Showing results by publisher "Black Rose Writing" in All Categories

The day before Murray McBride moves Jenny, his beloved wife of eighty years, into a memory care center, she convinces him to search for a case her grandfather buried long ago, said to contain “a treasure worth more than gold.” With the help of some new friends, Murray and Jenny retrace their steps from years before. Over the course of the day, Murray tenderly retells their love story—how they met, the challenges they faced and overcame, and their initial attempt at the quest.

On a hot, muggy afternoon in Eden, a tiny, rural town deep in southeast Louisiana, two boys make a grim discovery: They unearth the decades-old remains of a child, strands of hair and clothing still attached to the bones. Meanwhile on the other side of the country, in California, forty-one-year-old Evelyn Yates, a single mother is struggling to maintain psychological equilibrium despite problems with alcohol, a difficult teenage daughter, and her own traumatic past.

Fifteen years after a dark matter reactor accident plunged Earth into a nuclear winter, Harry reactivates in a garbage dump. He's an android with amnesia in old New York, presently known as Empire City. He now works for what's left of the federal union as a bounty hunter, trying to raise the money he needs to replace his AI implant before it kills him.

After a chance encounter with an Abolitionist, Rebekah is obsessed by a desire to end slavery. But as a young Amish Girl living on a farm near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, she feels hopeless to do anything about it. Although she feels loved by her Amish family, she believes she has a higher purpose. But her protective father commands that she not interact with the non-Amish world. In his view, what happens outside their tight-knit farming community is none of her concern. But her life, and the outcome of the battle of Gettysburg, changes when the Confederate Army suddenly descends on her farm.

Charismatic minister King Avery persuades state and federal authorities to split North Carolina into two states. He calls his Westcarolina “the first Christian state,” one he will stamp with his own beliefs. The Charlotte Press hires high-profile Texas reporter Annie Price to investigate Avery, his new state, and his God’s Gift Church. The minister, in his new role as governor of Westcarolina, attempts a variety of bizarre changes. The first one would banish Wiccans (witches) from the Christian state, a move that exposes them to potential danger.

Is it too much to ask that a managed care facility refund a year's advance payment when your grandfather dies before he can move in? Frank Johnson doesn't think so, which is why the thirty-three-year-old now lives in a nursing home, locked in a chess match feud with management that doesn't occupy nearly enough of his time. When foster kid Elroy is thrust into his life, Frank decides to turn this forced relationship to his advantage—launching a string of absurd decisions, inappropriate behaviors and unexpected glimpses of tenderness that ultimately turn a New Jersey suburb upside down.

Imagine, if you will, an eleven-year-old boy with an imagination so powerful that he uses it like others would use a compass. Our hero, Jimmy Hamilton, loses his fort on three separate occasions all in the span of one summer. He must battle both his wits and unwanted squatters. He comes to discover each new unwanted tenant proves more difficult to evict than the last. His plans have a modicum of success but each come with unintended consequences.

Oakland defense attorney Joe Turner ventures to a small town in the Deep South to defend an autistic teenager accused of murdering the local high school football hero. The tense trial is seen through the eyes of the jury, a diverse group that struggles with their own preconceptions about autism and fractures under the weight of their decision. But is there a plant on the jury? And whose side are they on?

Lucy never wanted the life that's been thrust upon her-the wedding band or the baby in the crib. A woman of ambition, she longs to pursue her dreams on stage, but her husband insists on locking her in a gilded cage under his control. And in 1922, alternatives are almost nonexistent and certainly not acceptable, forcing Lucy to make an impossible choice.

Land Where My Fathers Died is the story of a young man's search for identity, love, and his place in the world. While incarcerated six years for a murder he never committed, Jo Shelby Ferguson lost his only family in a highway accident. Upon his release from the Mississippi state penal farm, a trunk, the only earthly possession left to him, yields several bundles of old letters. Upon reading the first letter, he discovers they are written by his great-great-great grandmother.

Mollie Crowley, a 26-year-old Irish unmarried teacher at a one-room schoolhouse in rural Michigan, and 8-year-old Cecilia Pokorski, a Polish girl orphaned after the deaths of her family during the 1918 influenza pandemic, are an unlikely pair. While Cecilia is grieving the loss of her beloved Mamusia, Mollie leans on her own mother, Catherine, for assistance after taking the girl into their home. Mollie loves teaching, but Cecilia hated having Mollie as her first teacher. In their town in rural Michigan, the Irish and the Polish don't mix.

I am the reason my sister is dead. Jolie-Mae Buckley doesn't think her heart can ever heal. Two years ago, she graduated from college summa cum laude and was on track for medical school. Drowning in guilt after a disastrous mistake turned deadly, she's unable to move forward.

"Fans of fast-paced thrillers will be flipping pages toward the final twist, where nothing is as it seems." -Cam Torrens, award-winning author of the Tyler Zahn mystery-suspense series The year is 2008. Americans Heather and John Ricci are about to leave Vietnam with their amazing, adopted baby boy when something unimaginable happens-the child is abducted. This, after several, grueling years of trying natural conception, multiple rounds of in vitro, and attempting to adopt from China first, then Nepal.

MATT. ALEXANDRA. OLIVIA. CHARLIE. The only survivors when two gunmen opened fire in a Chicago coffee shop, leaving fourteen people dead. Matt, Alexandra, and Olivia are the "lucky" ones—spared when the gunmen forced hostages to count off, releasing only those marked with the number six. Charlie isn’t as fortunate, miraculously surviving a bullet to her spine, which leaves her in a coma.

Grieving her fiancé’s death, Lizzie Walker struggles to find purpose to her life in Rugby, Tennessee, a utopian community in the Appalachian Mountains. But that changes when William, a wealthy flatlander mourning the loss of his sister, arrives. Teaching together in the community’s school sparks a budding relationship as they embrace Rugby’s classless society and equality for women. However, their peace is short-lived.

Silver Lady weaves a captivating narrative that resonates with those who enjoy uncanny stories of the inexplicable, as well as connections formed on epic journeys. Will the river reveal its secrets, or will the puzzles confound the crew? Dive into Silver Lady and experience a magical mystery ride that transcends time and reality.

Lucy Howard is finally getting her life together. She's with a great guy completely worthy of her trust. Her job as head claims investigator is challenging in a positive way. Her narcoleptic-antiques-dealing uncle is staying out of trouble. And she's no longer haunted by her nasty break-up. But a collect call from her ex in prison puts her newly found contentment in jeopardy. Worse, a visit from his lawyer indicates she could be in serious danger.

It’s January 1947, and Lynn Fontanne and Alfred Lunt, well-known acting couple, invite six theater people–writers, actors, spouses–to Ten Chimneys, their rural Wisconsin estate, to work on a play. But once there, a blizzard strands them far from town without telephone service, though heat and electricity are still working.

On an icy day in February, African American grandmother Vera Moon arrives home to find her grown son Charlie brutally murdered. She vows to find the killer who has managed to elude the police. Not knowing where to begin, Vera is involved in a suspicious hit-and-run car accident, witnessed by a young Irish American woman, Dani, on the run from the train-wreck of her own life.

In the finale of the That Was Before series, Randolph Spiers and Sheila Backe team up with redemption, forgiveness, and the possibility of second chances at stake.