Red Ruby Heart In A Cold Blue Sea

“An authentic page turner…. Rogers [vividly] captures this era of Elvis records and small-town Maine fishing life.” —Down East In 1963, twelve-year-old Florine Gilham enjoys an idyllic childhood in small-town Maine—until her beloved mother vanishes. Untethered and adrift in the wake of her disappearance, Florine finds her once-cherished joys—watching her father’s lobster boat come into port, baking bread with her grandmother, and causing mischief with the summer folk—suddenly ring hollow. When a figure from her father’s past comes calling, Florine must find the courage to lay down roots of her own. Set against the gorgeous backdrop of the Maine coast, Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is an extraordinary snapshot of a bygone America as seen through the eyes of an iconic New England girl.

It's been six months since Ashlyn Daniels was kicked out of her home. Six months since she stood up to her abusive stepfather and got a busted rib-and seeing all her things set ablaze in a backyard bonfire-for her trouble. Never going back. She doesn't need trouble...especially if trouble is tattoo artist Lane Garrett, who's six-feet-plus of tattooed hotness and a complete ass. Lane has spent the last decade fighting to support his family. To protect them. There's no room for romance, even with a fragile (yet amusingly feisty) stunner...even if she somehow manages to invade his world and his heart. But while some secrets are as visible as ink on the skin, others must remain hidden at all costs... Each book in the Written on my Heart series is a standalone story that can be enjoyed out of order. Series Order: Book #1 Written on my Heart Book #2 Seared on My Soul

Eleven stunning stories that explore the most intimate and transforming moments of existence, from Nobel Prize–winning author Alice Munro, “one of the foremost practitioners of the short story” (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). “Throughout this remarkable collection moments of insight flash from the pages like lightning, not necessarily providing answers—more like showing the way to new questions.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer A divorced woman returns to her childhood home where she confronts the memory of her parents’ confounding yet deep bond. The accidental near-drowning of a child exposes to the shaken mother the fragility between children and parents. A young man, remembering a terrifying childhood incident, wrestles with the responsibility he has always felt for his hapless younger brother. A man brings his lover on a visit to his ex-wife, only to feel unexpectedly closer to his estranged partner. In these and other stories, Alice Munro proves once again a sensitive and compassionate chronicler of our times. Drawing us into the most intimate corners of ordinary lives, she reveals much about ourselves, our choices, and our experiences of love.

A story about a young woman coming of age in Maine in the 1960s.

Robert Ross, a sensitive nineteen-year-old Canadian officer, went to war--The War to End All Wars. He found himself in the nightmare world of trench warfare, of mud and smoke, of chlorine gas and rotting corpses. In this world gone mad, Robert Ross performed a last desperate act to declare his commitment to life in the midst of death.

In the spellbinding and suspenseful Let Me Die in His Footsteps, Edgar Award winner for Best Novel, author Lori Roy wrests from a Southern town the secrets of two families touched by an evil that has passed between generations. On a dark Kentucky night in 1952, exactly halfway between her fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, Annie Holleran crosses into forbidden territory. Everyone knows Hollerans don't go near Baines, not since Joseph Carl was buried two decades before, but Annie runs through her family's lavender fields toward the well on the Baines’ place, hoping to see her future in the water. Instead, she finds a body, and Annie's future becomes inextricably tied with her family's dark past. In 1936, the year Annie's aunt, Juna Crowley, came of age, there were seven Baine boys. Before Juna, Joseph Carl had been the best of all the Baine brothers. But then he looked into Juna's black eyes and they made him do things that cost innocent people their lives. With the pall of a young child’s death and the dark appetites of men working the sleepy town into a frenzy, Sheriff Irlene Fulkerson saw justice served—or did she? As the investigation continues and she comes of age as Aunt Juna did in her own time, Annie's dread mounts. Juna will come home now, to finish what she started. If Annie is to save herself, her family, and this small Kentucky town, she must prepare for Juna's return, and the revelation of what really happened all those years ago.

The three children of an Irish-American family in Long Island are witnesses to the cycles of dissatisfaction, bitterness and recurring affection that make up the lives of their extended family. A tender, sad and funny book from the author of the National Book Award-nominated That Night and Charming Billy

“Cander is a smart, deft storyteller.” —New York Times Book Review From the nationally bestselling author of The Weight of the Piano comes a novel that “like D. H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, is about love that finds its object, and love that misses its mark.” —Charles Baxter Set in a small coal-mining town, a debut novel full of secrets, love, betrayal, and suspicious accidents, where Catholicism casts a long shadow and two courageous women make choices that will challenge our own moral convictions. One morning in Verra, a town nestled into the hillsides of West Virginia, the young Myrthen Bergmann is playing tug-of-war with her twin, when her sister is killed. Unable to accept her own guilt, Myrthen excludes herself from all forms of friendship and affection and begins a twisted, haunted life dedicated to God. Meanwhile, her neighbor Alta Krol longs to be an artist even as her days are taken up caring for her widowed father and siblings. Everything changes when Myrthen marries the man Alta loves. Fourteen years later, we meet Lidia, a teenage girl in the same town, and her precocious son, Gabriel. When Gabriel starts telling eerily prescient stories that hint at Verra’s long-buried secrets, it’s not long before the townspeople begin to suspect that the boy harbors evil spirits—an irresistible state of affairs for Myrthen and her obsession with salvation.

ABOUT The Beginning Things is a novel of lessons and of steps towards redemption. Twelve-year-old Tot Thompson, mourning the loss of her father and stranded on an island of familial dysfunction, finds a moment of importance in a neighbor's bed. Dan Grad, her recently widowed grandfather, finds a sharp-edged peace inside a bottle of Bells Whiskey. Both have lessons to learn...and strangely enough, important lessons to teach. REVIEWS "Watch out. You can get dangerously attached to the people of Tot Thompson's world. Dangerous because the last page WILL COME and you shall realize it's only a book." -"Carolyn Chute, author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine and others." "The Beginning Things contains three coming-of-age stories, all of them beautifully told with equal parts toughness and tenderness. Readers will recognize important truths about themselves and their lives as lived through Tot, the pre-teen; Elaine, Tot's single mother, and Dan, Elaine's recently widowed father-in-law. Goodjohn balances each of their stories with dry humor and a strong sense of the importance of both endings and beginnings, as well as the battles and triumphs of the in-betweens. This is a rare book, wound tight as thread around a finger, and as lyrical as everyday things fully realized. I have nothing but praise for its wise and insightful author. Enter the world of The Beginning Things, and you will not want to emerge again until the very last word." -"Morgan Callan Rogers, author of Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea " ABOUT THE AUTHOR Bunny Goodjohn was born in London in 1960 and moved to the United States in 1999. She is published in both prose and poetry and her books include "Sticklebacks and Snow Globes" (Permanent Press 2007, Scribe 2008, Centrepolygraph 2008) and "Bone Song" (Briery Creek Press 2015). She teaches and directs the Writing Program at Randolph College in Lynchburg. www.bagoodjohn.com