A gripping tale of passion, treachery, betrayal, and grief, yet also a story of hope, faith and love and a merciful God whose ways are not ours. Set in the early years of the twentieth century, when the greatest expectation for a woman’s future was marriage and children, Rose longed to be wanted and loved, but no one seemed to want her. Until the day she has a riding accident and is rescued by success-driven Henry, a childhood friend and someone she secretly admires. For a moment it seems possible they will share a life together and she might have the family she longs for. But just when their friendship is blossoming and Henry proposes to Rose, World War 1 breaks out in Europe and the local men begin to enlist. At first, Henry is spared from going to war because, as a farmer, he’s regarded as an essential food provider. But when he’s given a white feather as a symbol of cowardice, he makes the decision to go, to prove he is an honorable man. Suddenly everything changes for the couple and Rose discovers a conventional life has become even harder to attain for herself than she imagined. Can the future that had been within Rose’s grasp eventuate? Will going to war give Henry the honor he is looking for? Or will Henry’s embittered sister ensure neither is possible? Find out in Book 1 of the Coin Trilogy

Isolated from his children and tormented by memories of his flamboyant wife, a retired fireman becomes so fascinated with the lost art of alchemy and its promise of immortality that he is institutionalized.

Leonard Cohen is one of the great writers, performers, and most consistently daring artists of our time. Book of Longing is Cohen’s eagerly awaited new collection of poems, following his highly acclaimed 1984 title, Book of Mercy, and his hugely successful 1993 publication, Stranger Music, a Globe and Mail national bestseller. Book of Longing contains erotic, playful, and provocative line drawings and artwork on every page, by the author, which interact in exciting and unexpected ways on the page with poetry that is timeless, meditative, and at times darkly humorous. The book brings together all the elements that have brought Leonard Cohen’s artistry with language worldwide recognition.

A powerful tragedy distilled into a small masterpiece by the Nobel Prize-winning author of Beloved and, almost like a prelude to that story, set two centuries earlier. Jacob is an Anglo-Dutch trader in 1680s United States, when the slave trade is still in its infancy. Reluctantly he takes a small slave girl in part payment from a plantation owner for a bad debt. Feeling rejected by her slave mother, 14-year-old Florens can read and write and might be useful on his farm. Florens looks for love, first from Lina, an older servant woman at her new master's house, but later from the handsome blacksmith, an African, never enslaved, who comes riding into their lives . . . At the novel's heart, like Beloved, it is the ambivalent, disturbing story of a mother and a daughter – a mother who casts off her daughter in order to save her, and a daughter who may never exorcise that abandonment.

Beloved, profoundly moving account of the author's marriage, the couple's search for faith and friendship with C. S. Lewis, and a spiritual strength that sustained Vanauken after his wife's untimely death.

When Jesus asked us to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, and visit the imprisoned, he didn’t mean it literally, right? Kerry Weber, a modern, young, single woman in New York City sets out to see if she can practice the Corporal Works of Mercy in an authentic, personal, meaningful manner while maintaining a full, robust, regular life. Weber, a lay Catholic, explores the Works of Mercy in the real world, with a gut-level honesty and transparency that people of urban, country, and suburban locales alike can relate to. Mercy in the City is for anyone who is struggling to live in a meaningful, merciful way amid the pressures of “real life.” For those who feel they are already overscheduled and too busy, for those who assume that they are not “religious enough” to practice the Works of Mercy, for those who worry that they are alone in their efforts to live an authentic life, Mercy in the City proves that by living as people for others, we learn to connect as people of faith.

“Wherever there are Christians, everyone should find an oasis of mercy.” —Pope Francis Whether dealing with adoption, sobriety, bullying, the Boston Marathon bombing, or friendship with a Jehovah’s Witness, Mathew Schmalz’s own life serves as the backdrop for his reflections on the complex nature of mercy—how we give it, and how we receive it. From a home for lepers in India to a halfway house in the Bronx, the author probes his experiences to reveal mercy as a virtue that doesn’t necessarily come easily, but is infinitely rewarding. Discussion and reflection questions at the end of each chapter allow you to dig deeper into your own ideas about mercy, what it looks like in your life, and how to move toward a more merciful existence. Perfect for individual or group study.