Contemporary Fiction
Showing 151–179 of 179 resultsSorted by latest
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Courting Mr Emerson
$15.99Add to cartWhen the fun-loving and spontaneous artist Willow West meets buttoned-up, retired English teacher George Emerson, it’s not exactly love at first sight. Though she does find the obsessive-compulsive man intriguing. Making it her mission to get him to loosen up and embrace life, she embarks on what seems like a lost cause–and finds herself falling for him in the process.
A confirmed bachelor, George vacillates between irritation and attraction whenever Willow is around–which to him seems like all too often. He’s not interested in expanding his horizons or making new friends; it just hurts too much when you lose them.
But as the summer progresses, George feels his defenses crumbling. The question is, will his change of heart be too late for Willow?
With her signature heart and touches of humor, fan favorite Melody Carlson pens a story of two delightfully eccentric characters who get a second chance at life and love.
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Border Son
$14.99Add to cartIt’s been years since Edward Kazmierski has seen his wayward son. In fact, it’s been years since he has allowed thoughts of Tyler to even enter his mind. The last place he knew Tyler to be was in an El Paso jail six years ago. Then, in one day, he receives a cryptic phone call telling him that his son needs him in Mexico, another from a federal agent searching for Tyler, and a visit from two men he hopes to never meet again.
South of the border, the chain of events set into motion by an impulsive act will almost certainly lead to death–for Tyler and for those who try to help him. But before Ed can recover his son, he will have to tear down the wall that has been built up between them.
With insight and artistry, Samuel Parker brings the dusty and dangerous streets of a Mexican border town into sharp focus in this suspenseful reimagining of the Prodigal Son story.
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Secrets Of Paper And Ink
$15.99Add to cartLindsay Harrel presents a powerful story of healing, forgiveness, and finding the courage to write your own story.
A year after the death of her abusive fiance, domestic violence counselor Sophia Barrett finds returning to work too painful. She escapes to Cornwall, England-a place she’s learned to love through the words of her favorite author-and finds a place to stay with the requirement that she help out in the bookstore underneath the room she’s renting. Given her love of all things literary, it seems like the perfect place to find peace.
Ginny Rose is an American living in Cornwall, sure that if she saves the bookstore she co-owns with her husband then she can save her marriage as well. Fighting to keep the first place she feels like she belongs, she brainstorms with her brother-in-law, William, and Sophia to try to keep the charming bookstore afloat.
Two hundred years before, governess Emily Fairfax knew two things for certain: she wanted to be a published author, and she was in love with her childhood best friend. But he was a wealthy heir and well out of her league. Sophia discovers Emily’s journals, and she and William embark on a mission to find out more about this mysterious and determined woman, all the while getting closer to each other as they get closer to the truth.
The lives of the three women intertwine as each learns the power she has over the story of her life.
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Pretty In Punxsutawney
$17.99Add to cartBlink
A Groundhog Day meets Pretty in Pink mashup from author Laurie Boyle Crompton, Pretty in Punxsutawney tells the tale of a girl willing to look beneath the surface to see people for who they really are.Andie is the type of girl who always comes up with the perfect thing to say…after it’s too late to say it. She’s addicted to romance movies-okay, all movies-but has yet to experience her first kiss. After a move to Punxsutawney, PA, for her senior year, she gets caught in an endless loop of her first day at her new school, reliving those 24 hours again and again.
Convinced the curse will be broken when she meets her true love, Andie embarks on a mission: infiltrating the various cliques to find the one boy who can break the spell. What she discovers along the way is that people who seem completely different can often share the very same hopes, dreams, and hang-ups. And that even a day that has been lived over and over can be filled with unexpected connections and plenty of happy endings.
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1st Love
$17.00Add to cartIn the summer of 1952, eighteen-year-old Maggie Esh is in need of some hope. Sweet-spirited and uncommonly pretty despite struggling with a debilitating illness, she is accustomed to being treated kindly by the young men of her Old Order Amish church district. Yet no one but Jimmy Beiler ever asks her out, and she always declines, certain he only pities her.
To make matters worse, Dat has recently remarried, less than a year after Maggie’s mother died. And while her stepmother is kind, she’s much younger than Mamm, and she simply doesn’t understand Maggie or her illness the way Mamm did.
Strong in her faith, Maggie has been taught to accept her lot in life as God’s will. But with declining health, an unsettled family situation, and few future prospects, any sense of hope seems elusive.
When tent revival meetings come to the area, Maggie attends out of curiosity, but the words of the evangelist begin to stir something deep inside her. Dare she hope for a brighter future?
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Undeniable
$11.99Add to cartFrancine Moonie is a sensitive, awkward, and anxious young girl. Born in Indiana in the 1950s, she is raised in a middle-class Catholic family which has a history of mental illness. Like many teenagers, Francine yearns for freedom and an escape from heartache and emptiness. Finally facing her breaking point, Francine descends on to a path of darkness, which for some is a point of no return.
Continually questioning God’s existence and goodness, she leaves a trail of chaos and uncertainty in her wake. As her life unravels around her, she must confront a key question: are the most bizarre, insignificant experiences of one’s life being silently woven together toward a greater purpose… or can those experiences be disregarded as mere coincidences?
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Heavenly Appointments : A Novel About Abortion Healing And Forgiveness
$14.99Add to cartPure Heart Publications
This story will carry you down a road of heartbreak and healing with a mother and daughter who suffer great loss, until they discover the source of recovery and wholeness.
The father’s untimely death throws the family into chaos. Overwhelmed with grief, the mother, Suzanne, is unable to help her struggling daughter cope. Unfortunately, Erin reaches out for comfort in the wrong place and ends up pregnant-twice. The dark cloud of abortion overshadows their home and almost destroys any hope of a peaceful or meaningful life.
Years later, when Suzanne takes her final breath, she wakes up in heaven. Guided by an angelic being, much to her surprise, she gains a new perspective and discovers that the most grievous earthly disappointments can miraculously become “heavenly appointments.”
As you walk with Suzanne and Erin, you too will find healing for the pain of your past.
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Because Of Gracia
$15.99Add to cartChase Morgan would love to live up to his name and pursue something great. It’s his senior year and he’s still as insecure as ever, but Eastglenn High’s newest student is about to turn that around. Gracia is a girl with charisma, intelligence and conviction, but she’s not as “together” as Chase and his best friend OB might think. A dark past gives her a unique connection with Bobbi, a misunderstood classmate with a strained home life and an all-too-cute boyfriend as her means of escape. As Bobbi struggles with a life-and-death decision and Chase risks rejection, Gracia challenges her friends, teachers and even herself to experience the transformative power of grace. Based on the award-winning film starring Moriah Peters and Chris Massoglia, Because of Gracia follows the stories of Chase Morgan, Gracia Davis, and their fellow high school seniors as they face life-altering decisions on their journeys of faith, friendship, and love.
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Harvest Of Lies
$19.99Add to cartDeception, lies, revenge, and forgiveness entwine the lives of Spencer and Dianne Ralston. When Dianne is diagnosed with early-onset dementia at fifty-eight, Spencer’s demand for accountability for his wife’s recently discovered betrayal is rather moot. Only when he is confronted with the consequences of his own betrayal does he understand true forgiveness and what happens when it is refused.
Harvest of Lies is a story that captures your attention immediately and keeps you guessing about what is going to happen next. After each page of reading, I was compelled to turn to the next. I could not put the book down!
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Portrait Of Emily Price
$17.99Add to cartKatherine Reay’s newest novel, A Portrait of Emily Price, transports readers to Italy where one woman will learn what it means to be truly free. Emily Price, art restorer and would-be artist, finds herself in Atlanta, restoring objects recovered from a house fire. As she strives to make all the pieces of her life fit, she finds herself enthralled by Chef Benito Hillam, who is in town from Italy visiting his brother Joseph, Emily’s boss. Ben spends his time working to restore his aunt and uncle’s restaurant and wooing to Emily. When she surprises herself and accepts his marriage proposal, Emily follows Ben home to Italy. Emily is transported into a new world, but instead of allowing Italy to change her, she tries to change Italy, alienating Ben’s tight-knit Italian family in the process-everyone, that is, except Ben’s father, Henry. The elderly man takes Emily under his wing, and she begins to transform, growing wings as Italy’s beauty begins to take hold of her spirit, and her art and life begin to blossom. But when long-hidden family secrets are unearthed and past hurts become fresh again, Emily is left to wonder whether she really fits into Ben’s world. Will the lessons of Italy become just a memory to Emily, or will she embrace the freedom and beauty that her life with Ben has shown her is possible?
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Lifelines : A Novel
$17.99Add to cartLife had been going swimmingly until biologist Dr. Robert Fielding was bewildered by a squall that still threatens to shipwreck him. Tormented by the losses in his life, he finds a dozen reasons why he doesn’t need the friendship of his new neighbour, Anna Fawcett. After all, the senior and her disabled son aren’t exactly in his league.
But how is he supposed to turn down fresh cinnamon buns? And Robert hasn’t bargained on his neighbour’s innocent, probing questions. They erode his faith in naturalism and collide with his assumptions about life, love, and truth. Have his foundational beliefs been the cause of his personal losses? As he searches for answers, Anna’s example of loving integrity keeps him coming back. Or maybe it’s her homemade pies. Yet to risk re-thinking his core convictions for a chance at personal peace would expose his soul and tear open an old wound.
Others in the neighbourhood, too, are under Anna’s thrall – a teacher facing a crisis pregnancy, a crusty cat-lady, a cancer-ridden conspiracy theorist, a Cambodian immigrant family. Each is touched by the power of her obscure and ordinary life.
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Challenge
$12.99Add to cartTwo families face circumstances that will change their lives. Roy and Reanna are devastated when they discover Livy had planned to end her life. Lola, a young woman bound to her wheelchair due to an accident, can identify with Livy’s desire to die. But she is also the only one capable of giving Livy the will to live again.
Grady is in possession of his mother, Sophie’s, medical directive, and makes the decision to have life support removed. He is not prepared, however, for his sister-in-law, Dinah’s wrath, when she discovers what he has done. Can Elliott, already upset by Grady’s careless attitude to their mother, find a way to comfort Dinah in this darkest moment?
Holly, a housekeeper with a longing for Dr. Kimball to find happiness, shares her cheerful attitude with all around her. But another doctor on staff is in sharp disagreement with Dr. Kimball about how they care for their patients, and this debate could change the way they approach their medical careers forever.
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Bronte Plot : A Novel
$17.99Add to cartWhen a rare-books dealer goes to England, she discovers more than just the famous writing haunts-she discovers how to love and be loved in today’s modern world.
Victoria Seward makes a living finding rare books through means that aren’t always on the up-and-up. But if it makes the clients happy, who is she really hurting? After all, everything always turns out all right in the end. At least it does in her favorite books, the ones her absent father sends every year on her birthday, no matter where he is.
When her unorthodox behavior ruins her relationship with her boyfriend James, Victoria knows something has to change-she has to change. Enter Helen, a wealthy client seeking a companion for her trip to England to purchase antiques, and who just happens to be James’s grandmother. Helen has secrets of her own, secrets that help her relate to Victoria more than anyone can guess.
As Victoria and Helen travel across England, Victoria suspects there is more to this trip than Helen lets on. When Helen’s health falters, Victoria reaches out to James, reigniting feelings that were never truly extinguished.
Everything comes to a head at Haworth, home of the Bront sisters, when hidden offenses rise to the surface. Victoria’s happy ending is within reach-if she can step out of the literary world and into the life that’s been waiting for her all along.
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Sea Keepers Daughters
$16.99Add to cartFrom modern-day Roanoke Island to the sweeping backdrop of North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains and Roosevelt’s WPA folklore writers, past and present intertwine to create an unexpected destiny.
Restaurant owner Whitney Monroe is desperate to save her business from a hostile takeover. The inheritance of a decaying Gilded Age hotel on North Carolina’s Outer Banks may provide just the ray of hope she needs. But things at The Excelsior are more complicated than they seem. Whitney’s estranged stepfather is entrenched on the third floor, and the downstairs tenants are determined to save the historic building. Searching through years of stored family heirlooms may be Whitney’s only hope of quick cash, but will the discovery of an old necklace and a depression-era love story change everything?
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Lizzy And Jane
$17.99Add to cartLizzy and Jane never saw eye to eye. But when illness brings them together, they discover they may be more like Austen’s famous sisters after all. Lizzy was only a teenager when her mother died of cancer. Shortly after, Lizzy fled from her home, her family, and her cherished nickname. After working tirelessly to hone her gift of creating magic in the kitchen, Elizabeth has climbed the culinary ladder to become the head chef of her own New York restaurant, Feast. But as her magic begins to elude her, Paul, Feast’s financial backer, brings in someone to share her responsibilities and her kitchen. So Elizabeth flees again. In a desperate attempt to reconnect with her gift, Elizabeth returns home. But her plans are derailed when she learns that her estranged sister, Jane, is battling cancer. Elizabeth surprises everyone-including herself-when she decides to stay in Seattle and work to prepare healthy, sustaining meals for Jane as she undergoes chemotherapy. She also meets Nick and his winsome son, Matt, who, like Elizabeth, are trying to heal from the wounds of the past. As she tends to Jane’s needs, Elizabeth’s powers begin to return to her, along with the family she left behind so long ago. Then Paul tries to entice her back to New York, and she is faced with a hard decision: stay and become Lizzy to her sister’s Jane, or return to New York and the life she worked so hard to create?
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Driftwood Tides
$14.99Add to cartHe made himself an island until something unexpected washed ashore.
When Holton lost his wife, Adele, in a freak accident, he shut himself off from the world, living a life of seclusion, making drifwood sculptures and drowning his pain in gin. Until twenty-three-year-old Libby knocks on his door, asking for a job and claiming to be a friend of his late wife. When he discovers Libby is actually his late wife’s illegitimate daughter, given up for adoption without his knowledge, his life is turned upside down as he struggles to accept that the wife he’d given saint status to was not the woman he thought he knew.Together Holton and Libby form an unlikely bond as the two struggle to learn the identity of Libby’s father and the truth about Adele, themselves, and each other.
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Dear Mr Knightley
$15.99Add to cartDear Mr. Knightley is a contemporary epistolary novel with a delightful dash of Jane Austen.
Samantha Moore survived years of darkness in the foster care system by hiding behind her favorite characters in literature, even adopting their very words. Her fictional friends give her an identity, albeit a borrowed one. But most importantly, they protect her from revealing her true self and encountering more pain.
After college, Samantha receives an extraordinary opportunity. The anonymous “Mr. Knightley” offers her a full scholarship to earn her graduate degree at the prestigious Medill School of Journalism. The sole condition is that Sam write to Mr. Knightley regularly to keep him apprised of her progress.
As Sam’s true identity begins to reveal itself through her letters, her heart begins to soften to those around her-a damaged teenager and fellow inhabitant of Grace House, her classmates at Medill, and, most powerfully, successful novelist Alex Powell. But just as Sam finally begins to trust, she learns that Alex has secrets of his own-secrets that, for better or for worse, make it impossible for Sam to hide behind either her characters or her letters.
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Prayer Box : A Novel
$17.99Add to cartWhen Iola Anne Poole, an old-timer on Hatteras Island, passes away in her bed at ninety-one, the struggling young mother in her rental cottage, Tandi Jo Reese, finds herself charged with the task of cleaning out Iola’s rambling Victorian house.
Running from a messy, dangerous past, Tandi never expects to find more than a temporary hiding place within Iola’s walls, but everything changes with the discovery of eighty-one carefully decorated prayer boxes, one for each year, spanning from Iola’s youth to her last days. Hidden in the boxes is the story of a lifetime, written on random bits of paper–the hopes and wishes, fears and thoughts of an unassuming but complex woman passing through the seasons of an extraordinary, unsung life filled with journeys of faith, observations on love, and one final lesson that could change everything for Tandi.
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Preacher The Politician And The Playboy
$13.99Add to cartThe Preacher
Isaiah Morrison is a man after God’s heart. Even though his wife divorces him, Isaiah continues to preach and declare the goodness of the Lord, content to spend the rest of his life as a bachelor, Lord willing. The first day Ramona Verse walked into Christ Tabernacle, she fell in love with everything about the church-especially the handsome and self-assured man behind the pulpit. But would a man like Pastor Morrison ever consider a woman with a dark past like hers? When Isaiah starts a charity, Ramona Verse comes on board as director. But Isaiah will soon discover that he needs much more from the secretive Miss Verse than he ever thought possible.The Politician
As mayor of Cincinnati, Eric Morrison has plenty of issues to deal with, but perhaps none as delicate as the drinking habits of his wife, Linda. When she hits a football superstar while driving drunk, Eric tries to cover it up. Not long after, Linda gives her life to Christ and gives up drinking altogether. Eric is thrilled. But when she tells him that she wants to use their cut of his father’s fortune to start an organization to help recovering alcoholics rebuild their lives, he rejects the idea, convinced that it will jeopardize his chances at being elected governor of Ohio. When a blackmailer demanding ten million dollars threatens to expose photos from the accident, Eric must decide whether he will stand up for the truth his father taught him or sell his soul for public office.The Playboy
After a very public argument over child support payments, the mother of Shawn Morrison’s third child is found dead. The police bring Shawn in for questioning, and he soon finds himself in the fight of his life. Desperate for help, he turns to the brother who disowned him-and to Lily, the ex-fiancee who left him because of his many infidelities. Lily wanted nothing to with Shawn, but she has since been born again, and she feels compelled to help her lost love. Will stepping back into Shawn’s world prove to be too much for Lily to handle? Or will her forgiving heart and Christian witness finally help Shawn turn back to God in his darkest hour? -
Leotas Garden : A Novel
$18.99Add to cartLeota’s garden was once a place of beauty, where flowers bloomed and hope thrived. It was her refuge from the deep wounds inflicted by a devastating war, her sanctuary where she knelt before a loving God and prayed for the children who couldn’t understand her silent sacrifices.Now, eighty-four-year-old Leota Reinhardt is alone, her beloved garden in ruins. All her efforts to reconcile with her adult children have been fruitless, and she voices her despair to a loving Father, her only friend.Then God brings a wind of change through unlikely means: one, a college student who thinks he has all the answers; the other, the granddaughter Leota never hoped to know. But can the devastation wrought by keeping painful family secrets be repaired before she runs out of time?
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Ellies Haven
$14.99Add to cartA courageous young woman seeking refuge…
Ellie Booth was never the type to run away. But she’d witnessed her stepfather commit a heartless crime, and, knowing he’ll stop at nothing to keep her quiet, she has no choice but to flee. Soon, she finds herself in Wabash, Indiana, scrambling for a cover identity to evade her stepfather. For lack of a better option, she answers an ad for a wife/housekeeper/nanny, praying that her lack of experience won’t be obvious.
A widowed father with no domestic skills to speak of…
Gage Cooper is reaching the end of his rope. With four children between the ages of three and ten, he needs a reliable nanny, yet each one he’s hired has thrown up her hands and deserted her post. When an attractive, spirited young woman applies for the “job,” he knows he should pray about the matter, but his desperation for help propels him headlong into a marriage of convenience.
A trial by fire of their wedding vows…
Ellie immediately falls in love with the Cooper children, and, not long after, with their father. Soon, the “marriage of convenience” becomes less of a business arrangement as husband and wife yield to an attraction neither one had expected. When secrets of the past and dangers of the present arise in their lives, their marriage is put to the test, and God alone knows what will become of their union.
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Forever : A Sudden Tragedy A Familys Undying Love
$18.99Add to cartA fresh, new look for the bestselling Firstborn series-the second installment in the continuing Baxter Family Drama from America’s number one inspirational novelist, Karen Kingsbury. Revisit the Baxter family in all their life-changing events, or share the series with someone who hasn’t discovered it yet.Katy Hart is thrilled about her future with Hollywood’s Dayne Matthews. But as she plans a wedding and looks for a house on the shores of Lake Monroe, she receives tragic news. Now she and the Baxter family must travel to Los Angeles to sort through their options. While paparazzi hound them, Luke Baxter wrestles with feelings that have troubled him for nearly a year. Ultimately, the Baxters must pull together one last time in an act of service and love to help Katy and Dayne find what they’ve always been looking for-a chance at forever.
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There Youll Find Me
$14.99Add to cartWhen Finley travels to Ireland as a foreign exchange student, she hopes to create a new identity and get some answers from the God who took her brother away and seems to have left her high and dry.
But from the moment she boards the plane and sits by Beckett Rusheenstar of the hottest vampire flicks, nothing goes according to Finley’s plan.
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Safely Home : It Cost Him Everything He Had But He Gained Everything That M (Ann
$17.99Add to cartIs this the day I die? Li Quan asks himself this question daily, knowing that he might be killed for practicing his faith. American businessman Ben Fielding has no idea what his brilliant former college roommate is facing in China. He expects his old friend has fulfilled his dream of becoming a university professor. But when they are reunited in China after twenty years, both men are shocked at what they discover about each other. Thrown together in an hour of encroaching darkness, both must make choices that will determine not only the destinies of two men, but two families, two nations, and two worlds.
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Waiting : A Novel (Reprinted)
$16.99Add to cartJorie King has been waiting for Benjamin Zook to return home to Lancaster County so they can marry. When news arrives that Ben has been killed, Jorie finds comfort in the friendship of his brother Caleb. That friendship ripens into love, and it seems that they are meant to be together. But when the unexpected happens, their worlds are turned upside down once more. Will Jorie trust God to lead her into the arms of a new man?
A multifaceted story about complex people living the simple life, The Waiting is the second book in the Lancaster County Secrets series. Readers will find themselves transported into the world of the Amish and deeply invested in these wonderful characters.
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Walking On Broken Glass
$17.99Add to cartAlready sloshed from one-too-many drinks at a faculty party, Leah Thornton cruises the supermarket aisles in search of something tasty to enhance her Starbucks-Kahlua, for example. Two confrontations later-one at the grocery store and the other with her friend Molly-Leah is sitting in the office of the local rehab center facing an admissions counselor who fails to understand the most basic things, like the fact that apple juice is not a suitable cocktail mixer. Rehab is no picnic, and being forced to experience and deal with the reality of her life isn’t Leah’s idea of fun. But through the battle she finds a reservoir of courage she never knew she had, and the loving arms of a God she never quite believed existed.
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Choice : A Novel (Reprinted)
$17.00Add to cartWith a vibrant, fresh style Suzanne Woods Fisher brings readers into the world of a young Amish woman torn between following the man she loves–or joining the community of faith that sustains her, even as she questions some of the decisions of her elders. Her choice begins a torrent of change for her and her family, including a marriage of convenience to silent Daniel Miller. Both bring broken hearts into their arrangement–and secrets that have been held too long.
Filled with gentle romance, The Choice opens the world of the Amish–their strong communities, their simple life, and their willingness to put each other first. Combined with Fisher’s exceptional gift for character development, this novel, the first in a series, is a welcome reminder that it is never too late to find your way back to God.
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Sunrise : One Familys Celebration Of Forever Love And New Beginnings
$16.99Add to cartIn preparation for their long-awaited wedding day, Dayne and Katy are determined to keep the ceremony a secret from the paparazzi. Their relationship grows closer and stronger as they plan together, but in the end it takes the help of the Baxter family and many of the CKT kids so that they’ll even have a chance at a private wedding. John Baxter is thrilled that his oldest son will be settling down a few miles away, but he isn’t sure how any of his kids will handle a situation he can no longer run from–the feelings he is having for his friend Elaine. In the meantime, the Flanigan family is struggling with their young boarder, Cody Coleman, Jim Flanigan’s star receiver. After an alcohol overdose, Cody fights for his life. Only God’s grace and a miracle can bring him back from the brink of death–physically and spiritually.