Town Histories

Jade Colton and Jasen Prospero are still adapting to their new wealth, thanks to their discovery of Choctaw Indian Chief Greenwood Leflore’s buried gold. Meanwhile, their friend and FBI Special Agent Elizabeth Keys has finally convinced private investigator Marcus Bianco that it’s time to consummate their flirtatious relationship. Things are looking good, so naturally, the group falls headfirst into another mystery. On a midnight journey down the Natchez Trace, Jade and Jasen have a ghostly encounter at Windsor Ruins, the crumbling remains of a once great antebellum plantation. Soon ...

Nuclear power once promised to be the solution to the world's energy crisis, but that all changed in the late twentieth century after multiple high-profile accidents and meltdowns. Power plant workers, finding themselves the subject of public opposition, became leery of reporters. But one plant in Zion, Illinois, allowed unrestricted access to one journalist: the Chicago Tribune's Casey Bukro. Bukro spent two years inside the Zion nuclear plant, interviewing employees, witnessing high-risk maintenance procedures, and watching the radiation exposure counter on his own dosimeter tick up and up.

The New Year brings challenges and changes to the colorful Irish village of Ballybucklebo. The Christmas holidays have barely passed before a fire engulfs the humble thatched cottage housing of Donal Donnally and his family. Although the family escapes the blaze more or less unsinged, Donal, his wife, their three small children, and their beloved dog find themselves with nothing left but the clothes on their back.

A series of mysterious deaths shakes the quiet town of Phoenix, leaving the police baffled. The townspeople are left on edge as they don’t know who will be next. Nick Brown, a pathologist, is drawn into the investigation after witnessing a suspicious mark on one of the victim's body. But he is thrown into the world of the supernatural when an unknown driver knocks him down. Nick is caught in the middle of the mysterious deaths after he starts losing the people he cares about. But with the help of his ghost friend, Zigi, and his new psychic abilities, he uncovers a pattern among the bodies...

A historic western that opens in 1873, a time when recession is forcing thousands westwards to recoup their fortunes. The West is tough, brutal and the Indian is the enemy. But when a white woman is raped, it is a half-breed Cheyenne who comes to the rescue. From the author of Jake and Upland Passage.

In this riveting account of an area of Appalachia known as the Quiet Zone where cell phones and Wi-Fi are banned, journalist Stephen Kurczy explores the pervasive role of technology in our lives and the innate human need for quiet.

Eamonn McCann’s account of what it is like to grow up a Catholic in a Northern Irish ghetto - first published in 1974 - quickly became a classic account of the feelings generated by British rule. The author was at the center of events in Derry which first brought Northern Ireland to world attention. He witnessed the gradual transformation of the civil rights movement from a mild campaign for “British Democracy” to an all-out military assault on the British state. This book describes the people involved in the war and gives an account of the springs of the "Catholic" opposition.

Old Victoria, a ghost town from the copper boom, shows what life was like homesteading in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Over the years, some of the site has been destroyed or has collapsed; still, many of Old Victoria's original homesteads remain standing. Thanks to the efforts of a local group, The Society for the Restoration of Old Victoria, quite a few of the buildings have been restored and refurnished in their original condition.

Walt Disney always loved to entertain people. Often it got him into trouble. Once he painted pictures with tar on the side of his family's white house. His family was poor, and the happiest time of his childhood was spent living on a farm in Missouri. His affection for small-town life is reflected in Disneyland Main Streets around the world. This biography reveals the man behind the magic.

On January 7, 1994, residents of the Berkshire Hills woke up to a typical snowy winter day in the majestic woods of Western Massachusetts. The quaint New England towns, the idyllic scenery and the people who lived there could have stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

An eighty-year-old man returns to his childhood hometown for what he believes to be the final time. His trip down memory lane ends with a fall that is similar to one he took when he was four years old. Like before, he awakens in a hospital after the fall. Has he died? Is his life passing in front of his eyes while being judged? The hospital, people, and even his home and small body are just as he remembered them so many years before. Join Tim as he takes his second trip through life and breathes new life into a dead village.

Mining Towns in the Wild West: The History of the Construction and Abandonment of the Frontier’s Most Famous Sites profiles some of the most important events and camps that popped up in response to mineral discoveries. The audiobook also describes their history and how they were often left behind nearly as quickly as they peaked.

Andrea Wint’s life in the small town of Port Inez, Washington, is a simple one. She works, enjoys the gorgeous view from her bay window, and visits her dad at the memory-care facility. Her father is in the late stages of Alzheimer’s, but Andrea brings in one coin from his valuable collection every day—little bits of precious metals that seem to bring him back to himself, even if just for a few moments. So when Andrea’s house is burgled and the coins disappear, she’s bereft.

From the deserts of North Africa to the mountains of Italy, 15men and women veterans of the Italian campaign open up about a war that was so brutal, news of it was downplayed at home. Here are the stories from a vanishing generation speaking to America today. The war in the Mediterranean, and particularly the Italian Campaign, is one that for many Americans is shrouded in mystery and murkiness. Yet it was here that the United States launched its first offensive in the west on enemy soil.

Decades of cuts to local government amidst rising concentrations of poverty have wreaked havoc on communities left behind by the modern economy. Forty years after the anti-tax revolution began protecting wealthy taxpayers and their cities, our high-poverty cities and counties have run out of services to cut, properties to sell, bills to defer, and risky loans to take. In The Fight to Save the Town, urban law expert and author Michelle Wilde Anderson offers unsparing, humanistic portraits of the hardships left behind in four such places.

From one of the bestselling western novelists of all time, comes another classic story. Templeton Lambeth had so desperately wanted a son - an heir to ride by his side through the vast, wild ranges just west of the Pecos River. But to his disappointment, his wife bore a girl. His hopes crushed and in denial, he decides to raise his daughter as if she were a boy. In honor of Lambeth's more successful brother, they named her: Terrill.

In this classic work of twentieth-century history, William Sheridan Allen demonstrates how dictatorship subtly surmounted democracy in Germany and how the Nazi seizure of power encroached from below. Relying upon legal records and interviews with primary sources, Allen dissects Northeim, Germany with microscopic precision to depict the transformation of a sleepy town to a Nazi stronghold. This cogent analysis argues that Hitler rose to power primarily through democratic tactics that incited localized support rather than through violent means.

She needs a man. He needs a new life. How bad could it be? A widow alone in the Wild West with children to raise and protect. Or maybe they understand more than she realizes. Escaping from a prison in Australia where he was sentenced to life for a crime he didn't commit wasn't easy. Neither was his flight for freedom to the United States. But just in time, a letter suggesting marriage. Land of his own. A new name. But who is this stranger who lands on their door, introduced by letters alone, and calling himself King? Could this offer of royalty be worth marrying for money this time? After ...

Based on the personalities who created America’s Early Colonial Period, Footprints in History, combines imagination and historic events to tell of the author’s sixth great-grandfather, blacksmith and indentured servant, James Fitchett. James and his neighbors toil in the new land for the twenty-four Scottish investors, known as proprietors. These men control East New Jersey hoping to amass fortunes from the sweat and tears of their tenants, indentured servants, and slaves. Not all settlers share the same hopes and beliefs. Footprints in History reveals the winners and the losers

In 1860, long after the United States outlawed the importation of enslaved laborers, 110 men, women, and children from Benin and Nigeria were captured and brought to Mobile, Alabama, aboard a ship called Clotilda. Their journey includes the savage Middle Passage and being hidden in the swamplands along the Alabama River before being secretly parceled out to various plantations, where they made desperate attempts to maintain both their culture and also fit into the place of captivity to which they'd been delivered.