl’s men continue to kill their livestock. But as soon as her mother wishes the earl’s intervention, Caroline has a new problem–the earl is intrigued with her and wants her to reside at his castle and serve his mother. Caroline refuses, but as the raids on her family’s lands turn more deadly, Lord John Talbot forces the issue. Caroline continues to attempt to uncover who is behind the raids, and with her unnatural ability to remember details, she intends to see justice done. The lady may be his undoing, but the earl decides she is the one for him and no other will do, if only he can keep her safe from the danger that follows her every move until he can wed her.