Texas. 1921: A time of abundance. Elsa Wolcott meets Rafe Martinelli and changes the direction of her life. Her only choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. 1934: Millions are out of work and a drought has broken the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as the crops are failing, the water is drying up, and dust threatens to bury them all. Elsa Martinelli, like so many of her neighbors, must make an agonizing...

"In the waning days of the Civil War, brothers Prentiss and Landry, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, seek refuge on the homestead of George Walker and his wife, Isabelle. The Walkers, wracked by the loss of their only son to the war, hire the brothers to work their farm, hoping through an unexpected friendship to stanch their grief. Prentiss and Landry, meanwhile, plan to save money for the journey north and a chance to reunite with their mother,...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Until that September of 1952, Luke Chandler had never kept a secret or told a single lie. But in the long, hot summer of his seventh year, two groups of migrant workers — and two very dangerous men — came through the Arkansas Delta to work the Chandler cotton farm. And suddenly mysteries are flooding Luke’s world.

A brutal murder leaves the town seething in gossip...

Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist of this beautifully written Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle for it. Alienated from his parents, all but rejected by his wife, and dissatisfied with farming, Claude is an idealist without an ideal to cling to. It's only when America enters the First World War that Claude finds...

MY ANTONIA is the wistful tale of an immigrant girl from Bohemia, who has settled in Nebraska. Narrated by Antonia's childhood friend Jim Burden, the novel draws heavily upon Willa Cather's own formative years, as well as, through the persona of Jim, Cather's experience of New York, where she worked as Editor of the MCCLURE magazine. MY ANTONIA is the third in a sequence of Cather's works which deal with immigrant settlers in the USA. Writing as a...

Twenty-seven-year-old Joanna Kurtz has made several trips to the altar, but never as a bride. The single young Amish woman is a closet writer with a longing to be published something practically unheard of in her Lancaster County, Pennsylvania community. Yet Joanna's stories aren't her only secret. She also has a beau who is courting her from afar, unbeknownst even to her sister, Cora, who, though younger, seems to have suitors to spare. Eben Troyer...

"Alongside her cousins who have booths of their own, Bethany Gingerich runs a busy and successful coffee and donut stand at the Amish market. Since she has café-style tables and chairs, her regular customers enjoy purchasing a morning treat so they can sit and talk to their friends.Micah Zook and his grandfather, Enos, visit Bethany every Saturday morning to purchase coffee and donuts before going to work at Enos's custom outdoor furniture shop....

"In the final installment of Amy Clipston's bestselling Amish Marketplace series, a young widow struggling to raise her son dreams of one more chance at love. Since her husband died seven years ago, Leanna Wengerd has done her best--tending to her son, Chester, and running her Jam and Jelly Nook at the Amish market. Though she enjoys seeing her cousins and customers at the marketplace, she wishes she could find more time for her rebellious teenage...

Far From the Maddening Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics: • New introductions commissioned from todays top writers and scholars • Biographies of the authors • Chronologies...

Although newcomer Pete Treger finds both sisters attractive, he is drawn to older sister Cate Miller's fiery demeanor, so the other bachelors in Paradise Township, Pennsylvania, convince Pete to court Cate so they can have a chance with her sister, Betsy.