"Category: inspirational"--Page 4 of cover.

During six months in 1862, William Jefferson Whatley and his wife, Nancy Falkaday Watkins Whatley, exchanged a series of letters that vividly demonstrate the quickly changing roles of women whose husbands left home to fight in the Civil War. When William Whatley enlisted with the Confederate Army in 1862, he left his young wife Nancy in charge of their cotton farm in East Texas, near the village of Caledonia in Rusk County. In letters to her husband, Nancy describes in elaborate detail how she dealt with and felt about her new role, which thrust her into an array of unfamiliar duties, including dealing with increasingly unruly slaves, overseeing the harvest of the cotton crop, and negotiating business transactions with unscrupulous neighbors. At the same time, she carried on her traditional family duties and tended to their four young children during frequent epidemics of measles and diphtheria. Stationed hundreds of miles away, her husband could only offer her advice, sympathy, and shared frustration. In An East Texas Family’s Civil War, the Whatleys’ great-grandson, John T. Whatley, transcribes and annotates these letters for the first time. Notable for their descriptions of the unraveling of the local slave labor system and accounts of rural southern life, Nancy’s letters offer a rare window on the hardships faced by women on the home front taking on unprecedented responsibilities and filling unfamiliar roles.

The Hyman family left Virginia when they were freed from slavery and settled in East Texas.

'The Iliad meets Friday Night Lights in this muscular, captivating debut' Oprah Magazine 'A gorgeous debut that conjures one small town and the big emotions of its wealthiest family, the Briscoes, whose saga plays out over six days of pain, rage and love' People, Best of Summer 'I read without breathing - OK, maybe I gasped - and I experienced the characters' grief and regret as if they were my own' New York Times 'The novel is based on Greek myths but you don't need to know your Zeus from your Apollo to enjoy this saga full of deceit and drama' Good Housekeeping 'Beautifully written and filled with atmosphere... a hugely accomplished debut' Prima 'Secrets, lies and deceptions with Greek myth-like undertones... A literary family saga that spans one week and packs in everything from infidelity to a shooting' High Life 'A total page-turner' Kirkus (starred review) 'The most wildly entertaining novel I've read in a long time' Richard Russo winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction When March Briscoe returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife, the Briscoe family becomes once again the talk of the small town of Olympus. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms: her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? But within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold the Briscoes together might be exactly what drag them all down. An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas combines the archetypes of Greek and Roman mythology with the psychological complexity of a messy family. After all, at some point, we all wonder: what good is this destructive force we call love?

He’s fallen for a woman . . . Anxious to meet her soon-to-be husband, Dallas Leigh, for the first time, mail-order bride Amelia Carson is en route to Fort Worth, Texas. When she steps off the train and locks eyes with her betrothed, she immediately feels drawn to him. But the cowboy standing before her isn’t Dallas. Instead, Dallas’s brother Houston has been sent to accompany her on the three-week journey to the ranch where she’ll begin her new life. Who belongs to another . . . The war Houston Leigh fought has left him with visible scars, a daily reminder of his cowardice on the battlefield. Denying his intense attraction to Amelia, he is determined to deliver her untouched, as promised. But during their long dangerous trip, he can’t help but admire her inner strength and fearlessness. And when she looks at him—as if she can see beyond his scarred face and read his innermost thoughts—he loses his heart to her. Now as they near the ranch, Houston must choose to remain loyal to his brother—or find the courage to fight for the woman he’s convinced is his destiny . . .

At 3:00 a.m. on March 1, 2008, Terry Caffey awoke to find his daughter’s boyfriend standing in his bedroom with a gun. An instant later the teen opened fire, killing Terry’s wife, his two sons, and wounding him 12 times, before setting the house ablaze. Terry fell into deep depression and planned to kill himself, but God intervened. Upon visiting his burned-out property, Terry noticed a scorched scrap of paper from one of his wife’s books leaning against a tree trunk. The page read: “[God,] I couldn’t understand why You would take my family and leave me behind to struggle along without them. And I guess I still don’t totally understand that part of it. But I do believe that You’re sovereign; You’re in control.” That page was like a direct message from God, and it turned Terry’s life around. Now, one year later, Terry is remarried, the adoptive father of two young sons, and working to rebuild his relationship with his 17-year-old daughter, who is currently serving two life sentences in a Texas state penitentiary for her involvement in the crimes. Terror by Night tells the compelling story of how Terry Caffey found peace after his wife and sons were brutally murdered and his teenage daughter implicated in the crime. Sharing never-before-told details about the night of the crime and subsequent murder trial, it explains how Terry was able to forgive the men who murdered his family, and how he even interceded with the prosecutors on their behalf. A powerful example of how the power of forgiveness can bring healing after tragedy and great loss, it shows how God can bring good out of even the darkest tragedies.

The bestselling Queen of Cowboy Romance delivers a heartwarming novel where a doctor and veterinarian get a second chance at true love when a storm traps them together. After traveling the world, Dr. Cody Ryan has finally come home to his foster family’s ranch in Honey Grove, Texas. But all his time in Doctors Without Borders couldn’t have prepared him for the sudden blizzard that forces him to take shelter in an old barn—or for the shock of watching Stephanie O’Dell yank open that same barn door minutes later. He’s barely seen the gorgeous veterinarian since he returned, so why is she icier than the wind outside? Stephanie—better known as Dr. Stevie around Sunflower Ranch—has been treating the cattle there for years…and not one of them is as bullheaded as Cody. He’s completely forgotten how he broke her heart, back when she was a teenager smitten by his easy charm and sharp wit. But as the blizzard rages on, trapping Cody and Stevie together, it’s clear that the fire they’ve built to keep warm isn’t the only source of sparks in that barn. Once the storm passes, will Stevie and Cody discover that they’ve fallen in love …and will either of them ever admit it?