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Jane Austen’s beloved novel Emma concludes with the marriage of Emma Woodhouse and George Knightley. As the newlyweds begin married life together at Highbury in Surrey, England, they are exuberant over the happy turn of their lives and hopeful for the future. Writes Miss Austen, “The wishes, the hopes, the confidence, the predictions of the small band of friends who witnessed the ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.” For more than two centuries, readers have wondered what lay ahead for the Knightleys and their friends, the Churchills, the Westons, and ...

EDWARD HITCHCOCK was not the only star in the firmament of American science and philosophy in the nineteenth century, but he was certainly one of the brightest. Raised among the wheat and rye fields of Deerfield, Massachusetts, he was expected to pursue a farmer's life, but early on he developed a "strong relish" for science. In his teens he adopted his father's orthodox Christian faith and began studying for the ministry. By age twenty-five he had set a dual path for his life, science and religion. Although Hitchcock's career as a pastor would be brief, preaching and spreading the Gospel ...

Twenty-one-year-old Ciaran McGurk has just graduated from a Dublin university and is about to set off on the adventure of a lifetime. He's planning a move to London with a classmate in hopes of landing a job in journalism, ideally for a newspaper. Writing is the work he loves, though he fears that in an era of social networking, print journalism is fast becoming the dinosaur of career paths. But a family emergency interrupts all Cary’s plans. Suddenly he finds himself back in his hometown, Glenkerry, in County Wicklow. There he reconnects with an old friend, Rosie O'Malley. Her story has ...

Spring - 1917. War is raging in Europe and America has just cast its lot against the German war machine. Back home, the nation is reeling with social strife: workers marching for their rights, immigrants demanding fair treatment, suffragettes clamoring for the vote. In Holyoke, Massachusetts, seventeen-year-old Jack Bernard has a new job at one of the city’s largest textile mills, hoping to save money for college. Meanwhile, his friend, Tom Wellington, appears to have taken control of his demons and set himself on a new course. Soon the lives of both young men, their families and friends,...

September, 1917. The nation has entered the Great War, the War to End All Wars. While young Americans by the hundreds of thousands march into battle in Europe, back home the nation's social fabric is torn asunder by patriotic fervor and xenophobia. When two German-American classmates are taunted in the schoolyard, 14-year-old Claire Bernard rushes to their defense. Her noble intentions soon plunge her into a dark world of international conspiracy where prejudice and suspicion blur distinctions between friend and foe, good and evil, where she could well become the next victim. Noah's Raven, ...

April 10, 1919. The war in Europe, the Great War, the War to End All Wars, is over—America and her allies have defeated the German forces. The USS Mongolia arrives in Boston carrying nearly 5,000 soldiers and sailors returning from France. Thousands are gathered on Commonwealth Pier to welcome the returning doughboys, dancing, waving flags, singing, and celebrating the safe return of their loved ones. But war changes things. It changes nations, and it changes people, both those who fought and those who waited anxiously back home. One soldier among the thousands arriving in Boston on this ...

Newly graduated from a Dublin university, Cary McGurk has revived the Glenkerry Gazette, a small weekly newspaper founded by his father nearly thirty years ago. But Patrick McGurk is gone; he died suddenly just days before Cary’s graduation. Reeling from the loss, Cary decides that re-opening the newspaper would be a fitting tribute to his father as well as an exciting opportunity for an aspiring young journalist like himself. But a month later the young publisher struggles to attract readers and advertisers and pay the bills. “If only there was one big story, one riveting piece of news...

"...a special gem of historical fiction." Winston Lavallee, author of "Dancing in the Dark" "A joyful, engaging read from beginning to end...." Mark Ashton, Southbridge Evening News Trolley Days is the story of the unlikely bond between two boys growing up in Holyoke, Massachusetts, in the nineteen-teens. Jack Bernard was the son of a mill worker who had emigrated from Canada, Tom Wellington the son of the mill owner. They had barely spoken in nearly six months, yet in Jack’s mind Tom was still his best friend, and no snowstorm would prevent him from going to his friend’s aid. Soon Jack...