Black Country Orphan

Black Country Orphan is a moving story of the courage and strength of women, by the Sunday Times bestselling author Annie Murray. The early 1900s: Cradley Heath, a town in the Black Country near Birmingham and centre of the world’s chain-making trade. Lucy Butler, a young girl crippled by a cruel accident, lives with her two brothers and widowed mother, a chain-maker barely making ends meet. When tragedy strikes, the Butler family is separated and Lucy is taken in by Bertha Hipkiss, another impoverished chain maker, struggling to look after her own family. Lucy, while feeling the loss of her own family, relies on the company of Bertha’s two sons, charming Clem and straight-laced John. Though clever at school, Lucy knows she must leave and earn her keep, working many hours in the backyard forge. The five women toiling side by side, inevitably have their own friendships and squabbles. But they’re united in their hatred of loathsome middleman Seth Dawson, who treats the women with contempt, and keeps their pay punishingly low. But by the 1910s, there is a movement stirring, as across the country workers begin unionising for their rights. For Lucy, Bertha and the women of Cradley Heath, the promise of a better life seems almost too much to hope for – and the fight may end up costing them everything . . .

The Orphan of Angel Street is a moving story of fortitude and survival from Annie Murray, author of War Babies. Abandoned at birth, little Mercy Hanley shows a fierce determination few others can match. Her inner fire burns brightly, even in the harsh conditions of turn-of-the-century Birmingham. For behind Mercy's pale and haunting face, there is a mind of steel, as her harsh foster mother, Mrs Gaskin, soon discovers. Beatings, threats and poverty cannot halt Mercy's efforts to improve herself, or to create a new life for Susan, Mrs Gaskin's crippled daughter. Even in the worst times, it is as if someone is watching over Mercy, and willing her to succeed. Through the dark shadow of world war, Mercy continues her fight for survival. She will first earn her freedom and security. Then at long last she can give her love . . .

Tears and tribulations, laughs and heartbreak, from an exciting new talent. Perfect for the fans of Jo Cox and Lyn Andrews. Cara Flowers' mother disappeared when she was too young to realise, and when her grandmother dies she leaves not only an enormous fortune, but also a huge responsibility – she wants Cara to find their estranged family. Her quest leads her to the doors of the looming Bilston workhouse where children are torn away from their families to toil for others. Shocked by the appalling conditions, Cara vows to find a way to shut down the building and rescue its residents. And then she discovers a link between the workhouse and her missing mother... Can Cara overcome her past and save these children from their fate? What people are saying about THE WORKHOUSE CHILDREN: 'A truly beautiful read, well done to the author for giving me such enjoyment' 'A very poignant, feel good novel' 'I laughed, cried and gasped, such a gripping story line' 'What an amazing story start to finish'

Die Wise does not offer seven steps for coping with death. It does not suggest ways to make dying easier. It pours no honey to make the medicine go down. Instead, with lyrical prose, deep wisdom, and stories from his two decades of working with dying people and their families, Stephen Jenkinson places death at the center of the page and asks us to behold it in all its painful beauty. Die Wise teaches the skills of dying, skills that have to be learned in the course of living deeply and well. Die Wise is for those who will fail to live forever. Dying well, Jenkinson writes, is a right and responsibility of everyone. It is not a lifestyle option. It is a moral, political, and spiritual obligation each person owes their ancestors and their heirs. Die Wise dreams such a dream, and plots such an uprising. How we die, how we care for dying people, and how we carry our dead: this work makes our capacity for a village-mindedness, or breaks it. Table of Contents The Ordeal of a Managed Death Stealing Meaning from Dying The Tyrant Hope The Quality of Life Yes, But Not Like This The Work So Who Are the Dying to You? Dying Facing Home What Dying Asks of Us All Kids Ah, My Friend the Enemy

The son of a singer mother whose career forcibly separated her from her family and an influential father who runs an orphan work camp, Pak Jun Do rises to prominence using instinctive talents and eventually becomes a professional kidnapper and romantic rival to Kim Jong Il. By the author of Parasites Like Us.

* AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "This novel will be remembered as one of the best thrillers of the year." —Associated Press "A shocking stunner in every way. The perfect thriller." —Robert Crais When darkness closes in—he's your last, best hope. Evan Smoak returns in Gregg Hurwitz’s #1 international bestselling Orphan X series in Out of the Dark. Taken from a group home at age twelve, Evan Smoak was raised and trained as part of the Orphan Program, an off-the-books operation designed to create deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. Evan was Orphan X. He broke with the Program, using everything he learned to disappear and reinvent himself as the Nowhere Man, a man who helps the truly desperate when no one else can. But now Evan's past is catching up to him. Someone at the very highest level of government has been trying to eliminate every trace of the Orphan Program by killing all the remaining Orphans and their trainers. After Evan's mentor and the only father he ever knew was killed, he decided to strike back. His target is the man who started the Program and who is now the most heavily guarded person in the world: the President of the United States. But President Bennett knows that Orphan X is after him and, using weapons of his own, he's decided to counter-attack. Bennett activates the one man who has the skills and experience to track down and take out Orphan X—the first recruit of the Program, Orphan A. With Evan devoting all his skills, resources, and intelligence to find a way through the layers of security that surround the President, suddenly he also has to protect himself against the deadliest of opponents. It's Orphan vs. Orphan with the future of the country—even the world—on the line.

Recounts the story of Tuyet Son Thi Ahn, a girl from a Saigon orphanage who is airlifted out of Saigon in spring of 1975, and finally adopted by a Canadian family.

THE BLOCKBUSTER HIT—Over two million copies sold! A New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller “Poignant, engrossing.”—People • “Lisa Wingate takes an almost unthinkable chapter in our nation’s history and weaves a tale of enduring power.”—Paula McLain Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shantyboat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty. Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption. Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong. Publishers Weekly’s #3 Longest-Running Bestseller of 2017 • Winner of the Southern Book Prize • If All Arkansas Read the Same Book Selection This edition includes a new essay by the author about shantyboat life.