Sometimes the one you love is the very one you cannot have. Lady Eve Sotherby dreams of escaping her horrid life in England, yet she has nowhere to run. So when she spies a posting for a companion in the Highlands, she seizes the chance to disappear. She’s heard tales about the barbaric Highlanders, of course, but no one can be worse than the beast she once foolishly agreed to wed. And never mind that she doesn’t meet any of the requirements for the position: must have no family, must love the cold, and must know the healing arts. Her depraved relations hardly qualify as family, she’ll wear a shawl, and how hard can it be to learn medicinal ways? Laird Royce MacLeod rules the fiercest clan in the Highlands with an iron fist, but his two children are another matter. Since the death of his wife, they’ve grown quite unruly. Too busy with his clan duties to tend to them himself, he needs someone with both a spine of steel and a kind heart to subdue them. What he does not need—or want—is to get entangled with a woman who desires anything related to soft emotions from him. So when a mysterious woman appears at his holding showing the sort of mettle he requires, he takes her on, despite her two major flaws: she’s English and she’s beautiful. Soon, Eve finds herself yearning for the one thing her past prevents her from ever having—the honorable but brooding Highlander. And the Scot who was certain he desired only order and obedience cannot explain the undeniable pull to the chaos and warmth Eve brings to his home. But the more they deny their feelings, the more impossible they become to resist, and when enemies and secrets threaten, Eve and Royce may only survive by surrendering to true love. If only it’s not too late…

Between the Mountain and the Sky shows us the goodness that is possible when a single person--regardless of age--takes action to help another and, in the process, changes the lives of hundreds. Maggie’s story begins in suburban New Jersey, in a comfortable middle-class family that supports her decision to travel the world during a gap year before starting college. During her travels, the trajectory of her life alters when she has a surprise encounter with a Nepali girl breaking rocks in a quarry. Maggie decides to invest her life savings of five thousand dollars to buy a piece of land and open a children’s home in Nepal. That home becomes Kopila Valley Children’s Home, and eventually, the nonprofit Maggie launches, the BlinkNow Foundation, also starts the Kopila Valley School, which provides tuition-free education for more than four hundred students. Maggie and BlinkNow’s work have been recognized around the world for their innovative, sustainable work. However, this book isn’t a how-to for fledging philanthropists or nonprofit founders--it’s a coming-of-age story about a young woman suspended between two worlds, as well as the love, loss, healing, and hope she experiences along the way. And Maggie’s inspiring, intimate tale shows readers an important truth: the power to change the world exists within all of us.

How do people deal with the losses of health, loved ones, and dreams? Meet Lavone Genzink, whose life's challenges could be compared to those of the long-suffering Job of the Bible. After the man of her dreams became her husband, her first pregnancy was accompanied by news that her husband had brain cancer. And following the births of two more beautiful children came a catastrophic automobile accident that left tragedy in its wake. In trying to rebuild her health and family life, with the delight of four more children came unimaginable trials affecting various family members: disabilities, transplants, and a life of caregiving. Lavone shows that faith can indeed be maintained when happily-ever-after doesn't happen, and triumphant joy rises above circumstances.

To English poets and writers of the seventeenth century, as to their predecessors, mountains were ugly protuberances which disfigured nature and threatened the symmetry of earth; they were symbols God’s wrath. Yet, less than two centuries later the romantic poets sang in praise of mountain splendor, of glorious heights that stirred their souls to divine ecstasy. In this very readable and fascinating study, Marjorie Hope Nicolson considers the intellectual renaissance at the close of the seventeenth century that caused the shift from mountain gloom to mountain glory. She examines various writers from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries and traces both the causes and the process of this drastic change in perception.

After years of isolation on top of Hope Mountain, Ilsa Nordegren may finally be ready to leave. Raised to fear the world, Ilsa and her sisters never planned on coming down, but when the Warden family arrived in need, they had to help. And it may cost them everything. Having made his fortune, Mitch Warden returned home and found the family homestead abandoned. In a land grab, a ruthless cattle baron had forced his family to escape up the mountain, and when he follows, the last thing he expects is to fall smitten to a black-haired woman who dresses like Robin Hood. Warden is intent on helping his family reclaim their land, but doesn't realize the risks his past has brought. Dangerous men have tracked him, and rather than risk innocent lives, he's determined to end the danger. But that means a journey to the city--and when Ilsa insists on joining him, the mismatched pair suddenly find themselves on a venture they'll never forget.

A story of determination, survival, and the indomitable human spirit, Above the Mountain's Shadow: A Journey of Hope and Adventure Inspired by the Forgotten is an incredible story of one woman's quest to empower the women of the world, one peak at a time. Growing up in Iran after the Islamic Revolution, Sara Safari enjoyed very few personal freedoms and little rights under the law, living an existence marked by oppression and limitations. In response to her childhood experiences, Sara was motivated to empower marginalized women everywhere--and what better way to show young girls that they can do anything than to stand on top of the world? This book recounts the exhilarating tale of Sara's climb to the top of Mount Everest, a journey fraught with obstacles and life-threatening peril. From having never climbed a mountain in her life to ascending Everest during a magnitude 7.8 earthquake, Sara's journey is as thrilling as it is inspirational.

After a rough winter spent alone, Ursula Nordegren realizes she must overcome her fears of the outside world and begins a trek down Hope Mountain. Along the way she finds a badly wounded stranger and realizes God may have used her decision to leave as a way of saving the man. Wax Mosby was climbing Hope Mountain in part to atone for his terrible choices. He was hired to drive out the Warden family and now knows he was duped. But when he's wounded during the climb, the last person he expects to rescue him is a beautiful blond woman with the voice of an angel. As both Ursula and Wax weigh the costs of living new lives, the two find an unlikely bond. And they're joined by Ursula's sisters and the Warden family as the final showdown over the family ranch looms with the coming of spring.

Life's Mountains climbs with Cheryl Broyles to the summit of California's Mount Shasta and through the trial of "terminal" brain cancer. Told she had only a year to live, Cheryl did everything she could to stay alive. Four years later, still breathing, she and her husband Matt planned to climb Mount Shasta to celebrate her survivorship. Cheryl describes the similarity between climbing mountain trails and living through life's trials. She gives hope for reaching each peak, seeing life anew and loving each day through the good and bad times. Cheryl L. Broyles is a wildlife biologist who at the age of 33 was diagnosed with what is considered terminal cancer - a grade IV Glioblastoma Multiforme. Twelve years later, she is beating the statistics and is still alive living in Oregon with a wonderful husband and two great sons. Her purpose in life now is encouraging others that are going through hard times, to see life's blessings and to never give up hope. Cheryl's web page: www.cherylbroyles-gbm.com

A rich mosaic of photographs, words, and songs, Voices from the Mountains tells the turbulent story of the Appalachian South in the twentieth century. Focusing on the abuses of the coal industry and the grassroots struggle against mine owners that began in the 1960s, Guy and Candie Carawan have gathered quotations from a variety of sources; words and music to more than fifty ballads and songs, laments and satires, hymns and protests; and more than one hundred and fifty photographs of longtime Appalachian residents, their homes, their countryside, the mines they work in, and the labor battles they have fought. The "voices" that speak out in these pages range from the mountain people themselves to such well-known artists as Jean Ritchie, Hazel Dickens, Harriet Simpson Arnow, and Wendell Berry. Together they tell of the damage wrought by strip mining and the empty promises of land reclamation; the search for work and a new life in the North; the welfare rights, labor, antipoverty, and black lung movements; early days in the mines; disasters and negligence in the coal industry; and protest and change in the coal fields. Dignity and despair, poverty and perseverance, tradition and change--Voices from the Mountains eloquently conveys the complex panorama of modern Appalachian life.