Mercy has a quiet, unassuming life in the small English village where she was born. Engaged to a frugal yet polite man, she believes that her peaceful life will continue from here on out…that is, until her best friend returns from London and turns everyone on their head! Her friend’s wedding is an extravagant affair, very different from anything Mercy has ever known. But then the bride goes into a panic when a handsome man with cold eyes appears. She says that this man, Croft, is here to ruin the wedding. Rushing to her friend’s rescue, Mercy tries to distract the man…and ends up ruining her own life instead!

Syrians crossing the Mediterranean in ramshackle boats bound for Europe; Sudanese refugees, their belongings on their backs, fleeing overland into neighboring countries; children separated from their parents at the US/Mexico border--these are the images that the Global Refugee Crisis conjures to many. In the news we often see photos of people in transit, suffering untold deprivations in desperate bids to escape their countries and find safety. But behind these images, there is a second crisis--a crisis of arrival. Refugees in the 21st century have only three real options--urban slums, squalid refugee camps, or dangerous journeys to seek asylum--and none provide genuine refuge. In No Refuge, political philosopher Serena Parekh calls this the second refugee crisis: the crisis of the millions of people who, having fled their homes, are stuck for decades in the dehumanizing and hopeless limbo of refugees camps and informal urban spaces, most of which are in the Global South. Ninety-nine percent of these refugees are never resettled in other countries. Their suffering only begins when they leave their war-torn homes. As Parekh urgently argues by drawing from numerous first-person accounts, conditions in many refugee camps and urban slums are so bleak that to make people live in them for prolonged periods of time is to deny them human dignity. It's no wonder that refugees increasingly risk their lives to seek asylum directly in the West. Drawing from extensive first-hand accounts of life as a refugee with nowhere to go, Parekh argues that we need a moral response to these crises--one that assumes the humanity of refugees in addition to the challenges that states have when they accept refugees. Only once we grasp that the global refugee crisis has these two dimensions--the asylum crisis for Western states and the crisis for refugees who cannot find refuge--can we reckon with a response proportionate to the complexities we face. Countries and citizens have a moral obligation to address the structures that unjustly prevent refugees from accessing the minimum conditions of human dignity. As Parekh shows, there are ways we as citizens can respond to the global refugee crisis, and indeed we are morally obligated to do so.

A touching, timely and tender exploration of refugees and migration for the youngest readers.

In a quiet town with a thriving Mennonite community, police officer Ashley Walters finds her threadbare faith and way of life challenged by the Plain people whose simple dress and welcoming manner open her eyes to a God she left behind. Peace eludes Ashley until she realizes the answers she seeks aren't found in starting over but in returning to the simple truth that it's God who overcomes the world, not her. Written for women who desire action-packed suspense, romance, and an escape into the peaceful world of the Mennonites, Hiding in Plain Sight delves into the painful struggle to fit in and the search for peace that so often eludes our fast-paced lives.

Five years ago, Tobias Jones and his wife set up a woodland sanctuary for people in a period of crisis in their lives. Windsor Hill Wood quickly becomes a well-known refuge, and a family home is transformed into a small community. Most people arrive because of a desperate need - bereavement, depression, addiction or homelessness - while others come simply because they are dismayed by modern life. A Place of Refuge is the story of an evolving community: the characters and conflicts, the miracles and mistakes. As the seasons turn in the bustling woodland, an ever-changing group of people try to share their money, their meals and ideals; making furniture, growing vegetables and rearing livestock. Encountering both violent antagonism and astounding generosity, the family open up not only their house, but also themselves, to the most demanding of judgements and transformations. This book is not about a retreat from the world, but about a deeper engagement with it. Living alongside troubled guests, Jones examines the consequences of our way of life - seeing up close the scars of war, abuse and loneliness - and contemplates the ways in which nature and stillness offer solace to those in torment.

Margaretta Fortescue desperately needs to disappear from London society, and her only hope is to follow the rumors of another young woman who recently made a life for herself away from the glare of society. Her search leads her to the market town of Marlborough where, in spite of her efforts to avoid attention, she can't seem to elude local solicitor Nash Banfield. All Nash wants is a quiet, sedate life--no risks or surprises. When Margaretta, clearly on the run and unwilling to answer questions, interrupts his solitude, his curiosity and his principles won't let him leave this determined woman without assistance. But will discovering the truth about Margaretta make him think twice about finally taking a risk on love? A Search for Refuge is an e-only novella that gives an exciting introduction to Kristi Ann Hunter's new Regency historical romance series, Haven Manor! Includes an extended excerpt of the first full-length novel in the series, A Defense of Honor.

Run! Hide! We are watching you, Huxley!Huxley Dempsy suffers from a paranoid personality disorder. After a horrific tragedy five years ago, Huxley is convinced people are out to get him. Taking refuge in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, he is a prisoner to his own mind. If he can think it up, it must be true, and there is no convincing him otherwise.Wildlife biologist, Aspen Taylor, is on his way north again to close up the final year of the Grizzly Bear Research Project. Studying wildlife in their natural habitat is what sings to his soul. However, who he finds in the mountains is almost as beastly as the bears he studies.An underlying sense of familiarity draws Aspen to learn more about this Wildman, and a strong sense of attraction binds them together almost instantly. But can Aspen break through the barriers of Huxley's mind and convince him to go home?

The first book in the Ada's House series, The Hope of Refuge is a moving story of love, hope, and new beginnings from New York Times bestselling author Cindy Woodsmall. The widowed mother of a little girl, Cara Moore is struggling against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When her stalker ransacks her home, Cara and her daughter, Lori, flee New York City for an Amish community, eager for a fresh start. But she discovers that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, and it’s no place for an outsider. One Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God—“Be me to her”—despite how it threatens his way of life. While Ephraim tries to do what he believes is right, will he be shunned and lose everything, including the guarded single mother who simply longs for a better life? A complete opposite of the hard, untrusting Cara, Ephraim’s sister Deborah also finds her dreams crumbling when the man she has pledged to build a life with begins withdrawing from Deborah and his community, including his mother, Ada Stoltzfus. Can the run-down house that Ada envisions transforming unite them toward a common purpose—or will it push Mahlon away forever?

To seek sanctuary from persecution by entering a sacred space is an act of desperation, but also a symbolic endeavor: fugitives invoke divine presence to reach a precarious safe haven that imbues their lives with religious, social, or political significance. In medieval England, sanctuary was upheld under both canon and common law, and up to five hundred people sought sanctuary every year. What they found, however, was not so much a static refuge as a temporary respite from further action—confession and exile—or from further violence—jurisdictional conflict, harrying or starvation, a breaching of the sanctuary. While sanctuary has usually been analyzed as part of legal history, in Uncertain Refuge Elizabeth Allen explores the symbolic consequences of sanctuary seeking in English literary works—miracle collections, chronicles, romances, and drama. She ponders the miracle of a stag's escape from the hunt into a churchyard as well as the account of a fallen political favorite who gains a sort of charisma as he takes sanctuary three times in succession; the figure of Sir Gawain, seeking refuge in a stark land far from the court and Robin Hood, hiding in his local forest refuge among his Merry Men. Her consideration of medieval sanctuary extends to its resonances in a seventeenth-century play about the early Tudor usurper Perkin Warbeck and even into modern America, with the case of a breach of sanctuary in southwest Georgia in 1963, when sheriffs took over a voter registration meeting in a local church. Uncertain Refuge illuminates a fantasy of protection and its impermanence that animated late medieval literary culture, and one that remains poignantly alive, if no longer written into law, in today's troubled political world.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE CILIP KATE GREENAWAY MEDAL I Go Quiet is the exquisite story of an introverted girl, struggling to find her place in a noisy world. Through the power of books, creativity and imagination, she begins to see possibilities for herself beyond the present, to a future where her voice will finally be heard.