Fiction

The Little House books tell the story of Laura Ingalls Wilder, who, with her family, was among the early pioneers of the American west. Born in 1867 in a little log cabin on the edge of the Big Woods in Wisconsin, Laura traveled with her family by covered wagon through Kansas, Minnesota, and finally the Dakota Territory, where she met and married Almanzo Wilder. There was deprivation and hard work. Crops were ruined by storms and grasshopper plagues. But there were also happy times of love an...

A deceased art expert seemingly reappears in Japan, upsetting the plans of priestly diplomats. They fear that a ruthless schemer may have stolen his identity. How far will that possible super spy dare to go to subvert Church policy? The answer may be hidden in Vermeer's celebrated paintings. Against a Cold War backdrop, friendship, religion, the fine arts, and ideology intertwine. Loyalties are tested, leaving the only alternatives of betrayal or sacrifice. In the Church under attack, the wor...

“If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village, she must seek them abroad.” Irony, witty banter, and all the wisdom that defines Jane Austen's novels, pour forth from every page of Northanger Abbey. At the end of the 18th century, as Gothic literature was especially popular, an avid reader of such novels— young, affectionate, and unworldly Catherine Morland, the daughter of a country clergyman— sets off for the high society of lively Bath, thus to begin an adventure of her own...

"I wish as well as everybody else to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else it must be in my own way." Following the death of Mr. Dashwood, a beloved father and noble squire, his widow and three daughters look to John Dashwood, a son by Mr. Dashwood's first wife, to ensure their financial security now that he is to come to Sussex to inherit Norland. But as an avaricious man under the influence of a manipulative wife, John soon convinces himself he is not betraying his father's dying wis...

The novel that first made Willa Cather famous--a powerfully mythic tale of the American frontier told through the life of one extraordinary woman One of America's greatest writers, Cather established her talent and her reputation with this extraordinary novel--the first of her books set on the Nebraska frontier. A tale of the prairie land encountered by America's Swedish, Czech, Bohemian, and French immigrants, as well as a story of how the land challenged them, changed them, and, in some cas...

Charlotte Brontë's first published novel, Jane Eyre, was immediately recognized as a work of genius when it appeared in 1847. Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime of Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges from this harsh childhood unbroken in spirit and integrity. She goes on to take the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, where the main adventure of her life will unfold. For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made avai...

The tale of Heathcliff's and Cathy's ungovernable love and suffering, and the havoc that their passion wreaks on the families of the Earnshaws and the Lintons, shocked the book's first readers, with even Emily's sister Charlotte claiming, "Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know. I scarcely think it is." In this edition, a new preface by Lucasta Miller, author of The Brontë Myth, looks at the ways in which the novel has been interpreted, from Charlotte...

"She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions; and, in observing the appearance of the country, the bearings of the roads, the difference of soil, the state of the harvest, the cottages, the cattle, the children, she found entertainment that could only have been heightened by having Edmund to speak to of what she felt." In early 19th century England, Fanny Price, at ten years ol...

"'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?'" Set in the English countryside at the turn of the 19th century, Pride and Prejudice opens upon the excitement of the Bennet family of Longbourn Estate when a rich, eligible, and unsuspecting gentlemen has taken residence at nearby Netherfield. In the interest of financial security, little can deter Mrs. Bennet from doing all she can to encourage a marriage between amiable Mr. Bingley and one her five ...

In this #1 international bestseller, a young woman leaves everything behind to work as a librarian in a remote French village, where she finds her outlook on life and love challenged in every way. Prudencia Prim is a young woman of intelligence and achievement, with a deep knowledge of literature and several letters after her name. But when she accepts the post of private librarian in the village of San Ireneo de Arnois, she is unprepared for what she encounters there. Her employer, a book-lo...

"She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older— the natural consequence of an unnatural beginning." Eight years ago, Anne Elliot drew back her consent to marry Fredrick Wentworth, the headstrong and spirited naval commander of a yet-certain career or established fortune, in the conviction that she acted for his own good. Forbearing, selfless, and pensive, she would as yet have married him against the wishes of her vain and rank-obsessed father, Sir Walt...

"'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn?'" Set in the English countryside at the turn of the 19th century, Pride and Prejudice opens upon the excitement of the Bennet family of Longbourn Estate when a rich, eligible, and unsuspecting gentlemen has taken residence at nearby Netherfield. In the interest of financial security, little can deter Mrs. Bennet from doing all she can to encourage a marriage between amiable Mr. Bingley and one her five ...

After acquiring Christ's Robe, Marcellus then sets forth on a quest to find the truth about the Nazarene's garment -- a quest that reaches to the very roots and heart of Christianity and is set against the vividly limned background of ancient Rome.Here is a timeless story of adventure, faith, and romance, a tale of spiritual longing and ultimate redemption.

In 1955, with the title story and others in this critical edition, Flannery O'Connor firmly laid claim to her place as one of the most original and provocative writers of her generation. Steeped in a Southern Gothic tradition that would become synonymous with her name, these stories show O'Connor's unique view of life--infused with religious symbolism, haunted by apocalyptic possibility, sustained by the tragic comedy of human behavior, confronted by the necessity of salvation. These classic ...

A Novel Based on the Life of St. Augustine of Hippo "You say, the times are troublesome, the times are burdensome, the times are miserable. Live rightly and you will change the times. The times have never hurt anyone. Those who are hurt are human beings; those by whom they are hurt are also human beings. So, change human beings and the times will be changed." -St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 311, 8 Growing up on the northernmost edge of the African continent, young Augustine had never known a ...

A Novel Based on the Life of Luca Pacioli An orphan from a small town in Italy, Pacioli came of age during the Renaissance seemingly destined for a life of struggle and obscurity. But Pacioli had the good fortune of meeting mentors who recognized his uncanny ability with numbers and introduced him to renowned artists and philosophers, royalty, and popes. At a time when many still used Roman numerals and colleges didn't even teach mathematics, Pacioli was determined to share his passion and ma...

A Novel Based on the Life of St. Francis of Assisi His neighbors thought he was spoiled and lazy. His teachers found him incorrigible. His own father believed he was crazy. His mother never doubted that he was a true son of God. Arrogant and grandiose, young Francis di Bernardone was an embarrassment to his family and a source of amusement to his community. He led a lavish, undisciplined life, squandering his father's fortune on the finest food, wine, and late-night parties with his coterie o...

A Novel Inspired by the Life of Guido d'Arezzo It was too big a secret to keep and too great a price to pay. Though few details are known of 11th-century Benedictine monk Guido d'Arezzo, he is widely recognized for inventing the language of music. Music's Guiding Hand offers a fictional account as to how an unlikely friendship between two medieval monks might have inspired one of the most important and enduring innovations of the Western world. When a fellow monk continually struggles to lear...

A Novel Based on the Life of Thomas Aquinas Entering the world with a burning desire for knowledge, Thomas Aquinas set out on a quest for truth that forced him into captivity. But his thirst for truth never wavered. Known today among many as the most brilliant light of the church, Aquinas was a Catholic priest and a Doctor of the Church. His influence on Western thought as he attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity is considerable. Aquinas is distin...

A Novel Based on the Life of Father Eusebio Kino Through a great and terrible wilderness, with serpents, scorpions, and thirsty ground, he sowed peace and sustenance and left an enduring mark on the New World. A celebrated teacher of mathematics and astronomy, Eusebio Kino's future promised to be comfortable and secure. Jesuit elders urged the young priest to continue his ministry in education. But a greater voice called, and Father Kino answered by pursuing a lifetime of danger and uncertain...

A Novel Based on the Life of Father Matteo Ricci The Forbidden City--home to the opium-addicted Ming Dynasty emperor and protected by thousands of ruthless eunuchs--no European had ever been inside. Would a simple Jesuit priest be the first? Armed with a homemade clock, a wealth of patience, and an uncompromising drive to share his faith with a new people, Father Matteo Ricci would overcome one barrier only to be met by another: treacherous seas, a complex language, and a culture with an unsh...

Poems by David Craig "This is a book of joy, an Easter of jubilation. Holiness infuses these poems: holy flights of imagination, holy laughter, holy living in the everyday, and holy resurrection hope. Even the punishing season of winter is 'a glass of chilled champagne.' And angels everywhere-materializing to sing a Bach mass in the middle of the night on an empty street, or maybe dropping in for a summer swim. The energy, the down-to-earth reverence-is all of a piece, creating an abundance o...

In the years since his graduation from St. Marquis University, Blake Yourrick has fled his family and Milwaukee, rotating from job to dead-end job-working the Bakken oilfields in Dakota and even signing on as the night caretaker of a rural abbey graveyard. Deep in student debt and estranged from his misanthropic, alcoholic father, Blake is haunted by the memory of his mother's death-and by his relationship with his college mentor, a defrocked priest named Theo Hape, who is known for his adven...

The gates of Drancy Internment Camp in the northeast suburbs of Paris served as a holding pen for thousands of Jews during the German occupation of France in World War II. Jean Wahl, philosophy professor, poet, bachelor at the top of Parisian society before his arrest, was among those very few who escaped. In this searing historical novel by W. C. Hackett, the story is told in Wahl's own voice, from the moment he passed beyond the gates of the camp to his harrowing flight for the Free Zone in...

Beneath the Silent Heavens reimagines the story of the Flood and the Ark, with epochs whirled together, populated with patriarchs and hipsters, artists, intellectuals, peasants, high rhetoric and hearthside banter, words of passion and skepticism, and animals who still have the way of speech-all against the backdrop of Noe's struggles.

From Medieval miniatures to Renaissance paintings to modern Christmas cards, few Western images are as evocative and enigmatic as the Three Wise Men at the Nativity. After twenty years of research and travel by the author, this new novel explores why and how these mysterious figures braved such dangers and survived such fearsome challenges that they have endured in our minds and culture for two thousand years. The Test of the Magi reveals the timeless emotional bond between student and teache...

A powerful cabal has fallen.A princess has chosen duty over love.An ancient threat waits amid the shadows.Wes Cervos has recovered a new portion of the Codex Veritatis, but his increased knowledge of the High One comes at a terrible price. Whitespire has been destroyed, and the realm of the dragons has fallen into chaos.Wes and his friends have once again sought refuge in the city of Auranth, but this time, they are no longer willing to hide. Across Kaveryth, confidence in King Ursa has begun...

Who is the Queen of Fire? Prince James, Prince Zachary, and Princess Georgiana find themselves asking that question after they are captured by a mysterious woman claiming that title. But they have a mission that cannot be delayed--is there any chance their captor could be persuaded to help them?

Tom desperately tries to battle his doubts and fears about death, abandonment, and loneliness while struggling with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, acute anxiety, and crippling depression. He writes prose and poetry in his journal as an attempt to cope. And he tries, unsuccessfully, to keep this internal conflict from becoming known to his family and friends by trying to keep up appearances. But the tiny thread keeping his hope alive inevitably snaps. And he becomes in desperate turmoil. Imagi...

J. K. Huysman’s Against Nature stands as a seminal work of decadent literature, unrivaled in its impact on the literary world. The 1884 novel tells the story of Des Esseintes, a reclusive dreamer determined to escape society and live life within nature's embrace. With his family's wealth providing a means of total seclusion and contemplation, this is a journey that readers can partake in along with him; diving into a pool of creativity and immense esthetic stimulation. Breaking off from the N...

10 year old Benedict has been moved from one foster home to another, and he's hated every one. When he arrives at Sunshine Ranch, he doesn't bother unpacking. What's the point? But his new foster parents and siblings are very different from what he's become used to. David and Martha Credence strive to instill love and Christian values in their family and it inspires hope in each child. Benedict is not into "religion," but Sunshine Ranch is the home he's secretly been yearning for. Still, he f...

Books 3 of Faith & Kungfu Series The world continues to press in on Gabriel Livingstone’s quiet life when fifteen-year-old Aaron Buckley enters Yeung’s Martial Arts Studio looking to learn kung-fu. Gabriel knows there’s a desperate secret behind the boy’s bruises, and secretly vows to be his guard, with the help of his friend Christian. But when Tanner Rose pressures him for strength and direction, and Faith’s continued rebellion send him and his friends to the hospital, jeopardizing Tann...

Book #1 of Faith & Kung Fu Series For Gabriel, Tanner Rose is just a superficial starlet, addicted to Hollywood. For Tanner, Gabriel is just a boring, kung fu-loving, Christian boy, who's living a lackluster life in the middle of no-where. So, what happens when she's forced to live in his world? It doesn't take long before Tanner Rose craves a taste of her old life, even if it means upsetting a few people along the way. She thrives in the spotlight, after-all! Will Gabriel's faith encoura...

Emily's Hope is the gripping story of one young woman's physical, emotional, spiritual journey from high school to adulthood. Interspersed throughout the story are flashbacks to Emily's great-grandmother's troubled life, with a climax culminating in the surprising revelation that Emily and her great-grandmother are connected more deeply than by ancestral ties alone. Based on a true story.

With her sister Abby's encouragement, Rebecca has moved out of their overbearing father's home. When a chance encounter with Chris ends with an invitation, Rebecca says yes. The authentic way Chris lives his life attracts Rebecca and garners her affection. Chris loves Rebecca and her innocence, but he's confounded by the emotional scars she bears from her parents and an attempted assault. Her father's disdain for Chris's faith and career only make matters worse. With the counsel of their frie...

There is something different about Angelina. She is passionate and idealistic by nature, thanks to her Italian mother. But her German father's influence makes her stubborn and headstrong as well. With Europe embroiled in World War II and her father missing on the Russian front, Angelina journeys alone to seek out her mother's family in Italy. There she finds a kindred spirit--her cousin Giulia, two years her senior.Both girls are idealistic atheists and ardent Communists. With Fascist Italy r...

According to Thy Word is a book that shares four unforgettable stories of courage, pain, and faith in the face of tragedy. Through these gripping tales, readers are shown what it looks like for individuals to battle their way through painful life experiences, ultimately conquering evil and finding courage, forgiveness, and hope. The story follows Mary Catherine who is abandoned by her father following the death of her mother; Elly who battles depression after the unexpected death of her husba...