It is 1860. Maggie, a widow with two teenage daughters, runs a rooming house smack dab on the town square. This fact alone makes her a social outcast boarding houses are not exactly respectable. And her collection of eclectic boarders a failed aging writer, an undertaker's apprentice, a struggling young lawyer, and an old Irishman only brings her snubs and snide comments, as does her friendship with Emily and Nate, an African-American couple with whom she shares her home and chores. So Maggie is stunned when she is asked to provide a room for Jeremiah Madison, the new Methodist minister. She hopes that he will revive the little church that she attends, as well as provide her boarding house with a badly-needed aura of respectability. Jeremiah is gifted and charismatic. But he has a secret, one that will change Maggie, her friends, and her town forever.

In the fourth century, a young man named Augustine turned his back on the Church, plunging into a frenzied life of lust and dissipation. His renunciation left Monica, his pious Catholic mother, weeping and praying for his salvation . . . for more than a decade! Like so many Catholics today – even perhaps like you – Monica wrestled daily with the pain of having a loved one fall away from the Faith. Like us, she often feared that her prayers and tears were of little worth, empty, futile. Not so! After nearly two decades, Augustine returned to the Faith, and in a big way. Revered today as Saint Augustine, he joined in holiness his mother, Monica – now Saint Monica – whose sacrifices, prayers, and pain finally won for both of them the crown of sanctity. In these pages, author Maggie Green provides wise, compassionate guidance for members of what she calls “The Saint Monica Club”: good Catholics suffering like Monica the rejection of the Faith by persons they love dearly. Herself a longtime and long-suffering member of the club, Green shows how persevering as Monica did in devoted love for straying souls – loving them as God does – will not only quiet the lingering, aching cry of our hearts, but will also draw our lost loved ones back to the Faith and into the arms of Jesus again. Yes, the nonconfrontational Way of Saint Monica is hard. But it is the only way. These pages demonstrate that, with the souls of our loved ones at stake, it is worth the effort . . . and worth the wait.

From bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater, a gripping tale of darkness, miracles, and family. Here is a thing everyone wants: A miracle.Here is a thing everyone fears:What it takes to get one.Any visitor to Bicho Raro, Colorado, is likely to find a landscape of dark saints, forbidden love, scientific dreams, miracle-mad owls, estranged affections, one or two orphans, and a sky full of watchful desert stars. At the heart of this place you will find the Soria family, who all have the ability to perform unusual miracles. And at the heart of this family are three cousins longing to change its future: Beatriz, the girl without feelings, who wants only to be free to examine her thoughts; Daniel, the Saint of Bicho Raro, who performs miracles for everyone but himself; and Joaquin, who spends his nights running a renegade radio station under the name Diablo Diablo. They are all looking for a miracle. But the miracles of Bicho Raro are never quite what you expect.

Set in the months immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg, A TIME TO HEAL continues the story of Maggie and Eli Smith and their unconventional family. Everyone is hoping and praying for healing and a return to normal life, but an act of compassion has unintended consequences and puts them in jeopardy.

Romance is in the air for Maggie Blaine Smith's daughters when Sergeant Patrick McCoy (daughter Frankie Blaine's beau) and Captain Philip Frost (daughter Lydia Blaine Lape's friend) make a surprise visit to Blaineton, New Jersey on their way to their new posts at Mower General Hospital, Philadelphia. Maggie struggles as she realizes that her daughters are becoming women. Eighteen-year-old Frankie will marry Patrick eventually. That much is obvious. But when? Maggie hopes and prays it will not for a while yet. Meanwhile, her husband Eli Smith is on a campaign to protect his stepdaughter's chastity, something both Frankie and Patrick find annoying. Neither parent, though, has any concerns about Lydia. She is the sensible one, the one who never does anything impulsively. In addition, she is an adult - nearly twenty-two years of age - and still in mourning for her late husband, Edgar Lape. Nothing to see here. Or is there?A visit Philadelphia and its Great Central Fair of 1864 just might change things for everyone.

No one thought that the Second Street boarding house would be destroyed by arsonists. Things have gotten ugly in Blaineton, New Jersey. It is in the middle of the Civil War and the abolitionist sympathies of the people in Maggie's house have made them a target for Copperhead forces. When the violence threatens to escalate, Maggie's husband Eli decides to move everyone to his family's old home, where his two sisters are aiding fugitive slaves. But this means relocating to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Maggie and her family risk the move, hoping to find some badly-needed peace of mind and heart. But that may not be possible with newspaperman Eli and reporter/photographer Chester Carson off covering the war and with Edgar and Patrick in the army. While Maggie and the remaining members of her family struggle to start anew in a strange place, they begin to hear rumors. Will Confederate troops march into Pennsylvania? And if so, what will happen?

In the nineteenth century "seeing the elephant" or "I've seen the elephant" meant "now I've seen everything" or "now I've seen it all." Civil War soldiers also used the term to mean they had seen battle. Maggie and her unconventional family have seen the elephant in more ways than they ever thought possible. But now they have returned to their hometown of Blaineton, New Jersey and things are looking up. Maggie's husband Eli has been hired as the Editor-in-Chief of The Register, the town's new newspaper, published by the indomitable Tryphena Moore. Emily Johnson's husband Nate has re-established his carpentry business, and Emily's home-baked goods are selling at the local bakery.But they soon discover that Blaineton is not the same. An insane asylum has opened its doors north of town. A woolen mill and army uniform factory are doing big business to Blaineton's south. And a wealthy industrialist by the name of Josiah Norton seeks to change the face and tenor of the once sleepy burg. And old struggles are still with them. Maggie worries about Eli, who suffers increasingly from nightmares. Maggie cares for a new baby and edits articles for the Register., She and Emily find it difficult keeping up an enormous house. And Maggie's daughter Frankie has accepted a job offer at the Western New Jersey Hospital for the Insane. Life may not be as peaceful as they all had hoped.