Jules Monroe is a woman whose hard work and dedication has built a rewarding life for herself and her family. Now in her late fifties, she gives selflessly to her husband, kids, community, and their charter business. But everything comes to an abrupt halt when her body says enough, and her mind yearns for respite and a place to hide from past hurts.
Oldest son, Jonah Monroe, is a veteran haunted by a childhood tragedy. His past includes things he isn't proud of and can't quite shake. When his chance to be a hero finally arrives, it comes with strings attached. Will he accept the kindness of strangers to help bring his family back together, or will his demons continue to be his downfall?
Maui isn't always the safe paradise it's made out to be and when ancient island superstitions threaten to rob the Monroe family yet again, they must all find a way to deter the impending disaster.
Maggie Dalton was forced to uproot her entire life to protect herself and her son. Just when she thinks she’s outrun her past, she’ll have to face her fears in this emotional and suspenseful novel by the bestselling author of Wish Me Home.
After a year on the move, single mom Maggie Dalton has found a safe haven with her son in Maui. It’s the perfect spot to settle down now that her relentless stalker is finally behind bars. Maggie finds a new job and a new life thanks to some help from her best friend, Quinn, who urged her to come start over in paradise. But when signals suggest her stalker is back, Maggie realizes Maui might not be the safe oasis she thought.
Quinn knows all about facing the past. Tenuously reunited with her biological family after thirty years, she’s still coming to terms with her childhood—along with guilt, secrets, and mysteries yet to be resolved. And just as she’s starting to figure out where she fits in with her family, a name from the past threatens them all.
With that fear comes a choice for both women: abandon the lives they’ve been building on Maui, or find the courage to finally stop running and fight for the happiness they deserve.
From the bestselling author of Wish Me Home comes a breathtaking novel about the secrets that families keep and one woman’s illuminating search for the truth.
Quinn Maguire has a stable life, a fiancé, and what she thinks is a clear vision for her future. All of that comes undone by her mother’s deathbed confession—the absentee father Quinn spent thirty years resenting is not her real father at all. With that one revealing whisper, Quinn embarks on a journey to Maui, her mother’s childhood home, a storied paradise that holds the truth about her mother’s past and all its secrets Quinn is determined to uncover.
But settling on the island has its complications, and with the fiancé she left behind questioning every choice she makes, Quinn’s quest for her truth is even more difficult than she expected. As time passes and she digs deeper into her family history and her own identity, one thing becomes clear: Maui is as beautiful as she’d always imagined, and its magic is helping uncover the woman that Quinn was always meant to be.
From the bestselling author of Wish Me Home comes a heart-racing tale of resilience and hope.
When Sadie Harlan visits her daughter, Lauren, at her summer internship in Yosemite National Park, it seems like the perfect way to forget about her empty nest and failing marriage back home. But when the two women get lost on what’s meant to be a short hike, they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives.
As they search for food, water, and civilization, they battle injury, exhaustion, and natural predators. Sadie, however, is assaulted by more than just the unforgiving elements. She lost her first child years earlier in a tragic accident, and in her sorrow, she’s pushed everyone away—including her husband. Now, Sadie must face her past through a journey of love, loss, and learning to forgive herself if she and Lauren are to stand a chance at getting out of Yosemite alive. Will a mother’s courage be enough to save them both?
In her first work of contemporary women’s fiction, bestselling author Kay Bratt draws on her own life experiences to create a raw, yet inescapably warm, novel about friendship and a wary heart’s unexpected capacity to love. A hungry, stray dog is the last thing Cara Butter needs. Stranded in Georgia with only her backpack and a few dwindling dollars, she already has too much baggage. Like her twin sister, Hana, who has broken Cara’s heart one too many times.
After a lifetime of family troubles, and bouncing from one foster home to another, Cara decides to leave it all behind and strike out alone—on foot. Cara sets off to Florida to see the home of her literary hero, Ernest Hemingway, accompanied only by Hemi, the stray dog who proves to be the perfect travel companion. But the harrowing trip takes unexpected turns as strangers become friends who make her question everything, and Cara finds that as the journey unfolds, so does her life—in ways she could never imagine.
The prequel to the beloved Tales of the Scavenger’s Daughters series, The Palest Ink depicts Benfu’s coming-of-age during the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution.
A sheltered son from an intellectual family in Shanghai, Benfu spends 1966 anticipating an arranged marriage and a promising career as a violinist. On the other side of town lives Pony Boy, a member of a lower-class family—but Benfu’s best friend all the same. Their futures look different but guaranteed…until they’re faced with a perilous opportunity to leave a mark on history.
At the announcement of China’s Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao’s Red Guard members begin their assault, leaving innocent victims in their wake as they surge across the country. With political turmoil at their door, both Benfu and Pony Boy must face heart-wrenching decisions regarding family, friendship, courage, and loyalty to their country during one of the most chaotic periods in history.
In the fourth book of the Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters series, the fates of three people who've never met converge in profound and unexpected ways.
Mari, the daughter of the town scavenger, grew up knowing hardship, but she never could have anticipated the struggles that now face her as an adult. Feeling alone and isolated, she dreams of a better life. On the other side of town, a frightened little girl named An Ni is forced to live on the streets, but she silently longs for the one thing she's never known-a family. Max, a struggling American photojournalist, arrives in China with only one goal in mind: to face his demons and put an end to his own unbearable suffering.
From the bestselling author of A Thread Unbroken comes an emotional, hope-filled story that offers a fresh glimpse into the life of a remarkable family.
In the third audiobook of the Tales of the Scavenger’s Daughters series, Benfu and Calli watch as their adopted children struggle to balance independence and family duty. For the last decade, Ivy has remained haunted by her mother’s last words: “I’m sorry. Take care of your sister.” When the police mistakenly imprison her blind sister, Lily, Ivy realizes how much her sister’s freedom means to her. Meanwhile, Li Jin—Benfu and Calli’s only child by birth—proudly runs a shelter nursing China’s lost and forgotten children. But Sami, a shelter tenant and Li Jin’s companion from her destitute days, still burns for revenge against the man who corrupted her. Now Li Jin faces a difficult choice: help a friend from the past, or nurture her own future. Both poetic and heartbreaking, Kay Bratt’s Bitter Winds follows the poignant, often painful tests that the bonds and loyalties of sisterhood endure.
The pain of China’s Cultural Revolution well behind them, Benfu and his treasured Calla Lily are content in their old age surrounded by their family of adopted daughters. Once abandoned, the girls are now cherished members of the Zheng family. Yet there remains an emptiness in their hearts: their only biological daughter, Dahlia, was abducted as a newborn 30 years before. When their daughter Linnea discovers an unexpected clue about what really happened to Dahlia, the elderly couple’s hopes are reignited. Will their search bring their daughter back to them, and are they ready to face the secrets of the past?
Coming of age during China's Cultural Revolution, Benfu survived the cruel years, but he did not emerge unscathed.
The Scavenger's Daughters is the story of Benfu and his beloved wife Calli, chronicling their attempts to build a life in the turmoil and aftermath of Maoist China. At the heart of their struggle lies the pain of losing their only child. To fill the terrible hole in their lives, they take in abandoned girls - the unwanted "weeds" - as their own, lovingly caring for them as flowers in a garden. Linnea, the oldest of the scavenger's daughters, embarks on a struggle of her own, as she falls in love with the son of a wealthy family.
Inspired by a true story, this poetic tale of modern-day China chronicles Benfu and Calli as they turn their path of hardship into a beautiful field of flowers.
Chai and Josi share a bond that transcends ordinary friendship. While Chai has always been Josi's protector-ever since they were toddlers, growing up together in a small Chinese village-she finds herself helpless when they are both abducted from their families and sold to faraway strangers. In their new home, with the family of the fisherman who bought them, their old lives are torn away piece by piece. But Chai knows she must stay strong if they're to have any chance of escaping. That same tenacious hope guides Chai's father, Jun, who fights to find the girls and bring them home, despite seemingly insurmountable odds and a corrupt legal system. The days since the girls were taken soon stretch to weeks and months, but Chai's spirit remains unbroken and Jun's resolve unwavering. An inspiring story of remarkable courage and indefatigable hope, A Thread Unbroken is about the invisible ties that hold people together, even when everything around them is falling apart.
When her family relocated to rural China in 2003, Kay Bratt was thrust into a new world, one where boys were considered more valuable than girls and poverty and the one-child policy had created an epidemic of abandoned infants. As a volunteer at a local orphanage, Bratt witnessed conditions that were unfathomable to a middle-class mother of two from South Carolina. Based on Bratt's diary of her four years at the orphanage, Silent Tears offers a searing account of young lives rendered disposable. In the face of an implacable system, Bratt found ways to work within (and around) the rules to make a better future for the children, whom she came to love. The book offers no easy answers. While often painful in its clear-sightedness, Silent Tears balances the sadness and struggles of life in the orphanage with moments of joy, optimism, faith, and victory. It is the story of hundreds of children - and of one woman who never planned on becoming a hero but became one anyway.
