The Call of the Wrens introduces the little-known story of the daring women who rode through war-torn Europe carrying secrets on their shoulders. An orphan who spent her youth without a true home, Marion Hoxton found in the Great War something other than destruction. She discovered a...  more

The Call of the Wrens introduces the little-known story of the daring women who rode through war-torn Europe carrying secrets on their shoulders. An orphan who spent her youth without a true home, Marion Hoxton found in the Great War something other than destruction. She discovered a chance to belong. As a member of the Women’s Royal Naval Service—the Wrens—Marion gained sisters. She found purpose in her work as a motorcycle dispatch rider assigned to train and deliver carrier pigeons to the front line. And despite the constant threat of danger, she and her childhood friend Eddie began to dream of a future together. Until the battle that changed everything. Now twenty years later, another war has broken out across Europe, calling Marion to return to the fight. Meanwhile others, like twenty-year-old society girl Evelyn Fairchild, hear the call for the first time. For Evelyn, serving in the war is a way to prove herself after a childhood fraught with surgeries and limitations from a disability. The re-formation of the Wrens as World War II rages is the perfect opportunity to make a difference in the world at seventy miles per hour. Told in alternating narratives that converge in a single life-changing moment, The Call of the Wrens is a vivid, emotional saga of love, secrets, and resilience—and the knowledge that the future will always belong to the brave souls who fight for it.

Called in to examine what is left of a person thought to have been struck by lightning, Tempe traces an unusual tattoo to its source and is soon embroiled in a much larger case. Young men—tourists—have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos. Seven years earlier, the...  more

Called in to examine what is left of a person thought to have been struck by lightning, Tempe traces an unusual tattoo to its source and is soon embroiled in a much larger case. Young men—tourists—have been disappearing on the islands of Turks and Caicos. Seven years earlier, the first victim was found in a strange location with his left hand hacked off; subsequently, two other visitors vanished without a trace. But recently, tantalizing leads have emerged and only Tempe can unravel them. Maddeningly, the victims seem to have nothing in common—other than the odd places where their bodies turn up, and the fact that none seems likely to have been involved in criminal activity. Do these attacks have something to do with the islands’ seething culture of gang violence? Tempe isn’t so sure. Disturbingly, she discovers evidence that what’s at stake may have global significance. It isn’t long before the sound of a ticking clock grows menacingly loud. Then Tempe herself becomes a target.

Michael Cavalcante has one thing on his mind when he knocks on Izzabel Walsh’s door at two in the morning, half-dressed and a bit toasted: fix the woman’s heater and get back to bed. He’d vowed never to cover for his maintenance tech again, especially after he got tased and...  more

Michael Cavalcante has one thing on his mind when he knocks on Izzabel Walsh’s door at two in the morning, half-dressed and a bit toasted: fix the woman’s heater and get back to bed. He’d vowed never to cover for his maintenance tech again, especially after he got tased and knocked out with a frying pan for his efforts. Izzy thought she was safe. She’d dyed her hair, changed her name, and moved 1,500 miles away. And still they’d found her. When a member of her ex’s motorcycle club knocks on her door in the middle of the night, supposedly to fix a perfectly good heater, Izzy panics. Not only have they found her, but they will soon discover she has a daughter. Aka, leverage. She needs time to think. To plan. To figure out how to keep the sexy neanderthal quiet. But she has no idea how, short of murder. Can she win him over to her side? Or will he be just like all the others once he finds out what she is capable of? Michael has one chance to convince Izzy he doesn’t want to harm her or her daughter, but more than that, he wants to know who does. And why. And where he can find them. After all, how else is he going to make sure the two sprites who have wound their way into his heart are safe?

The warm hearted and hilarious story of how a life was transformed by love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog. Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken...  more

The warm hearted and hilarious story of how a life was transformed by love for a poorly behaved, half-blind stray dog. Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the Fed Ex man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock, and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature, seventy-six pounds of wet hair and poor decisions. Speck arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure, and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon. Written with Bragg's inimitable blend of tenderness and sorrow, humor and grit, The Speckled Beauty captures the extraordinary, sustaining devotion between two damaged creatures who need each other to heal.