Barbed Wire Heart

This powerful debut thriller from "a major new talent" (Kirkus) set in a poor, rural community where loyalty is everything, "packs an emotional punch" (Lisa Gardner) as the daughter of a meth kingpin is forced to choose between family, or freedom. Never cut the drugs--leave them pure. Guns are meant to be shot--keep them loaded. Family is everything--betray them and die. Harley McKenna is the only child of North County's biggest criminal. Duke McKenna's run more guns, cooked more meth, and killed more men than anyone around. Harley's been working for him since she was sixteen, dreading the day he'd deem her ready to rule the rural drug empire he's built. Her time's run out. The Springfields, her family's biggest rivals, are moving in. And they're coming for Duke's only weak spot: his daughter. Duke's raised her to be deadly -- he never counted on her being disloyal. But if Harley wants to survive and protect the people she loves, she's got to take out both Duke's operation and the Springfields. Blowing up meth labs is dangerous business, and getting caught will be the end of her, but Harley has one advantage: She is her father's daughter. And McKennas always win.

Follow Isla all across her Texas ranch to discover the secret behind all the odd occurrences and unexplained fires that keep mysteriously catching. Is it all a coincidence, or is there some sinister plot at hand? Isla and her new friend Cash try to solve the case in Through the Barbed Wire, the first in the Wild at Heart Mysteries series.

Don't let fear rob you of joy and happiness. Through warm, often-funny stories, a popular Christian recording artist reveals the spiritual and emotional struggles she faced before conquering overwhelming feelings of fear. Let Cindy Morgan share with you firsthand how God can free you from the bondage of debilitating fear.

Don’t miss Tess Sharpe’s new novel, 6 Times We Almost Kissed (and One Time We Did). The truth won't let her go. Sophie Winters nearly died. Twice. The first time, she's fourteen, and escapes a near-fatal car accident with scars, a bum leg, and an addiction to Oxy that'll take years to kick. The second time, she's seventeen, and it's no accident. Sophie and her best friend Mina are confronted by a masked man in the woods. Sophie survives, but Mina is not so lucky. When the cops deem Mina's murder a drug deal gone wrong, casting partial blame on Sophie, no one will believe the truth: Sophie has been clean for months, and it was Mina who led her into the woods that night for a meeting shrouded in mystery. After a forced stint in rehab, Sophie returns home to a chilly new reality. Mina's brother won't speak to her, her parents fear she'll relapse, old friends have become enemies, and Sophie has to learn how to live without her other half. To make matters worse, no one is looking in the right places and Sophie must search for Mina's murderer on her own. But with every step, Sophie comes closer to revealing all: about herself, about Mina---and about the secret they shared.

Two years ago, Harry Rane's wife died after a bout with cancer. Then, grief-stricken and careless, he went back to his job as a New Jersey state cop and got shot in the line of duty. He took early retirement, and now lives in an old farmhouse in rural New Jersey and takes life one day at a time. It's not much, but he gets by. Things change when an old friend from his grade school days in Long Branch calls him for help. Bobby was Harry's best friend until high school graduation, but when Harry went to the police academy Bobby went another way, working, dealing a little on the side. Now he's taken one last chance and gotten in over his head for $50,000 to Eddie Fallon, a local crime boss. Harry goes to see Fallon on Bobby's behalf, hoping to work something out, but it's hard to negotiate with a man like Fallon, and things quickly get complicated, and dangerous. He does learn, too, that he and Fallon have something in common --- Fallon's wife is an ex-girlfriend Harry hasn't seen since he was eighteen, a girl who was pregnant with his child when she ran away. In The Barbed-Wire Kiss, Wallace Stroby's brooding, blistering debut set against the spare, atmospheric background of downstate New Jersey, Harry gets caught between his past and his future, between right and vengeance.

As the Russian army advances on war-torn Prussia at the end of World War II, Marike Wiens gathers her four young children and flees for Denmark, the only place willing to accept German refugees. Marike arrives in Danzig just as the Allied bombs begin to fall. She and her children pick their way through the rubble to reunite with Marike's gravely ill father and the rest of her family. Together, they board an overcrowded, disease-infested ship bound for Denmark. Arriving at the refugee camp, Marike's hopes for a safe haven are dashed when she discovers the Danes have been forced to create the camps under orders from the occupying German army. Danish hostility toward the mostly women and children who cross their borders is palpable. Behind the barbed wire, Marike and her family face near starvation, illness, mistreatment, and heart-rending conditions. Moved from camp to camp, Marike struggles to keep her family alive and to hold onto their Mennonite faith. Her only hope for survival lies with her husband, Horst, who is missing in action on the Eastern Front. But as the months go by and thousands of refugees perish around her, Marike must find a new solution to save her family.

'Meticulously researched, and the result is Heiss’s great achievement: the reader is transported in place and time.’ – The Australian 'Tact and intelligence are sustained to the end of this bold novel of the wartime home front’ -- Sydney Morning Herald ‘With deftness and a lightness of touch … Heiss's strengths as a writer are on full display’ – The Conversation A story about a love that transcends all boundaries, from one of Australia’s best loved authors. 5 AUGUST, 1944 Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No.12 Prisoner of War compound on the fringes of Cowra. In the carnage, hundreds are killed, many are recaptured, and some take their own lives rather than suffer the humiliation of ongoing defeat. But one soldier, Hiroshi, manages to escape. At nearby Erambie Station, an Aboriginal mission, Banjo Williams, father of five and proud man of his community, discovers Hiroshi, distraught and on the run. Unlike most of the townsfolk who dislike and distrust the Japanese, the people of Erambie choose compassion and offer Hiroshi refuge. Mary, Banjo’s daughter, is intrigued by the softly spoken stranger, and charged with his care. For the community, life at Erambie is one of restriction and exclusion – living under Acts of Protection and Assimilation, and always under the ruthless eye of the mission Manager. On top of wartime hardships, families live without basic rights. Love blossoms between Mary and Hiroshi, and they each dream of a future together. But how long can Hiroshi be hidden safely and their bond kept a secret?

From the bestselling author of Above the Fold, Dragons in the Forest and The Last Double Sunrise. Like many young and idealistic Australian men, Stephen Conway rushed to enlist in the ‘the war to end all wars’ in 1914. After a hasty marriage, Stephen leaves his new wife with a baby on the way and is shipped to Gallipoli. Very soon, though, the promise of adventure and glory of battle vanish completely as the reality of war sets in. After four nightmarish years, Stephen is the lone survivor of his platoon fighting in the trenches of France’s bloody battlefields. Traumatised and exhausted he inexplicably disappears and the official record of his life comes to an abrupt end – that is until his grandson, Patrick, discovers his diary more than 80 years later. This personal account of the horrors of World War I propels Patrick on a journey to uncover the truth of his grandfather’s fate – which is more disturbing than he could have ever imagined. Set against true historical events, Barbed Wire and Roses deftly brings together past and present, ancestor and descendant, in a gripping tale of war and its aftermath.