What We May Become

In 1945 secrets hidden at an Italian estate could prove just as vital to humanity's fate as the war efforts on the frontlines . . . if nurse Diana Bolsena can get to them first. Tuscany, 1945. As the war in Europe ends, American Red Cross nurse Diana Bolsena finds herself separated from her unit. Unable to reconnect with the American army, she's left to survive with nothing but her spirit, her talents as a nurse, and her nightmares of the horror of war. Determined to return to active duty in the Pacific, to earn her way back Diana begins caring for a child with disabilities on the estate of the enigmatic Signora Bugari. Amidst the ravages of war, it is a peaceful existence until a visiting German officer, Herr Adler, arrives demanding Bugari return what is rightfully his. When a shocking murder attracts more people to the isolated estate, Diana suspects Adler's hidden secrets could affect the course of history. But who will uncover them first? And what will happen to humanity if they fall into the wrong hands?

"Nail biting suspense, and gloriously kind queer rep." - Zoe York, USA Today Bestselling Author What we were… Sean found love once, with his college roommate, Trevor, and Trevor’s best friend, Charlotte. The missing piece, Sean made it possible for Trevor and Charlotte to find love too. But then Sean left their small town and took the love with him. What we are… Now an FBI agent, Sean is back in town, ten years later, to investigate a murder. A case that pits him against his ex-lovers—Charlotte, a local detective, and Trevor, a literature professor sucked into the Shakespearean mystery. Everyone guards their hearts, but before long, desire sparks anew the feelings that burned hot a decade ago. That still burn true. What we may be… Love is within their grasp again, but as the killer escalates, it’s more than just their hearts and futures on the line. Sean, Charlotte, and Trevor will need to work together to solve the case. If they can’t, lives will be lost and pieces of their love gone for good. What We May Be is a gripping small town, second chance romantic mystery, featuring a literary whodunit and three former flames finding their way back to friendship, love, steamy times, and happily ever after together.

Winner of the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction—A darkly comic novel of twenty-first-century domestic life by a writer who is always “compelling, devastating, and furiously good” (Zadie Smith) Harold Silver has spent a lifetime watching his younger brother, George, a taller, smarter, and more successful high-flying TV executive, acquire a covetable wife, two kids, and a beautiful home in the suburbs of New York City. But Harry, a historian and Nixon scholar, also knows George has a murderous temper, and when George loses control the result is an act of violence so shocking that both brothers are hurled into entirely new lives in which they both must seek absolution. Harry finds himself suddenly playing parent to his brother’s two adolescent children, tumbling down the rabbit hole of Internet sex, dealing with aging parents who move through time like travelers on a fantastic voyage. As Harry builds a twenty-first-century family created by choice rather than biology, we become all the more aware of the ways in which our history, both personal and political, can become our destiny and either compel us to repeat our errors or be the catalyst for change. May We Be Forgiven is an unnerving, funny tale of unexpected intimacies and of how one deeply fractured family might begin to put itself back together.

Fashion is Jared Harvey’s life. Once a top model, now an aspiring designer, he never expects to be attracted to a man who wouldn’t know his Versace from his Valentino. But Rick Paulson makes him rethink everything he’s ever assumed he wanted in a man. Rick’s generous, built like a brick house, and best of all, hungry to let Jared take control. Together, they ignite passions in each other neither wants to extinguish. So what if Rick doesn’t care about Jared’s Cavalli? Life’s more than a runway, especially with a man like Rick around ...

As We Are and As We May Be by Walter Besant: Reflect on the social and moral dimensions of humanity with Walter Besant's "As We Are and As We May Be." This essay explores the possibilities of individual and collective improvement, shedding light on the potential for positive change. Key Aspects of the Book "As We Are and As We May Be": Social Reflections: Walter Besant delves into societal issues, offering insights into the challenges and opportunities for societal progress. Moral Aspirations: The essay encourages readers to consider their moral and ethical responsibilities in shaping a better future. Optimistic Vision: "As We Are and As We May Be" presents an optimistic outlook on the potential for human improvement and social transformation. Walter Besant was a British novelist and social reformer known for his advocacy of social and educational reforms. His essay reflects his dedication to addressing pressing societal issues.

Transcending divisions and healing the broken Body of Christ. Disunity is a reality within churches today. Left unaddressed, political disagreements and racial inequities can fester into misunderstanding, resentment, and anger. But often the act of addressing this discord prompts further animosity, widening fissures into gaping fault lines between fellow members of the same community. Gary Agee, a pastor well-versed in leading diverse congregations, reflects here on the roots of division within the church and the virtues and practices that can promote the restoration of unity. With disarming honesty and humility, Agee offers sage advice gleaned from Scripture and years of practical experience to show how we might fulfill Jesus’s prayer on behalf of the church: “That all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. . . . That they may be one as we are one.” At the end of each chapter, Agee includes exercises, discussion questions, and suggested practices, providing a concrete path to unity through dialogue and action.

God desires oneness with the church; and we are brought into oneness with God not through birth but through a marriage covenant. God has offered His Son as the groom through which the church, as His bride, can be married back into the family of God. The preparations for this marriage are ongoing, and so we should know what to do to get ready for the big day. That We May Be One will help the bride of Christ prepare for this magnificent wedding day and teach believers how to have the kind of zeal that brings them to oneness with God. By preparing for this oneness with God, the bride of Christ can build a desire to know God deeply and intimately. Satan separated us from our Father, but more and more today he is pushing us toward this sweet reunion in marriage. At the end is the complete victory of the church over Satan, so the time is now to prepare to join heaven as one with the Godhead. We were originally created in the likeness of God, but through our marriage with Christ, He will receive us to become one with Him. He gives a seed and expects it back to Him multiplied—which is the love to the seed. So He does also want us—a lovely harvest.

A mother's memoir of her transgender child's odyssey, and her journey outside the boundaries of the faith and culture that shaped her. From the age of two-and-a-half, Jacob, born "Em," adamantly told his family he was a boy. While his mother Mimi struggled to understand and come to terms with the fact that her child may be transgender, she experienced a sense of déjà vu--the journey to uncover the source of her child's inner turmoil unearthed ghosts from Mimi's past and her own struggle to live an authentic life. Mimi was raised in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish family, every aspect of her life dictated by ancient rules and her role as a woman largely preordained from cradle to grave. As a young woman, Mimi wrestled with the demands of her faith and eventually made the painful decision to leave her religious community and the strict gender roles it upheld. Having risen from the ashes of her former life, Mimi was prepared to help her son forge a new one -- at a time when there was little consensus on how best to help young transgender children. Dual narratives of faith and motherhood weave together to form a heartfelt portrait of an unforgettable family. Brimming with love and courage, What We Will Become is a powerful testament to how painful events from the past can be redeemed to give us hope for the future.

Those who begin to consider the subject of the working woman discover presently that there is a vast field of inquiry lying quite within their reach, without any trouble of going into slums or inquiring of sweaters. This is the field occupied by the gentlewoman who works for a livelihood. She is not always, perhaps, gentle in quite the old sense, but she is gentle in that new and better sense which means culture, education, and refinement. There are now thousands of these working gentlewomen, and the number is daily increasing. A few among them—a very few—are working happily and successfully; some are working contentedly, others with murmuring and discontent at the hardness of the work and the poorness of the pay. Others, again, are always trying, and for the most part vainly, to get work—any kind of work—which will bring in money—any small sum of money. This is a dreadful spectacle, to any who have eyes to see, of gentlewomen struggling, snatching, importuning, begging for work. No one knows, who has not looked into the field, how crowded it is, and how sad a sight it presents. For my own part I think it is a shame that a lady should ever have to stand in the labour market for hire like a milkmaid at a statute fair. I think that the rush of women into the labour market is a most lamentable thing. Labour, and especially labour which is without organization or union, has to wage an incessant battle—always getting beaten—against greed and injustice: the natural enemy of labour is the employer, especially the impecunious employer; in the struggle women always get worsted. Again, in whatever trade or calling they attempt, the great majority of women are hopelessly incompetent. As in the lower occupations, so in the higher, the greatest obstacle to success is incompetence. How should gentlewomen be anything but incompetent? They have not been taught anything special, they have not been 'put through the mill'; mostly, they are fit only for those employments which require the single quality that everybody can claim—general intelligence. Hopeless indeed is the position of that woman who brings into the intellectual labour market nothing but general intelligence. She is exactly like the labourer who knows no trade, and has nothing but his strong frame and his pair of hands. To that man falls the hardest work and the smallest wage. To the woman with general intelligence is assigned the lowest drudgery of intellectual labour. And yet there are so many clamouring for this, or for anything. A few months ago a certain weekly magazine stated that I, the writer, had started an Association for Providing Ladies with Copying Work—all in capitals. The number of letters which came to me by every post in consequence of that statement was incredible. The writers implored me to give them a share of that copying work; they told terrible, heart-rending stories of suffering. Of course, there was no such Association. There is, now that typewriting is fairly established, no copying work left to speak of. Even now the letters have not quite ceased to arrive.