She’s shattering under the weight of her secret. His heart is breaking as he watches her collapse. events are twisting more tightly around them... Making it hard to breathe...or love... Can they sever the shackles of destiny and find love? Or Will they just exchange one type of restraint for another?

In this memoir, Gabriella Karin tells her incredible story of survival through the Holocaust. A Jewish girl in Bratislava, she and her family were forced into hiding during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. Gabriella, only 14 years old, and her family spent nine long months hiding in a small apartment across the street from the Nazi-Slovak Gestapo. She and her family survived thanks to the selfless help of their savior, Karol Blanar, whom Gabriella later had recognized as a "Righteous Person Among the Nations." Her memoir continues by following her life's journey after the Holocaust moving to the newly created state of Israel and eventually settling in Los Angeles with her husband, Ofer, and son, Rom. Gabriella has dedicated her life to Holocaust education as a docent and speaker worldwide. She has become an acclaimed sculptor through which she dramatically depicts the horrors of the Holocaust and also inspires hope for a more peaceful future.

Gabriella has been hunted all her life by a madman who knew of her unique abilities even before she did. She'd been abandoned by one parent, abused by another, and the feelings of being alone and unloved had almost made her welcome the vividly cruel world she found herself in. Then she met Mike Stanton. And she realized her world didn't always have to be cold and lonely. She finally recognized that she might be worthy of someone else's love. But there was a problem. Her past wouldn't let her go. And she was in danger of dragging Mike and everyone else she cared about into Hell with her. Mike didn't understand the power of the heart until he met Gabby...a woman who hadn't had nearly enough love in her twenty-four, hellish years on earth. Then he was told to protect her. And he fell hard and fast for the woman whose instincts and actions kept urging her to fly away, like the beautiful falcon he'd named her. Can they find the love they both seek before an ugly past and an intensely cruel organization rips them apart? Or will the future they seek only bring them despair as factions they can't control try to destroy the feelings they're just learning to cherish?

A PopSugar Best Book of the Year! Readers of Heather Morris’s The Tattooist of Auschwitz and watchers of The Queen’s Gambit won’t want to miss this amazing debut set during World War II. A young Polish resistance worker, imprisoned in Auschwitz as a political prisoner, plays chess in exchange for her life, and in doing so fights to bring the man who destroyed her family to justice. Maria Florkowska is many things: daughter, avid chess player, and, as a member of the Polish underground resistance in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, a young woman brave beyond her years. Captured by the Gestapo, she is imprisoned in Auschwitz, but while her family is sent to their deaths, she is spared. Realizing her ability to play chess, the sadistic camp deputy, Karl Fritzsch, decides to use her as a chess opponent to entertain the camp guards. However, once he tires of exploiting her skills, he has every intention of killing her. Befriended by a Catholic priest, Maria attempts to overcome her grief, vows to avenge the murder of her family, and plays for her life. For four grueling years, her strategy is simple: Live. Fight. Survive. By cleverly provoking Fritzsch’s volatile nature in front of his superiors, Maria intends to orchestrate his downfall. Only then will she have a chance to evade the fate awaiting her and see him punished for his wickedness. As she carries out her plan and the war nears its end, she challenges her former nemesis to one final game, certain to end in life or death, in failure or justice. If Maria can bear to face Fritzsch—and her past—one last time.

She’s hostile and independent. He’s focused and smitten. Will they find a path to love before a killer finds his target? Elena’s life has never been normal. She’s been plagued from birth by a secret that puts her in constant danger. Now a murder’s been dropped on her family’s doorstep. Bringing her into the crosshairs of a killer. Erik didn’t really want the job of protecting Elena DeVitis. She’s the most stubborn, difficult woman he’s ever met. But despite her hard outer shell and the way she constantly keeps him at arm’s length, there’s a certain vulnerability in the beautiful heiress’s eyes. Then a killer puts her in his sights. And all Erik can think of is how cold life would be without her in it. A conspiracy, a murder, an ongoing pursuit. Everything seems to be coming to a head. And as it does, members of the DeVitis family will be put into new and deadly situations. And there remains at least one life-changing surprise for them all. “…twists I never saw coming with a suspenseful storyline that kept me on the edge of my seat. I can truthfully say it was all I could do to not call in sick so that I could finish the book in just one sitting.” “What a thrilling roller coaster of a ride! Action, suspense, surprises, awakening love, whew what a book!” If you crave excitement, adventure, love, and intrigue, you should definitely grab this book!

Examining ideas about masturbation, female sexuality, the family, and post-Calvinist religion that shaped the readership of popular woman's fiction, To Kiss the Chastening Rod shows that passionlessness was the privileged theme of a pervasive discourse which sought to exert social control through the rigorous repression, minute supervision, and covert cultivation of sexuality.

During her short life as a Cistercian nun in the Italian monastery of Grottaferrata, Blessed Maria Gabriella Sagheddu wrote detailed letters about her life there to her family in Sardinia and to her former parish priest. These letters are collected here, along with notes and letters by and to her abbess, Mother Pia Gullini, OCSO, and M. Pia’s notes and recollections about Bl. Gabriella. Also included are letters to M. Pia from Father Benedict Ley, a monk of the English Anglican abbey of Nashdom, regarding the hope for Christian unity.