Tracy Lodle

Margaret, Rose, Jane, and Fran had a good thing going: meet every week in the dusty quiet of their peaceful chapel and knit prayer shawls. No muss, just ministry. That is, until their pastor boots them out of the church in his last-ditch effort to revive the dwindling congregation. Uptight Margaret isn’t having it. Knitting prayer shawls at the mall where people can watch is the most ridiculous idea she’s ever heard of, and she’s heard plenty.

RITA finalist Julie Klassen has earned numerous awards for her popular historical romance novels. In The Maid of Fairbourne Hall, pampered Margaret Macy flees her home in London to avoid marrying a dishonorable man. Now, with no money and no place to stay, Margaret does the unthinkable: she takes a job as a housemaid in the home of two brothers - both of whom are former suitors. As an “invisible” observer, Margaret realizes she may have misjudged one brother and wonders if it’s too late to win his admiration.

A bold, deeply moving, and highly imaginative debut novel about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, in whose story the conflict between the American ideal of equality and the realities of slavery and racism played out in the most tragic of terms.

It's 1999, and Eira Hart and Ru Tattersall are set up to co-host The Lonely Harts Club, a new late-night radio show to help New Yorkers find love. It's a last chance attempt for both Eira, expert in Celtic mythology and amateur Welsh matchmaker, and Ru, once-hot-shot Aussie DJ, to achieve their New York dreams. The thing is, you either click with a co-host, or you don’t. It’s a bit like falling in love. There’s co-host chemistry, or there isn’t. With the countdown to a new millennium, it feels like the world as they know it is about to end.

Willa Forsythe is both a violin prodigy and top-notch thief, which makes her the perfect choice for a crucial task at the outset of World War I - to steal a cypher from a famous violinist currently in Wales. Lukas De Wilde has enjoyed the life of fame he's won - until now, when being recognized nearly gets him killed. Everyone wants the key to his father's work as a cryptologist. And Lukas fears that his mother and sister, who have vanished in the wake of the German invasion of Belgium, will pay the price. The only light he finds is meeting the intriguing Willa Forsythe.

Jane Bell is torn. Gabriel Locke is back and has made his intentions clear. But Jane is reluctant to give up her inn and destine another man to a childless marriage. Then someone she never expected to see again returns to Ivy Hill. Mercy Grove has lost her school and is resigned to life as a spinster, especially as the man she admires seems out of reach. Should she uproot herself from Ivy Cottage to become a governess for a former pupil? Her decision will change more lives than her own.

Miriam steps off the train looking for a job, not a husband. She refuses to be wed, and Gideon is unspeakably embarrassed by the misunderstanding. Stranded in Savage Wells, Miriam has nowhere else to go - and a secret that she's determined to keep from everyone. She has epilepsy, a condition that other doctors had claimed was symptomatic of madness, a diagnosis which prompted her family to have her committed to an asylum. Miriam is afraid that if Dr. MacNamara finds out the truth, he will send her back to the asylum, but Gideon is not like the other doctors she has encountered.

Isabel Gibson has all but perfected the art of forgetting. She’s a New Yorker now, with nothing left to tie her to Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Her parents are gone, the family bookstore is all but bankrupt, and her sister, Sophie, will probably never speak to her again. But when a mysterious letter arrives in her mailbox, Isabel feels herself drawn to the past. After years of fighting for her independence, she dreads the thought of going back to the island.

Ever since the Bommarito sisters were little girls, their mother, River, has written them a letter on pink paper when she has something especially important to impart. And this time, the message is urgent and impossible to ignore - River requires open-heart surgery, and Isabelle and her sisters are needed at home to run the family bakery and take care of their brother and ailing grandmother.

Raina Bretton is a rag woman in London's East End when a handsome stranger appears in a dank alley and offers her a glittering smile and a chance for adventure. Rothburne Abbey has a unique position for her, one that will take her away from her hardscrabble life and give her a chance to be a lady. Things she could only dream of might be coming true. But some dreams turn out to be nightmares. Though Raina has traded squalor for silk and satin, something about the abbey is deeply unsettling.