A Sharecropper Christmas by Carlene Havel
1930s – Texas
The Great Depression left the Shoemaker family hungry and homeless. Their desperate prayers are finally answered when Herbert Shoemaker finds work as a sharecropper. Alice makes the best of the hard times without complaint. though she dreams of giving her little family a special Christmas.
1778 – Maryland
When Sarah’s husband Jamie drowns, her young life if shattered and takes a turn that she never expected. Pregnant and now widowed, she reaches out to Jamie’s family for help but they are unwilling. Instead they devise a plan to have her kidnapped. She is deceived and taken aboard a ship headed for the Chesapeake to be sold as an indentured servant, bound to unspeakable hardship and forced into the same harsh world she left.
Caught in the talons of servitude, she falls in love with a young conscientious doctor, Alex Hutton, who has arrived in Virginia to care for his widowed sister in law and two young nieces. Called back to serve in Washington’s army, he promises he will return for her, gain her freedom and wed her. Other plans were made for Sarah when her owner finds himself bankrupt and sells her the first chance he gets. She’s taken out into the frontier, captured by Indians, and faces unbearable hardship.
When the mistress of River Run along the Potomac encounters Sarah’s plight after she has escaped, Eliza Morgan pities her, and a way is made for Sarah to remain with her and care for Eliza’s young daughter, Darcy. Revolution has ignited in America, and together they endure many hardships which bring them together in friendship. But when Sarah learns that Zachary Halston, a local landowner, has seduced Eliza, she is troubled about what to do.
Grateful for Eliza’s kindness, Sarah is forever bound to keep silent. She promises Eliza to never reveal the secret that Ilene is Eliza’s child, even at the risk of living a life in shame if her master should ever discover the truth upon his return.
Trapped in Eliza and Hayward’s troubled lives, Sarah flees River Run. Will she make her way back to Alex and freedom as he searches the wilderness for her? Or will her hopes be crushed at the hands of the man who deceived her long ago in Cornwall when she faced destitution?
1870s – Kansas
When Texas Ranger Jack Elder stormed the isolated Kansas homestead, he expected to find a band of outlaws. Instead, the only occupant is a heavily pregnant woman—and she’s just gone into labor. A loner uneasy with emotion, Jack helps deliver widow Elizabeth Cole’s baby girl and can’t get back on the trail fast enough. The robber and murderer he’s after killed one of Jack’s own, and he vows to catch the man. But when he returns to check on Elizabeth and her little one, he discovers that she may hold the key to his unsettled past—and his hoped-for future.
From This Day Forward (American Tapestries)
1810s – South Carolina
Penniless, pregnant, and newly widowed immigrant Rachel Gordon doesn’t believe her situation could get any worse…until she meets her new neighbors.
Shortly after the War of 1812, Rachel and her husband set out from England for a plantation in South Carolina, which he had purchased sight unseen. However, while en route, Tom Gordon fell overboard and drowned, leaving Rachel, frightened and alone, to make a home for her and her newborn.
Can a battle-scarred American physician who comes to her rescue also heal her wounded heart?
Twelfth Prophecy (A. D. Chronicles)
30s – Middle East
She is a singer of sweet songs . . . and a sinner. A searcher for truth . . . and an outcast.
Life is fraught with danger in the village of Sychar in the first-century A.D. But for Abigail, the Samaritan woman, the danger lies not as much from the ever-present Roman soldiers but from the rabbi and the people of Sychar. A woman of renowned beauty, whose reputation was tarnished at an early age, Abigail is pregnant . . . and the father is not her elderly husband, Zakane. While protecting her lover’s name, believing he will spirit her away, Abigail is imprisoned, then nearly stoned by her neighbors. She’s befriended by the beggar Leah. But even the beggars, the lowest of the low, don’t want her around. Abigail longs for love, kindness, a home for her soon-to-arrive baby . . . and forgiveness for her anguished soul. The answers will come from the most unlikely of places.
1889 – Montana
For the first time in years, Kaydie Worthington Kraemer can breathe easily. Although she is still haunted by memories of her abusive husband, Darius, she takes comfort in knowing the man is dead. Staying with her sister McKenzie and brother–in–law, Zach Sawyer, at their ranch, Kaydie is still wary of men, especially now that she has another life inside of her to protect. As she looks forward to her baby’s birth, she builds a protective wall around herself that won’t be easy to tear down.
Ranch hand Jonah Dickenson views his boss, Zach, like a brother. He does not, however, envy Zach’s new role as a husband. Deserted by his mother at a young age and forever despised and rejected by his own father, Jonah has few close relationships. But there’s something about Kaydie that draws him to her and makes him question his decision to remain a bachelor.
When Cedric Van Aulst, an old friend of Kaydie’s, comes to town, an unforeseen prospect of marriage arises. Cedric is someone Kaydie trusts. Will she settle for a safe union with him, or can she trust God to guard her heart and her life in the arms of Jonah?
1865 – California
The year 1865 starts out as a nightmare come true for Jessica Bennett. Even though she is with child-an answer to heartfelt prayers-the cattle she and her husband, Jake, fought to save from drought the summer before now face the threat of freezing to death. Her fears worsen when Jake contracts pneumonia.
Springtime brings trials of a different kind-the snowmelt causes the ranch to thrive so much that Jake must sell off the last of their cattle to make room for their horses and the young foals to be born. In the meantime, Jess endeavors to recover her rightful inheritance, which mysteriously disappeared from the bank. When she discovers a link between the banker and a group of murderous Unionists, who continue to target Southerners even though the war is over, Jake launches an undercover investigation.
The conspiracy runs deeper and wider than either of them could have imagined. Jess must put her life-and the life of her unborn child-at risk to stop the ringleader and save the lives of many others. Yet, Jess refuses to give up hope in the God she serves-a God of love who often provides above and beyond our greatest dreams.
1856 – Texas
Longing for adventure, Priscilla Morton leaves Boston and heads for Texas, never dreaming that the adventure she seeks will leave her badly injured and her parents dead. Priscilla is determined to rebuild her life and make a home for herself in the beautiful Hill Country. But the bandits who took her parents’ lives also destroyed her hope for the future. Ranch foreman Zachary Webster knows what the future holds for him, and it’s not a woman like Priscilla. She deserves a cultured East Coast gentleman, not a cowboy who’s haunted by memories of his mistakes. The best thing he can do is leave her alone. When necessity draws them together, Priscilla and Zach begin to forge a life that, like the scattered petals of her childhood, is filled with promise. But then the past intrudes, threatening their very existence.
30 – Jerusalem, Rome
Beautiful is a dangerous thing to be when one is unprotected. That is a lesson Abigail learns well when her master s son, Jason, takes her to his bed. Jason s mother, Ester, may have educated her as a daughter instead of a slave, his father, Cleopas, may have obeyed Hebrew law rather than Roman in the running of his household, but none of that matters to their son. At least, it doesn t until he has a child of his own on the way.
Over her seven years in the Visibullis household, Abigail has gotten accustomed to being a slave. She loves her fellow servants, she adores her mistress, and she respectes her master. She does not welcome change, neither when Jason decides she is better fit for a lover than a handmaid nor when he discoveres he loves her too much to leave her as anything but a wife. But she carries his child, so she can hardly argue. And maybe, given time, she could come to love him too….
Israel s unrest finds a home in her bosom, but their rebellion tears apart her world. Death descends with Barabbas s sword, and Abigail is determined to be there when he is handed the penalty for the crimes that destroyed her family. But when she ventureds to the trial, heavy with child and heavier still with hatred, it is not Barabbas that the crowd demands be crucified. Instead, it is the teacher Cleopas and Jason had begun to follow, the man from Nazareth that some call the Son of God….
She was born free, made a slave, married out of her bonds. But she never really knew freedom until she felt the fire of a stray drop of blood from a Jewish carpenter. She was disowned by Israel, despised by Rome, desired by all. Yet she never knew love until she received the smile of a stoic Roman noble.
The Bride Backfire (Prairie Promises Series #2)
1857 – Nebraska
Come on down for a real family feud in this witty romance, the second novel in Kelly Eileen Hake’s Prairie Promises series. In the Nebraskan Territory of 1857, the longstanding feud between their two families makes Opal Speck desperate to save the life of the Grogan who once pulled her from a burning building. Will her big white lie-that Adam is the father of her unborn child-land in enemy territory for the rest of her life? Find out how Adam and Opal deal with the repercussions of their shotgun wedding in The Bride Backfire!
1870 – Alaska
Newly widowed Lydia Sellers discovers that through an unforeseen fluke, she is the sole recipient of her husband’s fortune. But instead of granting her security, it only causes strife as her adult stepchildren battle to regain the inheritance for themselves. Lydia, longing to put the memories of her painful marriage behind her, determines to travel to Alaska to join her aunt.
Lydia’s arrival in Sitka, however, brings two things she didn’t expect. One is the acquaintance of Kjell Bjorklund, the handsome owner of the sawmill. Second is the discovery that she is pregnant with her dead husband’s child. What will this mean for her budding relationship with Kjell? And what lengths will her stepchildren go to reclaim their father’s fortune? Lydia soon finds her life–and that of her child’s–on the line.
1875 – Montana
Fire up your love of romance with Montana Rose, where Cassie Griffin, a seemingly spoiled pregnant woman, is widowed one day and wedded the next. Marrying handyman Red Dawson seems the only alternative to Cassie’s being hitched to a brutal rancher. But can this “china doll” bear exchanging smooth silk for coarse calico? Red was reluctant to be yoked to an unbeliever, but sometimes a man has no choice. Will Red change Cassie’s heart by changing her name? Wade Sawyer is obsessed with saving Cassie from a marriage of convenience. How far will he go make her his own?
In this inspirational historical romance debut novel set in 19th-century England, a young pregnant woman is forced to make difficult choices. Twenty-year-old Charlotte Lamb is the daughter of a heartless English vicar, as we discover when she becomes pregnant and he throws her out of her childhood home. Vulnerable and unprotected, she is forced to a lodging place for unwed mothers. Soon, Lamb must make decisions involving true love and sacrifice, providing many powerful turning points throughout the story.
1857 – Washington
Determined to raise her children on her own terms, Emma suddenly finds herself alone and pregnant with her third child, struggling to keep her family secure in the remote coastal forest of the Washington Territory. With loss and disappointment as her fuel, she kindles a fire that soon threatens to consume her, making a series of poor choices that take her into dangerous relationships.
As clouds of despair close in, she must decide whether to continue in her own waning strength or to humble herself and accept help from the very people she once so eagerly left behind.
Sixth Covenant (A. D. Chronicles, Book 6)
0 – Middle East
Who in Bethlehem could guess that their tiny, obscure village, populated by shepherds, would become the hinge upon which all history turns . . . and the focus of a terrifying rampage? Sixth Covenant is the conclusion of the three-book Nativity story within the A.D. Chronicles series. Sixth Covenant chronicles Mary, Yosef, and baby Yeshua in the first months of his life in Bethlehem. From the shepherd’s visit to the escape to Egypt to the Bethlehem babies who gave their life for Jesus, discover the most critical events in the history of the world.
1750 – Virginia
The death of her husband forced Garnet Wheelock to become a mail-order bride. The torturous ship voyage was eclipsed only by the cruelty of her master in the New World of Virginia. But the Lord’s hand was upon her, and she has been bought by a new master and given a home. A widower of four years, Samuel Walsh longs for a women’s touch upon his home and family. The Widow Wheelock seems perfect for the task – she’s industrious and loving, and the children adore her. He’s vowed never to marry again, but when news of her pregnancy spawns accusations of impropriety, Sam weds Garnet to preserve his honor. Could their feelings run deeper than mere obligation? Can the Lord weave two broken lives together and create a future stronger than the past that haunts them?
1867 – Colorado
Left for dead, Larson Jennings returns home badly burned. His obviously pregnant wife Kathryn is losing their ranch. Disfigured beyond recognition to most–Larson is determined to save his family.
1890s – England/At Sea/South Africa
She gambled with her husband’s trust. At stake is–everything.
Evy Varley’s marriage to Rogan Chantry is all she had hoped it would be–until she finds out that she is pregnant with a honeymoon baby. Fearing that Rogan won’t allow her to travel while she is expecting, Evy plots to keep her pregnancy secret in order to accompany him to South Africa. Her thoughts are not only for her husband, but Evy is determined to travel to Bulawayo, the new mission station of Dr. Jakob van Buren–the one man who can help Evy to finally clear her mother’s name.
After she and Rogan set out to sea, however, Evy discovers that she has gone too far in her deceit, and the damage to her marriage may be irreversible. Matters only worsen in Africa, where malaria, murder, and an African uprising all take their toll–and where Rogan and Evy must fight not only for their love, but also for their very lives.
1948 – Israel
It is May 23, 1948, and Jewish and Muslim forces have been in brutal conflict since the new State of Israel was proclaimed nine days ago. The Zion Gate is closed and the Haganah patriots, struggling to hold on to the Old City, are running out of supplies. Inside the city, the defenders’ valiant spirit threatens to fail. The leading Haganah strategist, Moshe Sachar, is trapped in enemy territory and desperately races to reach his pregnant wife, Rachel, and the others who continue to fight for the Old City. Rachel’s grandfather sees a prophecy of hope for Jerusalem, but can Moshe reach them before it’s too late?
1 BC – Israel
All eternity had been waiting for this moment. God chose one woman.
Meet Mary, one of the most revered women in history. But first, she was an ordinary woman striving to please God in the same way that women still do today. When God spoke, Mary responded in simple obedience. And God chose her to bear the long-awaited Messiah. She couldn’t know that raising the perfect son would break her heart and change the world forever.
