Fans of Jerry Apps will delight in his latest novel, "Blue Shadows Farm," which follows the intriguing family story of three generations on a Wisconsin farm.
Silas Starkweather, a Civil War veteran, is drawn to Wisconsin and homesteads 160 acres in Ames County, where he is known as the mysterious farmer forever digging holes. After years of hardship and toil, however, Silas develops a commitment to farming his land and respect for his new community. When Silas's son Abe inherits Blue Shadows Farm he chooses to keep the land out of reluctant necessity, distilling and distributing "purified corn water" throughout Prohibition and the Great Depression in order to stay solvent. Abe's daughter, Emma, willingly takes over the farm after her mother's death. Emma's love for this place inspires her to open the farm to school-children and families who share her respect for it. As she considers selling the land, Emma is confronted with a difficult question--who, through thick and thin, will care for Blue Shadows Farm as her family has done for over a century? In the midst of a controversy that disrupts the entire community, Emma looks into her family's past to help her make crucial decisions about the future of its land.
Through the story of the Starkweather family's changing fortunes, and each generation's very different relationship with the farm and the land, "Blue Shadows Farm" is in some ways the narrative of all farmers and the increasingly difficult challenges they face as committed stewards of the land. Finalist, General Fiction, Midwest Book Awards

An epic spanning three generations, Leaves of the Banyan Tree tells the story of a family and community in Western Samoa, exploring on a grand scale such universal themes as greed, corruption, colonialism, exploitation, and revenge. Winner of the 1980 New Zealand Wattie Book of the Year Award, it is considered a classic work of Pacific literature.

Sue Wilsher, author of When My Ship Comes In, makes an emotional return to 1950s Essex Tilbury, 1950s. The Empire is a boarding house run by Vi, Doris's mother - the Empire Girls of the title. When Doris becomes pregnant out of marriage, she is kicked out of the house and forced to fend for herself. Desperate to look after her daughter, she takes any job going. She falls in with the Windrush immigrants and finds herself helping one to a new life in Britain.

Turn a Blind Eye is the third instalment in the gripping story of Detective Inspector William Warwick, by the master storyteller and Sunday Times number one bestselling author of the Clifton Chronicles. William Warwick, now a Detective Inspector, is tasked with a dangerous new line of work, to go undercover and expose crime of another kind: corruption at the heart of the Metropolitan Police Force. His team is focused on following Detective Jerry Summers, a young officer whose lifestyle appears to exceed his income. But as a personal relationship develops with a member of William's team, it threatens to compromise the whole investigation. Meanwhile, a notorious drug baron goes on trial, with the prosecution case led by William's father and sister. And William's wife Beth, now a mother to twins, renews an old acquaintance who appears to have turned over a new leaf, or has she? As the undercover officers start to draw the threads together, William realizes that the corruption may go deeper still, and more of his colleagues than he first thought might be willing to turn a blind eye. 'Peerless master of the page-turner' - Daily Mail

To the arrogant members of the board, lineage, wealth, and social status inherently guarantee their right to power and control. This group of privileged Anglicans - citizens from the village of Abersthwaithe on the small island of Ischalton believe they can use their elevated role to govern over those they consider insignificant.
One lone group stands against them. The legal officers of St. Patrick's church in the village struggle to retain their authority against the board, but it is a fight that will take immense strength. The board employs every form of moral turpitude possible in its quest for victory. They lure the people from surrounding villages-the very people they despise-to help them gnaw at the fabric which binds them together as a church and as a community.
The betrayal, adultery, and murder among the members of the Board, juxtaposed with the ignorance, naivete, and pitiable simplemindedness of the villagers, weaves a complex tapestry of circumstances which threaten to bring the steeple of contradiction crumbling to the ground-and could forever alter the future of Abersthwaithe.
"The Ecclesiastical Chronicles" is the first in a stunning new series by Raymond Gordon that explores how the relentless pursuit to fulfill ambition eventually leads to ultimate destruction.

A family torn apart. A daughter determined to stay together.When the parish guardians send Lydia, daughter of convict James Knowles, to be an apprentice in the cotton mill at Caton, she is distraught at being parted from her younger siblings and mother, Martha, but she has no choice. At the mill, Lydia is bullied by some of the other girls and things do not go well when she stands up to the ringleader. Fearing she has killed someone and with the word murderess ringing in her ears, Lydia runs for her life. Meanwhile, Martha and her children have been granted passage to Australia to join her husband, but Lydia cannot be found so Martha is forced to leave without her. When Lydia arrives home to find her family has gone she is determined to follow them, all the while avoiding the law who seek to return her to the mill. A dramatic and emotional family saga for fans of Emma Hornby, Joanne Clague and Kitty Neale.

Kelsey Stewart had grown weary waiting for her new young husband Michael to grow up through a troublesome early marriage, and through his armed service in an unpopular war in Iraq, but still, she had waited. But now, upon his return home, her once wounded, and now confused husband decides to take off to California to clear his head, leaving his small town farm wife, his farm and their lovely twin daughters behind. After a while of not hearing from him, Kelsey, resolutely sets out after him to bring him back home, when simultaneously life-altering adventures develop for them both.

Within these pages lives a story of love, of friendships, and of families, which are imbedded within a place and time, where the most diametrically opposite of human values existed and survived side-by-side, where heaven and hell daily rubbed their social elbows, and each of their elements were ever threatening the survival of their counterpart. Here is a story of people caught between the gears and wheels of their god's invisible machinery that daily drives their universe. Here is portrayed both the physical and psychological landscape of a time whose structures, writings, and beliefs have now been systematically destroyed by a new foreign master and a new foreign religion, which has a so-called "Modern Strategy" about blood sacrifice and intellectual domination. Here is the story of lovers, whose powerful desire to be forever together, is the magic that guides them through an ever-fluxing nightmare that is their reality.

The story opens in the capitol city of the Aztec Empire during the night of November the 8th in the year 1516 CE.

"Too Young For The Carousel" will make you feel like you're a good friend of Bobby Parrish.The author's unique self-narrative style is similar to that of J.D. Salinger's.

"Rolled, silver white hair created a halo about the woman's head. The lamplight cast oblique shadows on her delicate, high cheekbones. Above the cheekbones, her eyes were ice blue and steady, belying the eighty years of this statuesque woman. Her demeanor exhibited and commanded an aura of aristocracy. Kathleen's throat tightened and felt dry. She trembled slightly as she spoke. She was a reasonably intelligent, thirty-eight-year-old woman quite capable of comprehending all that had been depicted and yet, the shocking concept of the old woman's claim was loathsome and incredulous. Acceptance of such cruel allegations against her grandmother, whom she so admired, was totally denied.

" In this emotionally charged family saga, Kathleen is shocked to learn of her grandmother's wicked past from her Great Aunt Rose. As if the shocking revelations aren't hard enough for Kathleen to deal with, she is forced to make a decision that will determine the course of her future.

"Elizabeth's Legacy," book two of the "Clearharbour Trilogy," continues the family saga as Tony Selby and Geneva Sterling marry and make their home in England, with daughters Emelye and Elizabeth.

With the opening of Tony's West End theatre and a growing family, Tony and Geneva embrace the life they have long awaited. Yet for Tony, trouble emerges when his former mother-in-law contacts him, claiming that he is in possession of some missing jewels that belong to her. Did Tony's mentally unbalanced late wife position her mother to extort money from him?

In 1942, as war rages in Europe, romance blossoms between Elizabeth and Houstonian James Younger, a fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force. James is willing to give Elizabeth everything. He asks a single favor in return. Can she give him what he wants, or is this the one sacrifice she cannot make?

Sometimes in a war-torn country, loving is the greatest risk of all.

After the events of 9/11 all but destroy their Tribeca loft in New York City, Lewis and Tracey Gross and their three coming of age sons relocate to their summer home in Montauk in the East Hamptons. Tracey loves to cook and has always dreamed of starting her own restaurant. Their goal is to turn a run-down ice cream parlor into a functional restaurant that serves substantial honest fare. Montauk Tango provides an account of this family's journey to restaurant ownership, from the purchase of the property to its renovation and eventual opening in a seaside summer retreat. Author Lewis Gross believes 668 the Gig Shack, a Bohemian bistro, will be an immediate hit. But opening weekend is a disaster. Unfortunately, some of the locals don't want to see their fish turned into tacos or fishnets worn as stockings. Novices in business, they encounter many setbacks and a conspiracy by some of the locals to put them out of business. With a touch of humor, this real-life story accounts the stresses of opening a family restaurant business, weekend fatherhood, and an attempt to teach tango dancing to the local surfers and fishermen.

Far from the heart of the powerful Avan Empire, on the cold, Spireward edge of the tributary kingdom of Tyr, lies the serene, comfortable town of Longmyst. There, the humble son of the town's innkeeper enjoys his quiet, uncomplicated life. Nian is content to spend his days visiting with old friends and tending to the needs of an endless stream of guests from wilder, more dangerous places. His largest concern is helping his bold, elder sister care for their ailing father and his small, but thriving business. However, he is about to become entangled in events beyond his wildest dreams.