historical fiction

Stephen, an accomplished bugler in the town band, joins the Union effort in the Civil War and endures trial after trial, from battle to Confederate prison and the shipwreck of the steamboat Sultana, and through luck and fortitude, Stephen survives.

Seventeen-year-old Ava Hall continues to learn more about herself and her heritage through her work in a New York City settlement house as well as through her social obligations with the Blythewood girls.

On a cold night in October 1937, searchlights cut through the darkness around Alcatraz. A prison guard's only daughter--one of the youngest civilians who lives on the island--has gone missing. Tending the warden's greenhouse, convicted bank robber Tommy Capello waits anxiously. Only he knows the truth about the little girl's whereabouts, and that both of their lives depend on the search's outcome. Almost two decades earlier and thousands of miles away, a young boy named Shanley Keagan ekes out a living as an aspiring vaudevillian in Dublin pubs. Talented and shrewd, Shan dreams of shedding his dingy existence and finding his real father in America. The chance finally comes to cross the Atlantic, but when tragedy strikes, Shan must summon all his ingenuity to forge a new life in a volatile and foreign world. Skillfully weaving these two stories, Kristina McMorris delivers a compelling novel that moves from Ireland to New York to San Francisco Bay. As her finely crafted characters discover the true nature of loyalty, sacrifice, and betrayal, they are forced to confront the lies we tell--and believe--in order to survive.

Based on a true story, in April 1912 in Hampton, Virginia, Charles Mears, a white, eighteen-year-old reporter, covers his first murder case. It is the trial of an uneducated African American girl named Virginia Christian who stands accused of killing her white employer. Virginia died in the electric chair, the only female juvenile executed in Virginia history. The book tells the story of the trial and its aftermath using actual court records, letters, newspaper stories, and personal accounts.

When Union soldier Caitlin McKae wakes up in Atlanta wounded in battle, the Georgian doctor believes her only secret is that she had been fighting for the Confederacy disguised as a man. In order to avoid arrest or worse, Caitlin hides her true identity and makes a new life for herself in Atlanta, thus creating a new secret to hide. Trained as a teacher, she accepts a job as a governess for the daughter of Noah Becker, a German immigrant lawyer who enlists with the Rebel army to defend his homeland against Sherman's army.

Union loyalist Sophie Kent risks everything to help end the war from within the Confederate capital and abolish slavery forever from Richmond, Virginia in 1863. But she can't do it alone. Former slave Bella Jamison sacrifices her freedom to come to Richmond, where her Union soldier husband is imprisoned, and her twin sister still lives in bondage in Sophie's home. Though it may cost them their lives, they work with Sophie to betray Rebel authorities. When her espionage endangers the people she loves, she makes a life-and-death gamble. Will she follow her convictions even though it costs her everything---and everyone---she holds dear?.

Lady Kiera Darby and Sebastian Gage become tangled in a dangerous web of religious and political intrigue. In July 1831, in the midst of their idyllic honeymoon in England's Lake District, their seclusion is interrupted by a missive from Kiera's new father-in-law asking them to investigate a deadly incident involving a distant relative of the Duke of Wellington which has taken place at an abbey south of Dublin, Ireland. Intent on discovering what kind of monster could murder a woman of the cloth, the couple travel to Rathfarnham Abbey school. As they work to unravel the crime, a second nun is slain in broad daylight near a classroom full of young girls.

It's late October, 1962. Wes Avery is living his version of the American dream, as loving husband to Sarah, doting father to seventeen-year-old Charlotte, and owner of a successful Florida Texaco gas station. But after President Kennedy announces that the Soviets have nuclear missiles in Cuba, Army convoys clog the highways, and the sky fills with fighter planes. Within days Wes's carefully constructed life begins to unravel. Sarah spends more and more time in the family's bomb shelter, Charlotte is caught up in the excitement of the upcoming homecoming dance and her first love---a Cuban American boy her mother disapproves of, and Wes tries to keep his family calm. But as the panic over the Missile Crisis rises, a long-buried secret threatens everyone.