Susan Meissner
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Sound Among The Trees
$17.00Add to cartA house with a turbulent Civil War history becomes home to a new bride and stepmother in Susan Meissner’s richly absorbing tale of a line of women stuck living in patterns of regret.
For 150 years, Holly Oak, a spacious Southern home, has stood the test of time and wills in historic Fredericksburg with Civil War scars to prove it. Marielle Bishop marries into the family with multi-generational ties to the home, leaving behind her independence and her love of Arizona’s deserts to move to Holly Oak to become a wife and stepmother. But it isn’t long before Marielle is led to believe that the house she just settled into brings trouble and misfortune to all the women who live there. Local folklore has it that Susannah Page, a Yankee spy who housed Union soldiers, haunts Holly Oak because she’s longing for pardon. When Susannah’s great-granddaughter Adelaide McClane tells her that the house is “stuck” because of it’s tumultuous past, Marielle is determined to get past the rumors and uncover the secrets that are buried within its walls. With Adelaide’s richly peppered superstitions and deep family roots at stake, Marielle must carve her new life out carefully as she sorts out the truth and makes peace with the sacrifices she has made for love.
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Lady In Waiting
$17.00Add to cartLove is a choice you make every day.
Content in her comfortable marriage of twenty-two years, Jane Lindsay never expected to watch her husband Brad pack his belongings and walk out the door of their Manhattan home. But when it happens, she feels powerless to stop him and the course of events that follow Brad’s departure.
Jane finds an old ring in a box of relics from a British jumble sale and discovers a Latin inscription in the band along with just one other word: Jane. Feeling instant connection to the mysterious ring bearing her namesake, Jane begins a journey to learn more about the ring-and perhaps about herself.
In the sixteenth-century, Lucy Day becomes the dressmaker to Lady Jane Grey, an innocent young woman whose fate seems to be controlled by a dangerous political and religious climate, one threatening to deny her true love and pursuit of her own interests.
As the stories of both Janes dovetail through the journey of one ring, it becomes clear that each woman has far more influence over their lives than they once imagined. It all comes down to the choices each makes despite the realities they face.
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White Picket Fences
$18.00Add to cartWhen her black sheep brother disappears, Amanda Janvier eagerly takes in her sixteen year-old niece Tally. The girl is practically an orphan: motherless, and living with a father who raises Tally wherever he lands- in a Buick, a pizza joint, a horse farm-and regularly takes off on wild schemes. Amanda envisions that she, her husband Neil, and their two teenagers can offer the girl stability and a shot at a “normal” life, even though their own storybook lives are about to crumble.
Seventeen-year-old Chase Janvier hasn’t seen his cousin in years, and other than a vague curiosity about her strange life, he doesn’t expect her arrival will affect him much-or interfere with his growing, disturbing interest in a long-ago house fire that plagues his dreams unbeknownst to anyone else.
Tally and Chase bond as they interview two Holocaust survivors for a sociology project, and become startlingly aware that the whole family is grappling with hidden secrets, with the echoes of the past, and with the realization that ignoring tragic situations won’t make them go away.
Will Tally’s presence blow apart their carefully-constructed world, knocking down the illusion of the white picket fence and reveal a hidden past that could destroy them all-or can she help them find the truth without losing each other?
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Shape Of Mercy
$17.00Add to cartLauren Durough is a college student longing to break free of family expectations when she stumbles into a project for eighty year old Abigail Boyles-transcribing the journals of Mercy Hayworth, a 17th century victim of the Massachusetts witch trials. Almost immediately, Lauren finds herself drawn to the girl, Mercy, who lived and died four centuries ago. The strength of her affinity with Mercy forces Lauren to take a startling new look at her own life, including her relationships with the mysterious Abigail, her college roommate, and a young man named Raul. But on the way to discovering the candid truth, Lauren must earnestly ask if she is playing the role of helpless defendant or misguided judge? Can she break free from her own perceptions and recognize who she really is?
In our high-pressure, success-oriented culture, readers will identify with Lauren’s struggle to forge her own identity separate from the plan her family designed for her. Offering intrigue, romance, and heartbreaking drama, this contemporary novel with a historical twist conveys the intense beauty that emerges when we see how our stories affect the lives of others.