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When you're all that stands between the murderous past and the fate of those you love, how far would you go to save them? When Audrey Kepler inherits an abandoned homestead in rural Queensland, she jumps at the chance to escape her loveless existence in the city and make a fresh start. In a dusty back room of the old house, she discovers the crumbling photo of a handsome World War II medic - Samuel Riordan, the homestead's former occupant - and soon finds herself becoming obsessed with him.
Vowing to make a fresh start, Sarah McAdams has come home to renovate the old Victorian mansion where she grew up. Her daughters, Jade and Gracie, aren’t impressed by the rundown property on the shores of Oregon’s wild Columbia River. As soon as they pull up the isolated drive, Sarah, too, is beset by uneasy memories - of her cold, distant mother, of the half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night when Sarah was found on the widow’s walk, feverish and delirious.
It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.
Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his 19-year-old son died. Every year he’s spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip’s ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go. What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip - and the bonds that develop between them- would prove....
When you're all that stands between the murderous past and the fate of those you love, how far would you go to save them? When Audrey Kepler inherits an abandoned homestead in rural Queensland, she jumps at the chance to escape her loveless existence in the city and make a fresh start. In a dusty back room of the old house, she discovers the crumbling photo of a handsome World War II medic - Samuel Riordan, the homestead's former occupant - and soon finds herself becoming obsessed with him.
Vowing to make a fresh start, Sarah McAdams has come home to renovate the old Victorian mansion where she grew up. Her daughters, Jade and Gracie, aren’t impressed by the rundown property on the shores of Oregon’s wild Columbia River. As soon as they pull up the isolated drive, Sarah, too, is beset by uneasy memories - of her cold, distant mother, of the half-sister who vanished without a trace, and of a long-ago night when Sarah was found on the widow’s walk, feverish and delirious.
It has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward's husband, Cal, when she receives unexpected news - Cal's family home in Beaufort, South Carolina, bequeathed by Cal's reclusive grandmother, now belongs to Merritt. Charting the course of an uncertain life - and feeling guilt from her husband's tragic death - Merritt travels from her home in Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal's unspoken-of past reside among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the Bluff.
Inara Erickson is exploring her deceased aunt's island estate when she finds an elaborately stitched piece of fabric hidden in the house. As she peels back layer upon layer of the secrets it holds, Inara's life becomes interwoven with that of Mei Lein, a young Chinese girl mysteriously driven from her home a century before. Through the stories Mei Lein tells in silk, Inara uncovers a tragic truth that will shake her family to its core - and force her to make an impossible choice.
>i>Mosaic is compelling storytelling at its best - from the fascinating details of Polish-Jewish culture and the rivalries and dramas of family life, to its moving account of lives torn apart by war and persecution, this an extraordinary true story of a family, and of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage.
August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his 19-year-old son died. Every year he’s spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip’s ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go. What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip - and the bonds that develop between them- would prove....
Imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto, Elsi discovers her mother's desperate attempt to end her pregnancy and comes face-to-face with the impossibility of their situation. Risking her own life, Elsi joins a resistance group to sabotage the regime. Blonde, blue-eyed Matilda is wrenched from her family in Romania and taken to Germany, where her captors attempt to mold her into the perfect Aryan child. Spirited and brave, she must inspire hope in the other stolen children to make her dreams of escape a reality.
Set at the end of World War II, in a crumbling Bavarian castle that once played host to all of German high society, a powerful and propulsive story of three widows whose lives and fates become intertwined - an affecting, shocking, and ultimately redemptive novel from the author of the New York Times notable book The Hazards of Good Breeding.
Sheldon Horowitz - 82 years old, impatient, and unreasonable - is staying with his granddaughter's family in Norway when he disappears with a stranger's child. Sheldon is an ex-Marine, and he feels responsible for his son's death in Vietnam. Recently widowed and bereft, he talks to the ghosts of his past constantly. To Norway's cops, Sheldon is just an old man who is coming undone at the end of a long and hard life. But Sheldon is clear in his own mind.
Ruby Cardel has the semblance of a normal life – a loving boyfriend, a career she loves – but in one terrible moment, her life begins to unravel. The discovery that the death of her beloved sister, so many years ago, was not the accident she’d always been told makes her question all she’s known about herself. Travelling back home to Lyrebird Hill, the beautiful bushland property where she grew up with her mother and sister, Ruby begins to remember the year that has been blocked in her memory.
In the chaotic aftermath of World War II, American college girl Charlie St. Clair is pregnant, unmarried, and on the verge of being thrown out of her very proper family. She's also nursing a desperate hope that her beloved cousin Rose, who disappeared in Nazi-occupied France during the war, might still be alive.
In the summer of 1963, nine-year-old spitfire Starla Claudelle runs away from her strict grandmother's Mississippi home. Starla hasn't seen her momma since she was three - that's when Lulu left for Nashville to become a famous singer. If she can get to Nashville and find her momma, then all that she promised will come true: Lulu will be a star. Daddy will come to live in Nashville, too. And her family will be whole and perfect.
When her father falls into a coma, Indian American photographer Sonya reluctantly returns to the family she'd fled years before. Since she left home, Sonya has lived on the run, free of any ties, while her soft-spoken sister, Trisha, has created a perfect suburban life, and her ambitious sister, Marin, has built her own successful career. But as these women come together, their various methods of coping with a terrifying history can no longer hold their memories at bay.
A terrible darkness has fallen upon Jacob Weisz’s beloved Germany. The Nazi regime, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, has surged to power and now hold Germany by the throat. All non-Aryans - especially Jews like Jacob and his family - are treated like dogs. When tragedy strikes during one terrible night of violence, Jacob flees and joins rebel forces working to undermine the regime. But after a raid goes horribly wrong, Jacob finds himself in a living nightmare - trapped in a crowded, stinking car on the train to the Auschwitz death camp.
As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving "Black-Eyed Susan," the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa's testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row.
In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever.... Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage - and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape.
Quitting her job as a high school science teacher to join the Seattle Police Department was an easy decision for Tracy Crosswhite. Years earlier, what should have been one of the happiest days of her life instead became her worst nightmare when her younger sister, Sarah, disappeared. After the murder trial, while her family disintegrated, Tracy turned her heartbreak and her lingering questions into a passion for justice.
After enduring a childhood of horrific abuse and crushing poverty, Tucker seeks refuge in her rural Tennessee home. The three grandchildren she is raising are her only connection to the outside, and her demeanor is purposefully rough. But her world is turned upside down when a new neighbor, Ella, moves into the old McDaniel place next door.
Inspired by a true incident that took place in Poland in 1941 but was concealed for 60 years, Diane Armstrong's gripping novel is a detective story that is part mystery, part history, and part forensic investigation. It is also a tale of love, loss, and unimaginable sacrifice.
"The best and worst of the human spirit are dredged up in this profoundly moving, compelling, and superbly written story." (Australian Women's Weekly)
First off, let me say that the historical parts of Winter Journey were fascinating, horrifying and educated me on one more atrocity of WWII that I never knew existed . . . the killing of several hundred Jewish citizens in Jedwabne, Poland by it's own citizens, NOT the Germans . . . it is a true story (the town renamed for the book) . . . but I was sadly "put off" by the author's continuous need to place Halina in one sexual escapade after another . . . the forensic dentist, Halina, talented and experienced at her craft, would have been at the very least in her fifties, but most probably older . . . and the graphic sex detracted from the story line . . . the forensics, the delving into her past, that's what kept me listening . . . but I felt like it took way too long to get there because I had to wade through too much mud . . .
141 of 159 people found this review helpful
A captivating story which was beautifully read. This was a book that I took a chance on as I hadn't read a review or heard about it prior to download. At times heart-wrenching but a definite page turner that kept my interest until the last word.
58 of 67 people found this review helpful
This is one of the best books I bought.
It is a true story and I can not agree with other poeple that this is over dramitized. I cound not stop listening!!
Very well written and it give a true reflection of human nature. The reader was excellent. She was able to bring to life Jewish, Polish, & Australian characters with just the right accents and inflections.
28 of 33 people found this review helpful
Interesting book, based on a true story about a forensic dentist Halina Shore, from Austrailia, who because of her Polish background, is one of the people chosen to go on war crimes assignment to dig up a mass grave in a town in Poland. The village people are divided and and angry about this intrusion in their lives, because it might show that they, the Poles, were responsible for the 1,000 jews that were burned alive there, and not the Germans, as they claimed.
Digging up the mass grave, uncovers much more than the answer to the question about who dunnit, it uncovers truths about Halina's own life. Good story, a little confusing at times, with all the names and characters, but an overall a good book.
Deidre Rubenstein deserves an award for her performance reading this book. Her emotion and skill draw you in. I'm not sure I would have enjoyed reading this one as much as I did listening to it.
29 of 35 people found this review helpful
I'm not sure what time line the other reviewers were using but a little research shows Poland entering the European Union around 1990, which would make the main character around 50, not 70. While some people may be surprised that a woman could be involved in a romantic relationship at that age, I found it very refreshing and thought the entire story was very moving and interesting.
21 of 26 people found this review helpful
Every time I thought the book might pick up, the author reiterates the reiteration. I agree with other reviews that the protagonist's personal story is distracting and annoying. I really don't like stories that are interrupted by sex. I think the author just says " Oh, this is a good time for some sex!" For those who think this makes it a "chick" book- Wrong! I'm a woman and it takes more than melodrama and sex (which this book had too much of) to keep my attention. Halfway through I was checking to see how may more chapters I still had to endure. The answer? Too many.
6 of 7 people found this review helpful
Winter Journey is beautifully written and takes the reader along on the journey of discovery. Though some of the story seems slightly contrived it will play on every emotion you have. The narrator tells the story well and is very committed to the story. Loved it!
13 of 16 people found this review helpful
Excellent writing, interesting subject matter and well researched actual events. Very moving.
11 of 14 people found this review helpful
HIS VOICE WAS AS DARK AND MELLOW AS THE BRANDY SHE HAD BEEN DRINKING
This is so not what I thought I was getting. This is chick lit. Women issues takes center stage. Nothing happens without us looking at it in how it affects women. The writing is often disjointed and stilted. One minute we are in Cambodia, the next we are in court. The only time the book flows well is in court and when the main character is having sex with her married boyfriend. I gave it a little over three hours and I would have liked to have known what happened in Poland, but not enough to listen to a documentary for hours. Most of the sentences are statements. Huge periods are put at the end of most sentences. There is an audience for this book, but it is not for anyone with a beard.
17 of 23 people found this review helpful
I like this book. If it is indeed a true story, it is a remarkable story. It is well written and the characters and their circumstances are good.
It is not a mystery like most but the ending took me by suprise.
If there is anything missing, it is something that is missing from most books written about this black period. Soul searching.
20 of 28 people found this review helpful
A substantial and gripping tale, Winter Journey contains many elements, romance, mystery, murder and history. It was no surprise to discover that the theme was based on a horrific event that took place in Poland in 1941. A war crime against the Jews that was covered up for many years. A forensic dentist, Halina knows that when she was very small her mother escaped with her from Poland to Autralia. Her mother was tightlipped about the background to the escape but after her mother`s death and the end of a love affair Halena chose to go to Poland and assist in a war crime investigation. Caught up in the antagonism and resentment of the villagers Halena found an unexpected bond with the local priest, also based on a living person. The discovery of the tragic truth regarding her family was devastating but gradually with the support of her lover Halina came to terms with the past and found the serenity she had always saught. Beautifully read by Deirdre Rubinstein I would have no hesitation in recommending this book.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
A gripping work of historical fiction set in 21C Poland uncovers the truth about an appalling atrocity that occurred in a village community during the Second World War. The narrative explores the human capacity for evil - and good, and truth and reconciliation. Halina an Australian forensic odontologist travels to Poland to assist in the excavation of the site of the crime. Gradually the forensic evidence reveals not just uncomfortable truths about the past, but also about Halina and others still alive today.It is not just about the search for truth however, but how to make sense of it, and here Diane Armstrong confronts us with the clash of science and religion. A well researched book based on events that really happened and sympathetically told by Deirdre Rubinstein. A week after finishing the book I still find myself thinking about it - and wondering about the title!
A good listen, and one that I'll read myself.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
This book tells the story of Halina Shore, a Polish forensic dentist who lives in Australia and travels to Poland to take part in the investigation into a war crime, occurred in the mid forties, against the Jewish population. Once there, she will find out not only about the terrible crimes that took place but also about her own Polish roots. It is a fiction book but based on a real historic fact (the burning alive of around one thousand Jews in a barn in a Polish village). I think it is a really interesting well-narrated story, quite disturbing at certain points. I couldn't put the second part of the book down as I was absorbed by the plot. I found the narrator excellent. On the other hand, there are quite a lot of fiction components mixed up with the tragic real events, so I am not sure if this narration would suit all tastes. For me, it was a worthwhile listen.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book ... the reader is excellent.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful
I enjoyed this book, written around history. The narrator is fantastic and tells the story with power and conviction.
Loved it. Made me cry. The words made the message powerful. Hope it makes me a better person.