Showing results for "the-mercies" in Historical Fiction

1617. The sea around the remote Norwegian island of Vardø is thrown into a vicious storm. A young woman, Maren, watches as the men of the island, out fishing, perish in an instant. Eighteen months later, a sinister figure arrives. Absalom Cornet has been summoned to bring the women of the island to heel. With him travels his young wife, Ursa. In her new home, and in Maren, Ursa encounters something she has never seen before: independent women. But where Ursa finds happiness, even love, Absalom sees only a place flooded with a terrible evil, one he must root out at all costs....

In the summer of 1974 a heatwave blankets Boston and Mary Pat Fennessey is trying to stay one step ahead of the bill collectors. Mary Pat has lived her entire life in the housing projects of 'Southie', the Irish American enclave that stubbornly adheres to old tradition and stands proudly apart. One night Mary Pat's teenage daughter Jules stays out late and doesn't come home. That same evening, a young Black man is found dead, struck by a subway train under mysterious circumstances. The two events seem unconnected.

Geesje de Jonge crossed the ocean at age 17 with her parents and a small group of immigrants from the Netherlands to settle in the Michigan wilderness. Fifty years later, in 1897, she's asked to write a memoir of her early experiences as the town celebrates its anniversary. Reluctant at first, she soon uncovers memories and emotions hidden all these years, including the story of her one true love.

Having returned to Chicago, young socialite Anna Nicholson can't seem to focus on her upcoming marriage. The new information she's learned about her birth mother continues to pull at her, and she hires Pinkerton detectives to help her find the truth. But as she meets people who once knew her mother and hears stories about the past, Anna soon discovers that some secrets are better left hidden.

When Sister Fidelma sets out on a pilgrimage in the autumn of AD 666, her main preoccupation is to reflect on her commitment to the religious life and her relationship with the Saxon monk, Eadulf, whom she has left behind. Complications arise during the first night on the ship when one of the pilgrims is apparently washed overboard. The discovery of a blood-stained robe raises the question of murder, and Fidelma finds herself having to focus all her abilities on solving the mystery.

When Mercy Maddox makes a spur of the moment decision to pretend she is the fare of a man holding a name card at Savannah Airport, she doesn't suspect she's about to climb into the back seat of a hit man hired to kill his passenger—nor find herself on an Antebellum plantation a hundred and eighty years in the past.

In the city of Bath, in the year 1865, an extraordinary young woman renowned for her nursing skills is convinced that some other destiny will one day show itself to her. But when she finds herself torn between a dangerous affair with a female lover and the promise of a conventional marriage to an apparently respectable doctor, her desires begin to lead her towards a future she had never imagined.

Madysen Powell has always been a forgiving person, but when her supposedly dead father shows up in Nome, Alaska, her gift for forgiveness is tested. With the recent loss of her mother, she searches for answers, leaning on Granny Beaufort, a neighbor in town, who listens with a kind heart. Still, Madysen is restless and dreams of performing her music around the world. The arrival of a traveling show could prove just the chance she needs, and the manager promises more than she ever dreamed.

Two women, the ailing Abigail Boyles and exuberant, wealthy Lauren Durough, are brought together by their love of books and the discovery of a diary written by a young woman, Mercy Hayworth, who was burned at the stake during the Salem witch trials. Her inspiring, yearning, romantic diary proves to be an inspiration to both Abigail and Lauren, teaching them to cherish friendships, love, and life. Readers will be similarly uplifted by Susan Messner's finely wrought tale.

Fifteen-year-old Mercy Faulkner is hit with the hardest blow of her young life when her beloved father is killed in an accident. Now, she must leave all she knows to move with her mother, a hard woman that she feels like she barely knows, to the small mountain town of Wynter, Colorado. Her mother has been offered a job there and a place to live and start over for the two.

For Stella Bled Lawrence, being wealthy and stylish in 1938 is exactly what it's cracked up to be. She's blissfully unaware of the rising tensions in Europe even as she travels to Vienna on the eve of the Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass. Stella and her husband, Nicky, witness the night's atrocities firsthand. Even as they watch the horror, they never imagine it will touch them personally, a pair of wealthy Americans on their honeymoon, but touch them it does.

Mercy Flanagan survived the Whitman Massacre as a child, and now her heart's cry is for peace between the native peoples and the white settlers inhabiting Oregon Territory. Unfortunately, most of the settlers would rather the tribes be removed from the land completely, one way or the other, and tensions are rising. Mercy has grown tired of Oregon City and feels that she has a larger purpose in life, so when she learns that family friend Eletta Browning is pregnant, she travels south to the Rogue River Valley to help.

The rich farmlands of the Dakota Territory in 1887 are finally beginning to yield the abundant harvest the pioneers had dreamed about so long. The establishment of the railroad has brought significant changes to the small town of Blessing as well as prosperity to the Bjorklund family and their neighbors. Among the townsfolk is reverend John Solberg. The reverend, rejecting the persistent efforts of matchmaking mothers, develops a friendship with Mary Martha through their common love of books.

Anji Baard Moen, a recent widow, returns from Norway with her children. She quickly settles back into life in Blessing, teaching Norwegian history in the high school and writing articles for the Blessing Gazette. When tragedy strikes, Anji steps in to run the newspaper and soon finds a kindred spirit in the widower who owns the printing press. As they spend time together, Anji wonders if there's something more than friendship growing between them.

When captured rebel Scotsman Alex MacKinnon is granted the king’s mercy—transport across the Atlantic Ocean and exile to the colony of North Carolina—he’s indentured as a blacksmith to Edmund Carey, prosperous owner of Severn Plantation. The arrangement devastates the Scot, who mourns the life he lost and finds life on a slave plantation intolerable. Unwittingly, Alex is drawn into the plight of Carey’s slaves, particularly those connected to Carey’s stepdaughter, Joanna.

Former Boston Brahmin Mercy Allcutt is excited to be renting out suites of rooms to deserving working women in her new home on Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. She considers she's performing an act of good-heartedness, no matter skeptical her boss, private investigator Ernie Templeton, is about her endeavor. Mercy not only takes driving lessons from Ernie, but she discovers there's more to being a landlady than meets the eye. Is one of her Angels of Mercy not what she appears to be? Only time, and perhaps Mercy and Ernie, will tell...

After nine years as the people's beloved princess in the sun-soaked Kingdom of Carca, Vita witnesses the execution of her mother by her father's hand. Forced into exile, Vita fades into obscurity with her only friends—the crows that visit her window. Eleven years later, Vita is given a choice: marry an enemy general, granting him legitimacy to take the throne, or die as the forgotten princess. With time running out, Vita meets Soline, an intriguing lady-in-waiting who introduces her to the powerful but unstable magic of alchemy.

Natassa has settled into a “new normal” three years after the assault that changed her life. Marriage, family, and a new career have brought changes that she never thought were possible, and love like she’d never known before. But, any semblance of peace shatters when a new development occurs in her case. Flooded with emotion she thought she’d long put to rest, Natassa must navigate strained relationships.

November, 1914. The Great War has come to Brussels, the Germans have occupied the city, and Edith Cavell, Head Nurse at Berkendael Medical Institute, faces an impossible situation. As matron of a designated Red Cross hospital, Edith has sworn an oath to help any who are wounded, under whatever flag they are found. But Governor von Lüttwitz, the ranking German officer, has additional orders for her. She and her nurses must also stand guard over the wounded Allied prisoners of war and prevent them from escaping.

When Viney Walker’s long-absent father arrives in the 19th-century utopian community of Rugby, TN, he begs her to return with him to the Great Smoky Mountains. Viney’s sister, Lizzie, urges her to go because a new setting will help Viney heal from a broken engagement. Viney acquiesces, and in her new home, she meets her Walker cousins, including handsome and brawny James. The couple’s romance angers the White Caps, a vigilante group that whips lewd women, and they warn Viney to mend her ways. Seeking revenge and the freedom to love James, Viney joins a counter-vigilante group.