In The Emerald Horizon, Cornelia Mutel combines lyrical writing with meticulous scientific research to portray the environmental past, present, and future of Iowa. In doing so, she ties all of Iowa's natural features into one comprehensive whole. Since so much of the tallgrass state has been transformed into an agricultural landscape, Mutel focuses on understanding today’s natural environment by understanding yesterday’s changes. After summarizing the geological, archaeological, and ecological features that shaped Iowa’s modern landscape, she recreates the once-wild native communities that existed prior to Euroamerican settlement. Next she examines the dramatic changes that overtook native plant and animal communities as Iowa’s prairies, woodlands, and wetlands were transformed. Finally she presents realistic techniques for restoring native species and ecological processes as well as a broad variety of ways in which Iowans can reconnect with the natural world. Throughout, in addition to the many illustrations commissioned for this book, she offers careful scientific exposition, a strong sense of respect for the land, and encouragement to protect the future by learning from the past. The “emerald prairie” that “gleamed and shone to the horizon’s edge,” as botanist Thomas Macbride described it in 1895, has vanished. Cornelia Mutel’s passionate dedication to restoring this damaged landscape—and by extension the transformed landscape of the entire Corn Belt—invigorates her blend of natural history and human history. Believing that citizens who are knowledgeable about native species, communities, and ecological processes will better care for them, she gives us hope—and sound suggestions—for the future.

Ariella Bannon has no choice. She must put her precious children Liesl and Erich on that train or allow them to become prey for the Nazis. Berlin 1939.

Charlie Diamond was raised by incredible parents in Prairie Town, Oregon where everyone knows their neighbors and a kid can't get away with anything. To top that off, her father is the small town's preacher, making her nearly untouchable. But that doesn't stop one boy from crossing the line in the sand her father has drawn. Bentley Lawrence III has also been born and raised in Prairie Town as well. As a matter of fact, he's from four generations back, and his family owns a huge ranch, and logging land that employees most of the town. Bentley's twin sister, Stephanie Lawrence is best friends with Charlie, and somewhere between kindergarten and high school Bentley has fallen madly in love with Charlie. Sometimes, though, love just isn't enough, not when unbearable tragedy hits when that seems an insufferable possibility. When Charlie's world falls out from beneath her, a deathbed promise, and a loving best friend, sends Charlie on a whirlwind to find herself and live the dreams she promised Bentley she'd live.

Dublin 1950Liesl Bannon has never felt like she was truly at home anywhere, not since her mother placed her and her brother Erich on the last Kindertransport out of Berlin in 1939. She'd been so much more fortunate than most Jews, saved from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Being adopted by Elizabeth and Daniel Lieber meant she and Erich spent the war in Northern Ireland, safe and loved, but Liesl always knew something was missing. When an opportunity to return to Berlin to represent her university presents itself, she is so torn. Should she go back to the city that rejected her and her family, would it be too harrowing, or would it feel like home? In Berlin, a chance encounter with an old family friend sparks emotions for Liesl that she'd suppressed since she was a child. She finds herself desperately wanting to go back to those carefree days before Hitler, when life made sense, but why was her family so set against her return? Was it because they were worried about her as they claimed, or was there a darker, more sinister reason? The Hard Way Home is the third book in the best-selling Star and the Shamrock series.

Something bad happened to Matinicus "Matt" Hawkins in Afghanistan. The ex-SEAL was grievously wounded in an ambush that killed men under his command and almost ended his life. When he pushed for an investigation, he was kicked out of the Navy with a psychiatric discharge. The doctors put his shattered leg back together, but the bitterness destroyed his marriage. Five years later, Hawkins is jerked out of his tranquil life as a designer of undersea robots. A super-secret government group wants him to go back to Afghanistan on a strange and dangerous mission. A Georgetown University historian has unearthed evidence that could lead to the fabulous treasure of Prester John, a legendary Christian ruler of an eastern empire. The historian has disappeared, and the government wants Hawkins to track down the treasure as a matter of national security. The centerpiece of the trove, an emerald-encrusted gold scepter, is the linchpin in the Prophet's Necklace, code-name for a plot that is intended to kill more people than the attack on the Twin Towers and rally others to the terrorist cause. Hawkins sees his mission to foil the plot as an opportunity to search for answers. He pulls together an eclectic team that includes his ex-wife, a former comrade-in-arms and a mentally unstable computer whiz. Backed by his unlikely team, Hawkins will travel thousands of miles and hundreds of years on an amazing time-space odyssey. He'll face off against a cold-blooded killer. Probe the underwater secrets of an ancient tomb. Navigate the treacherous stands of an unimaginable conspiracy. And in the process, will discover that there are treasures even more valuable than gold.

She points the lens of the camera. The artist turns his head slightly. The light catches his brow and his silver-white hair. She snaps. He is lit like a Vermeer. Ireland. County Wexford, 1951. A father and son go swimming in the sea. The waves crash. The wind rises. Only one comes back—Colin, aged six. His mother, Eileen, runs to seek help, but this is a tragedy that will haunt them forever. Colin won’t speak a word. He is mute and struggling to cope. But Eileen can see he has a talent for painting. She shows him his father’s artwork and gives him a print of a Paul Henry landscape, and slowly, with her encouragement, he begins to follow his dream. Years later on Inishbofin island off the west coast of Ireland, out walking with his dog on the sand, Colin meets Laura, a young woman on holiday, and a tentative friendship starts to develop. Gradually his past comes to life in a story filled with love and frustration, loss and betrayal, but above all with the passion he has held through his life for the light in the sea and the sky and his search for that distant shore where the sky sweeps down to the water. One man. The sea. One painting.

"Includes Love & gelato, Love & luck"--Title page.

From rural Ireland, to the glitz of 1950's America, from the orange groves of Israel to the dark streets of post-war Liverpool, The World Starts Anew, is the fourth book in the best-selling Star and the Shamrock series.

Iowa has been changed more than, perhaps, any other state. We can mourn the disappearance of the bison and mountain lion while we marvel at the recent success of the wild turkey and white-tailed deer. Listening to James Dinsmore tell the story of wildlife in Iowa can open a window onto the future as other areas of our planet are increasingly altered by humans.