My Mom died when I had just turned 15 - leaving me, my 5 year old brother and our Dad to cope with life on a Northern MN farm during the 40's, 50's and 60's. Farm work is hard,tough work as I struggled to cook all meals on our wood burning cook stove, hand carry from a distance all water for our home, weekly cleaned our entire 2 story home, baked all bread for next week and washed all the clothes for our family. Which had to be hung on outdoor lines - summer or winter where they froze on the line I had to bring back into the house to hang wherever to finish drying. Electricity brought only one appliance - an iron. Our farm did not have: a phone, frig or a freezer which was an unknown item to our farm family. Trying to balance being a high school teenager with all of my farm/family responsibilities was difficult as I loved and respected my family and at same time wanted to be more involved with school activities and friends. A college education was my dream, I never discussed this with my Dad as he was struggling with lack of income and available job opportunities. My college education became a reality much later in my adult life when I realized I alone had the total financial responsibly for my 4 young children. However difficult this was, lessons learned during my growing up years prepared me for life challenges. And unfortunately there were almost over whelming situations to live through and onward.

A heart-wrenching novel in verse about a poor girl surviving the Irish Land Wars, by a two-time Newbery Honor-winning author. For Anna, the family farm has always been home... But now, things are changing. Anna's mother has died, and her older siblings have emigrated, leaving Anna and her father to care for a young sister with special needs. And though their family has worked this land for years, they're in danger of losing it as poor crop yields leave them without money to pay their rent. When a violent encounter with the Lord's rent collector results in Anna and her father's arrest, all seems lost. But Anna sees her chance and bolts from the jailhouse. On the run, Anna must rely on her own inner strength to protect her sister--and try to find a way to save her family. Written in verse, A Slip of a Girl is a poignant story of adversity, resilience, and self-determination by a master of historical fiction, painting a haunting history of the tensions in the Irish countryside of the early 1890s, and the aftermath of the Great Famine. A Junior Library Guild Selection A Bank Street Best Book of the Year

In 1985, as he prepared to release information that could have brought down the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, solicitor and senior Scottish Nationalist politician Willie McRae was found in a remote highland glen. He had been under surveillance by officers of the Special Branch who had followed him from Glasgow. He had been shot in the head. Suicide or state-sponsored murder? This fast-paced work of historical fiction explores a controversy which continues to dog the legacies of the Heath and Thatcher governments in the decades leading to the end of the last century.

This absorbing work tells the tragic story of a Donegal girl named Norah Ryan. Righteous and intelligent Norah left her homeland after her father's death, desiring a better life across the water. Unable to get out of the cycle of poverty, Norah's fate is drastically affected when she becomes pregnant by Alec Morrison, the son of the farmer on whose land she lived and worked in awful conditions. Set in Ireland and Scotland in the early 1900s and based on actual events, 'The Rat-Pit' follows her struggles against poverty.

At a time when her friends were planning cushy retirements, Nancy Wesson instead walked away from a comfortable life and business to head out as a Peace Corps Volunteer in post-war Northern Uganda. She embraced wholeheartedly the grand adventure of living in a radically different culture, while turning old skills into wisdom. Returning home becomes a surreal experience in trying to reconcile a life that no longer “fits.” This becomes the catalyst for new revelations about family wounds, mystical experiences, and personal foibles. Nancy shows us the power of stepping into the void to reconfigure life and enter the wilderness of the uncharted territory of our own memories and psyche, to mine the gems hidden therein. Funny, heartbreaking, insightful and tender, I Miss the Rain in Africa is the story of honoring the self, discovering a new lens through which to view life, and finding joy along the path. "Inspiring and educational when it comes to what we can accomplish when we put our best foot forward, I Miss the Rain in Africa shows how Nancy Daniel Wesson and others are putting the needs of others ahead of themselves-and what we can all do when it comes to stepping out on faith and choosing to act." -- Cyrus Webb, media personality and author, Conversations Magazine "I would think that many of us could learn or strive to live life to the fullest by following Nancy's example. Imagine venturing into new realms-especially at a later time in life when we possess meaningful knowledge for analyzing, but also for applying a critical philosophical perspective on new experiences." --Gary Vizzo, former management & operations director, Peace Corps Community Development: African and Asia "I Miss the Rain in Africa is an absorbing record of the exploration of self by a woman who, at age 64, enters a remote area of Africa to work with an NGO. Part adventure, part interior monologue, this is an account of a 21st century derring-do by an intrepid, intriguing and always optimistic woman who will, undoubtedly, enjoy a fourth and maybe even a fifth act wherever she may find herself." --Eileen Purcell, outreach literacy coordinator, Clatsop Community College, Astoria, Oregon "Wesson offers a montage of stories and experiences that introduces the reader to the colorful people and challenging life in Uganda. Wesson's observations are shared with humor, respect, and compassion. For anyone who has ever wondered what serving in Peace Corps or immersing oneself in a radically different life overseas might be like, this book provides a portal." --Kathleen Willis, Retired Peace Corps Volunteer-Community Organizer, former organizational development consultant Learn more at www.NancyWesson.com

“Engel captures the spirit of Doyle’s tone in the Holmes sagas without it being a stilted or pale imitation . . . A lively, engaging page-turner.” —Curled Up With a Good Book Howard Engel is the award-winning writer whose Benny Cooperman mysteries garner rave international reviews—fans stretch from Canada to Japan, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the United States. His latest, Mr. Doyle & Dr. Bell, is a brilliant departure from the Cooperman series. The year is 1879, and in Edinburgh, Alan Lambert has been tried, convicted, and sentenced to hang for the murder of a dazzling opera star and her lover. But Lambert’s brother believes he’s innocent and pleads with Dr. Bell, a celebrated professor of anatomy, to uncover the truth. Bell agrees and sets out to crack the case with his keen powers of deduction and the help of his student, Arthur Conan Doyle. “Charming . . . [This book] will satisfy the craving of Sherlockians for another dose of gaslight and fog.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto) “Provides mystery buffs with more to ponder than your average whodunit . . . More intriguing than the actual plot, though, is the combination of fact with fiction that gives readers a glimpse of the real life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle—his character, his influences, and the era in which he lived.” —Quill & Quire

Lightning Lord: A mysterious thief appears at a museum robbery garbed like a medieval druid. This “monk” exhibits a Zeus-like ability to summon thunderbolts from the heavens. Shortly thereafter, a beautiful woman approaches Calvary. This alluring stranger says that she’s traveled back in time to aid in capturing the “lightning burglar.” Julia Percy and her team are soon caught up in a web of betrayal and deceit, where nothing is as it seems, and few people are who they claim to be. Lifestone: William Lavert has, meanwhile, gone off alone to confront a separate crisis. At a secluded cabin in the Colorado Rockies, he hopes to find the answer for why certain individuals, including his sister, have begun aging rapidly after encountering a mystical stone tablet. Limbo: These two disparate cases conspire to set Percy and Lavert upon a fateful collision course where either they’ll fall madly in love, or else wind up killing each other.

She was the incomparable Lily Molyneux, whose jet hair and sapphire eyes drove men to madness and revenge. Rich, reckless titles, her secrets would scar generations to come . . . . They could never have enough money or power to capture her elusive heart: three men who amassed fame and fortune in pursuit of the one woman they couldn't deny. And a fourth who dies for her sins . . . . Elizabeth Adler's enthralling novel of passion, privilege, and retribution sweeps from the castles of nineteenth-century Ireland to Boston bustling Back Bay, from Beacon Hill's mansions to Wall Street's towering heights: three generations haunted by buried passions that refuse to rest in peace . . . .