Somewhere To Call Home

Some might call it a proposal. Violet Burton knows it's blackmail, and she refuses to give in. She won't marry the unscrupulous banker who holds the mortgage on her Virginia home. Instead, she'll find employment in New York City, earning enough to pay her debts before returning home. Virginia's where she belongs...even if reconnecting with childhood friend Michael Heaton makes her long to stay permanently at his mother's boardinghouse. The freckle-faced girl Michael knew is now a lovely woman. Helping Violet find her way is a simple act of friendship--at least at first. But soon he'll do anything to keep her safe, and hope she'll see that the home she seeks is one they can share together.

She must learn to live without him and start living her life again... Newly widowed after a whirlwind wartime romance, Stella Nolan is preparing to meet her late husband’s family for the first time. Arriving at his family home, Warren’s End, Stella finds that the Great War has left a bitter legacy, and not all of her new in-laws are prepared to offer her a warm welcome. Stella’s sister-in-law Rosalie makes her hostility plain, and it’s not always easy for Stella to stand up to her overbearing mother-in-law. It isn’t long before Stella realises that the family she belongs to is one riven with tension, disappointments, shameful secrets and bitter quarrels. An unforeseen turn of events means that Stella ends up staying with the Nolan family a great deal longer than she had planned. She must adapt to a new life of countless ups and downs. Will she overcome heartbreak and scandal to find true happiness? A captivating wartime saga perfect for fans of Elaine Roberts and Rosie Clarke.

Some might call it a proposal. Violet Burton knows it's blackmail, and she refuses to give in. She won't marry the unscrupulous banker who holds the mortgage on her Virginia home. Instead, she'll find employment in New York City, earning enough to pay her debts before returning home. Virginia's where she belongs…even if reconnecting with childhood friend Michael Heaton makes her long to stay permanently at his mother's boardinghouse. The freckle-faced girl Michael knew is now a lovely woman. Helping Violet find her way is a simple act of friendship—at least at first. But soon he'll do anything to keep her safe, and hope she'll see that the home she seeks is one they can share together.

For award-winning architect Gil Schafer, the most successful houses are the ones that celebrate the small moments of life—houses with timeless charm that are imbued with memory and anchored in a distinct sense of place. Essentially, Schafer believes a house is truly successful when the people who live there consider it home. It’s this belief—and Schafer’s rare ability to translate his clients’ deeply personal visions of how they want to live into a physical home that reflects those dreams—that has established him as one of the most sought-after, highly-regarded architects of our time. In his new book, A Place to Call Home Schafer follows up his bestselling The Great American House, by pulling the curtain back on his distinctive approach, sharing his process (complete with unexpected, accessible ideas readers can work into their own projects) and taking readers on a detailed tour of seven beautifully realized houses in a range of styles located around the country—each in a unique place, and each with a character all its own. 250 lush, full color photographs of these seven houses and other never-before-seen projects, including exterior, interior, and landscape details, invite readers into Schafer’s world of comfortable classicism. Opening with memories of the childhood homes and experiences that have shaped Schafer’s own history, A Place to Call Home gives the reader the sense that for Schafer, architecture is not just a career but a way of life, a calling. He describes how the many varied houses of his youth were informed as much by their style as by their sense of place, and how these experiences of home informed his idea of classicism as a set of values that he applies to many different kinds of architecture in places as varied as the ones he grew up in. Because while Schafer is absolutely a classical architect, he is in fact a modern traditionalist, and A Place to Call Home showcases how he effortlessly interprets traditional principles for a multiplicity of architectural styles within contemporary ways of living. Sections in Part I include the delicate balance of modern and traditional aesthetics, the juxtaposition of fancy and simple, and the details that make each project special and livable. Schafer also delves into what he refers to as “the spaces in between,” those often overlooked spaces like closets, mudrooms, and laundry rooms, explaining their underappreciated value in the broader context of a home. Part of Schafer’s skill lies in the way he gives the minutiae of a project as much attention as the grand aesthetic gestures, and ultimately, it’s this combination that brings his homes to life. Part II of the book is the story of seven houses and the places they inhabit—each with a completely different character and soul: a charming cottage completely rebuilt into a casual but gracious house for a young family in bucolic Mill Valley, California; a reconstructed historic 1930s Colonial house and gardens set in lush woodlands in Connecticut; a new, Adirondack camp-inspired house for an active family perched on the edge of Lake Placid with stunning views of nearby Whiteface Mountain; an elegant but family-friendly Fifth Avenue apartment with a panoramic view of Central Park; a new timber frame and stone barn situated to take advantage of the summer sun on a lovely, rambling property in New England; a new residence and outbuildings on a 6,000 acre hunting preserve in Georgia, inspired by the historic 1920s and 1930s hunting plantation houses in the region; and Schafer’s own, deeply personal, newly-renovated and surprisingly modern house located just a few feet from the Atlantic Ocean in coastal Maine. In Schafer’s hands, the stories of these houses are irresistibly readable. He guides the reader through each of the design decisions, sharing anecdotes about the process and fascinating historical background and contextual influences of the settings. Ultimately, the houses featured in A Place to Call Home are more than just beautiful buildings in beautiful places. In each of them, Schafer has created a dialogue between past and present, a personalized world that people can inhabit gracefully, in sync with their own notions of home. Because, as Schafer writes in the book, he designs houses “not for an architect’s ego, but [for] the beauty of life, the joys of family, and, not least, a heartfelt celebration of place.”

In 1933, what's left of the Turner family--twelve-year-old Hallie and her two brothers--finds itself driving the back roads of rural America. The children have been swept up into a new migratory way of life. America is facing two devastating crises: the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Hundreds of thousands of people in cities across the country have lost jobs. In rural America it isn't any better as crops suffer from the never-ending drought. Driven by severe economic hardship, thousands of people take to the road to seek whatever work they can find, often splintering fragile families in the process. As the Turner children move from town to town, searching for work and trying to cobble together the basic necessities of life, they are met with suspicion and hostility. They are viewed as outsiders in their own country. Will they ever find a place to call home? New York Times-bestselling author Sandra Dallas gives middle-grade readers a timely story of young people searching for a home and a better way of life.

When Lenore de Quincy's father gives her the key to a bank box containing a fortune in cash and then dies, she realizes she is no longer under constraints to remain unhappily married. She abandons her husband, taking her daughter, Angela, with her from a provincial town in western Pennsylvania to the bright lights of Manhattan. A PLACE TO CALL HOME is a novel inspired by true stories set against the First World War, The Roaring Twenties, and the Great Depression. It centers around two well-to-do families joined by an arranged marriage. The action is seen through Angela's eyes as she struggles with the effects on her life of her parents' divorce, a thing viewed in the 1920's as scandalous and tragic. Her travels between New York City and her father's nurturing family in a coal-belt town near Pittsburgh provide humorous and nostalgic anecdotes about growing up in the America of that era. Mary Ellen Stelling was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1915 and lived in New York, Florida, North Carolina and Texas before settling in 1946 in Atlanta. For five years a feature columnist on the Women's Page of the Atlanta CONSTITUTION, she was a member of the Georgia Poetry Society and the Poetry Society of Texas. During the 1950's and 1960's, her work appeared in poetry journals in almost every state of the Union, and most newspapers of the time which featured verse published her poems. She was the wife of a successful retail executive and a dedicated mother who did all the usual time-consuming things to support her son's activities. Behind the scenes she worked as time allowed to create a richly humorous prose document portraying her childhood experiences. Those sketches written in the 1950's totaling about a hundred pages were the seeds which inspired this book. Mrs. Stelling passed away at the age of 82 in 1998. Peter James Stelling was born in Charlotte, NC, in 1943 and has spent most of his life in Atlanta. A graduate of Washington and Lee University and Grady College of the University of Georgia, he spent four years in advertising in New York before returning home to work for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and for two different firms specializing in Group Incentive Sales Travel and Meeting Planning. One of his most memorable work experiences was serving as road manager for a traveling symphony orchestra during the early years of Robert Shaw's tenure as their Music Director. Now a contentedly retired father of two and grandfather of four, he is grateful for having had the luxury of time to complete this unique family document. He remains an active supporter of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Atlanta Opera, Trinity Presbyterian Church, and serves on the Board of Governors of the Vinings Club in suburban Atlanta.

“Rarely will a book touch your heart like A Place to Call Home. So sit back, put up your feet, and enjoy.”—The Atlanta Journal and Constitution Twenty years ago, Claire Maloney was the willful, pampered, tomboyish daughter of the town's most respected family, but that didn’t stop her from befriending Roan Sullivan, a fierce, motherless boy who lived in a rusted-out trailer amid junked cars. No one in Dunderry, Georgia—least of all Claire’s family--could understand the bond between these two mavericks. But Roan and Claire belonged together . . . until the dark afternoon when violence and terror overtook them, and Roan disappeared from Claire's life. Now, two decades later, Claire is adrift, and the Maloneys are still hoping the past can be buried under the rich Southern soil. But Roan Sullivan is about to walk back into their lives. . . . By turns tender and sexy and heartbreaking and exuberant, A Place to Call Home is an enthralling journey between two hearts—and a deliciously original novel from one of the most imaginative and appealing new voices in Southern fiction. Praise for A Place to Call Home “A beautiful, believable love story.”—Chicago Tribune “For sheer storytelling virtuosity, Ms. Smith has few equals.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Enchanting new novel . . . a beautiful love story of reunion.”—The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC “Stylishly written, filled with Southern ease and humor.”—Tampa Tribune

Penelope Langston is excited to start life on her own farm, but Brandon Wilkes is determined to get back the land he feels was stolen from his family.

The two young sisters overheard a conversation between their parents as they discussed leaving Indiana for some unknown place called Arkansas. Carrie was filled with fear and apprehension, while Lillie was excited about the prospect of a new adventure. Neither of them knew what adventures and trials lay ahead for them as they traveled on a wagon train crossed a great river on a ferry and built a new life in a distant place. These adventures would prepare them for greater hardships later in life. Benjamin and Salina Street were well past fifty years of age when they left Indiana, traveled by wagon train and carved out a new life when they homesteaded land in north Arkansas as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close. This is their story.

The book "A Place to Call Home" is, in some small part, the author's biography - not a recording of individual episodes or events, but of emotions and thoughts at various stages in life. It is about the search to belong, to fit into a world that can be confusing. Most people experience such feelings at some stage in their life, but some feel more than others do. This, then, is the book of the consummate outsider in American society. It is about growing up in the lower working class - the unskilled factory laborers' world - under the old auspices of the American Dream in a world that seems to deny the existence of, or the opportunity for, such a dream. It expresses that anger and frustration, the observations, and the occasional joys of someone who grew up in the working class but had an eye that tried looking past that horizon of old brick buildings and housing developments. It is not that one can't overcome the obstacles which society places in the way; it is about the emotional toil that is extracted in such efforts. Each chapter is a mockery of the classical "Seven Ages of Man" writings. Each section vaguely deals with periods in life such as childhood, schooling, the search for religion, the working years, family, and so on. Poems written at those specific times are intermixed with poems looking back from later times to contrast the changing moods and visions of life. The core poems in this book follow the crests and valleys of emotional development in the author's life, but slowly and ultimately build to a crescendo of primal scream outrage and anger, followed by the calmer acceptance and resignation that come with middle age. The poems are predominantly from the years 1985-1997, with a few poems coming from earlier eras or more recent ones. The book is about contrasts so prevalent in America: the promises of the Camelot years and the realities of America at the end of the 20th Century; about wanting to believe in equality when everything is so unequal. The work is a documentation of a struggle to climb from anonymity and despair, if just to achieve something slightly better than what one's grandfather had. It is, lastly, about trying to find a place where one can be content and accept the terms of life.