One woman's determination to protect a child from the dangers of war will force her to face those lurking closer to home... Life in rural Poland during WWII brings a new set of challenges to Maria, estranged from her own family and left alone with her in-laws after her husband is sent to the front. For a young, newly pregnant wife, the days are especially cold, the nights unexpectedly lonely. The discovery of a girl hiding in the barn changes everything-Hannah is fleeing the German police who are taking Jews like her to special camps. Ignoring the risk to her own life and that of her unborn child, Maria is compelled to help. But in these dark days, no one can be trusted, and soon Maria finds her courage tested in ways she never expected and herself facing truths about her own family that the quiet village has kept buried for years... From the international bestselling author of The Kommandant's Girl comes a searing historical companion novella to > The Winter Guest

Review“The tales are variously charming, funny, poignant, and even hair-raising, as when [Ephron] finds herself spending an afternoon with Manson family alumna Squeaky Fromme.” (Jewish Journal of Los Angeles )“Well-written, empathetic, and a joy.” (BookLoons Reviews )“A frothy, lighthearted, often witty collection of essays about marriage, motherhood and the power of a good piece of jewelry.” (Shelf Awareness )“Actively intelligent and utterly descriptive, Amy Ephron always makes you feel as if you’re right there with her feeling what she’s feeling and seeing what she’s seeing… Loose Diamonds is a sincerely-written book…that you shouldn’t miss.” (BookRoom Reviews )“All of these fascinating experiences and relationships described in Loose Diamonds add to the richness of this loosely woven set of essays. Ms. Ephron’s thoughts on marriage, divorce as well as her ‘Tips for Women getting a Divorce’ are written with wit and panache.” (Laura Shultz, New York Journal of Books )“In Loose Diamonds, Ephron offers a deeply honest and compelling look at the events that made her the woman she is today.” (The Daily Beast )“She is an expert at introspection as entertainment...the collection masters brevity and range.” (Claire Howorth, The Daily )“The pages turn themselves...Not only do the essays stand up on their own, the overarching themes unravel (Julia Gazdag, Hello Giggles )“This is a great women’s interest title, appealing to lovers of Ephron’s historical fiction and to fans of humorous essays alike.” (Annie Bostrom, Booklist )“Her honest approach to her good and not-so-good relationships might be just the thing for anyone feeling sorry about themselves.” (Morgan Murrell, Harper's Bazaar ) About the AuthorAmy Ephron is the bestselling author of the acclaimed novels One Sunday Morning and A Cup of Tea. Her magazine pieces and essays have appeared in Vogue; Saveur; House Beautiful; the National Lampoon; the Los Angeles Times; the Huffington Post; Defamer; her own online magazine, One for the Table; and various other print and online publications. She recently directed a short film, Chloe@3AM, which was featured at the American Cinematheque’s Focus on Female Directors Short Film Showcase in January 2011. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Alan Rader, and any of their five children who happen to drop in.

Come back to a time when manners are everything and rules are made to never be broken. Come back to a time when men are in charge and women do what they are told. . .Yeah, that never happened.Welcome to Megan Bryce's Regencyland, where ladies with backbone get what they want. Where a woman can thumb her nose at rules and care little for convention, and yet somehow, unexpectedly and most reluctantly, find love.To Catch A SpinsterOlivia Blakesley, self-proclaimed spinster extraordinaire, is quite happy with her life. She has her studies and her duties, what need does she have of a husband? With five sisters married she knows the reality does not live up to the promise, and does not need to personally experiment with the state to know she would be ill-suited to it. However, she finds herself envious of at least one aspect of marriage. But to experience the physical side of marriage, one doesn't need a husband, all one needs is the right man...Nathaniel Jenkins knows his duty. Marry a...

Edinburgh, 1847. City of Medicine, Money, Murder.Young women are being discovered dead across the Old Town, all having suffered similarly gruesome ends. In the New Town, medical student Will Raven is about to start his apprenticeship with the brilliant and renowned Dr Simpson.Simpson's patients range from the richest to the poorest of this divided city. His house is like no other, full of visiting luminaries and daring experiments in the new medical frontier of anaesthesia. It is here that Raven meets housemaid Sarah Fisher, who recognises trouble when she sees it and takes an immediate dislike to him. She has all of his intelligence but none of his privileges, in particular his medical education.With each having their own motive to look deeper into these deaths, Raven and Sarah find themselves propelled headlong into the darkest shadows of Edinburgh's underworld, where they will have to overcome their differences if they are to make it out...

Stable hand Nolan Price's life is upended when he learns that he is the heir of the Earl of Stainsby. Caught between two worlds, Nolan is soon torn between his love for kitchen maid Hannah Burnham and the expectations and opportunities that come with his rise in station. He longs to marry Hannah, but will his intentions survive the upstairs-downstairs divide?

Rosemary Baldwin has somehow gotten sucked into running a charity event for the local animal shelter. Donuts for dogs is starting soon and the shelter manager is nowhere to be found. She never wanted to be in charge in the first place and when she finds herself alone on the big day, she gets overhead saying a lot of things she doesn't really mean. Rose might have been able to smooth things over, but before she can, her missing partner ends up dead. Now Rose has to prove she wasn't the murderer while also protecting the dogs in the shelter's care. Good thing Rose can count on her friends Zee and Simon to help her out.

In the early 1800s, out of the prison society of governors, redcoats, English gaolers, Irish convicts, and the few free settlers of Botany Bay, no one had ventured much farther inland than a few dozen miles from Sydney. Or so it was believed until the escape of Desmond Kale and the vengeance of his rival, the wildly eccentric parson magistrate Matthew Stanton. THE BALLAD OF DESMOND KALE is a broad-sweeping novel of the first days of British settlement in Australia. At the centre is Stanton's pursuit of Kale - an Irish political prisoner and a rebelliously brilliant breeder of sheep. The alchemy of wool fascinates, threatens, and transforms when it is discovered that fine wool thrives in New South Wales as nowhere else in in the world, producing veritable gold on sheep's backs. THE BALLAD OF DESMOND KALE is both a love story of unusual interest and an epic novel of greed, ambition, conceit, and redemption. The novel is rich in its characterisations and the rawness of its...