Bøger af Judy Nickles

These are stories and poems about journeys: Abby, who fled to nowhere and still was found Sandra, who kept a promise on Normandy Beach Roy, who flew high but ended up where he began Cecelia, who wanted a new life Carrie, who retraced steps long forgotten Emmalee, who took a chance on a stranger Berit, who gave up going anywhere J.J., who found roots he never knew he had Kitty, who chased a dream in the wrong direction Emily, who came home and found the end of the rainbow and a few poems about other journeys...

When Penelope agrees to help her best friend Mary Lynn Hargrove, the mayor's wife, renovate the town's first school as a community center, she discovers the old building isn't quite as empty as it appears. Mary Lynn hears voices, and light bulbs and even flashlights go instantly dark at the bottom of the 13 steps leading to the basement. Is the town's founding father Jeremiah Bowden, who built the school, still around? Or his sister, Miss Daisy, the first teacher? Or is it someone-or something-more sinister? Then Sam telephones unexpectedly and tells Penelope to stay away from the place, but he won't tell her why. When she decides not to take his advice, she discovers she's rolled out a blueprint not for remodeling but for disaster.

Meet Penelope Pembroke: owner of the best (only) B&B in Amaryllis, Arkansas (pop. 5492) who's flirting with 50, divorced (Travis Pembroke, had a wandering eye'), mother of Amaryllis PD Detective Bradley Pembroke, apple of her father Jake Kelley's eye, best friend of Mary Lynn Hargrove, the mayor's wife, and the only human creature tolerated by Abijah, the 18-pound orange tabby who stalks the family home-turned B&B. Penelope keeps her ear to the ground, her eyes open, and her battered heart in solitary confinement. Then one night, while having a beer and a Reuben at the seedy-though-popular Sit-n-Swill, she meets Tiny aka Sam who is about as much of a biker as she is a belly dancer. She insists on dabbling in danger and disaster despite Sam's best efforts to discourage her. The fireworks begin in Book 1, light up the skies in Books 2,3,4, and 5, and end in one spectacularly explosive display in Book 6. Book 1: The Bogus Biker A police raid on the Sit-n-Swill, a devastating fire at her ex-husband's historic home, and a game of cat-and-mouse with Tiny aka Sam turns Penelope's placid life upside down.

A Very Kate Christmas is a collection of ten stories designed as an introduction to a three-volume series, The Kate Chronicles, which follows the life of a baby girl found in a deserted line shack in the Texas Panhandle just before Christmas in 1880. Placed in the local orphanage, she captivates Dan and Olivia Forrester, an older couple married only six months. Olivia has raised three children and buried three more. Dan has experienced the tragic loss of a baby daughter and a young wife. Sometime in the waning hours of Christmas Day, they determine the tiny baby girl is part of their second chance at happiness. There is so much love between them, Olivia observes, enough to share. Cherished by her parents, doted on by her much-older siblings, guided by the wisdom of Mr. Amos, an ex-slave who has found a home in the hearts of the Bancroft family, and given every material advantage, Kate is not shielded from the realities of life but rather encouraged to learn lessons which will strengthen her as she grows to womanhood. The Kate Chronicles records a century of life for Katherine Bancroft Forrester, a miracle--her parents tell her--given by the Christ Child.

Ruthann Cooper can barely remember the fiancé whose plane went down in flames over Nazi Germany. He faded as she did her bit for the war effort in the munitions factory. Now, the war over, she meets the faculty on her first day as a schoolteacher. From that moment on it's impossible to forget the piercing blue eyes and gentle, artistic ways of the superintendent of schools, who welcomes her both to the school and to his life. WWI veteran Drew Mallory still battles a debilitating injury from that earlier conflict. With complications of the injury, plus a grown daughter, the widower feels his life is all but over...until he meets the new third grade teacher. His renewed spirit rejoices, yet he must consider the effect he may have on her life. Their deepening relationship spawns a series of increasingly vicious attacks on Ruthann, and she finds herself on the brink of another, more personal war simply because of Drew's interest in her. Should she retreat, as he wants her to for her own safety? Or can she do battle for the man she finds herself loving more than life?

In the waning days of the Great Depression, Celeste Riley wonders if life will always be the same: going to work, coming home to keep house for her widowed father, who ignores her. She clings to her married sister and to the recurring dream of a blue velvet curtain and a faceless lover who beckons her beyond it. Then a blue velvet dress in the window of a local department store seems to promise the change in her life she so desperately longs for. When she dances in the arms of traveling salesman Kent Goddard at the Roof Garden, she is sure she has found the man of her dreams and is crushed when he disappears from her life. Then, soon after Pearl Harbor propels the United States into war, Kent returns in uniform as a student at the new bombardier training school. Their deepening relationship is threatened by a wartime separation, but not as much as when Celeste realizes that what she doesn't know about the man of her dreams maybe become her worst nightmare.