In The House on Sprucewood Lane, Caroline Slate established herself as a distinctive new voice in psychological suspense, a writer who creates characters so rounded the reader can hear their ragged breathing (Publishers Weekly). Now, in this highly charged story of love and trust turned inside out, she crafts a tale of passion and intrigue, murder and betrayal -- friendship and love. One moment is all it takes to change the course of a life. An instant in time, and a world is forever altered. For successful young jewelry designer Grace Leshansky that moment came when she shot and killed her charismatic con-man husband, Paul Boudreau. Grace never denied the act, never spoke about the moments just before, when her finger tightened around the trigger -- when Paul ripped her world apart with one more lie. Or was it a truth? Manslaughter: to Grace's ear the slaughter of a man sounded worse than murder. It still does seven years later when she's released from prison -- a woman indelibly changed. She returns to New York City, where she finds everything that mattered to her gone. She fiercely misses her father, George, a charming, hapless gambler with a taste for the company of gangsters. But George Leshansky's dead now, killed to prevent his turning FBI witness -- or perhaps, just perhaps, he is alive. As she searches for a way to live with the past and in the present, Grace confronts more memories than she can bear and a few questions she may no longer be brave enough to ask. Almost immediately, risks begin to surface from every direction: Gabriel McCail, a reporter bent on exposing Paul's treacherous life in an insider biography, threatens to stir up the past; and Michael Pyatt, the beautiful boy who loved and left her at seventeen, is back, possibly with information about her father. Will Grace have the courage to face the answers to her questions, or will her quest for the truth jeopardize her newly won freedom, and the lives of those she holds most dear?

When the mutilated remains of a young woman are found in an Appalachian Mountain cave, newly sworn-in deputy sheriff Brynn Callahan is forced to track down a killer driven by twisted motives . . . Not long after donning the uniform of the McCreary County Sheriff's department in Bone Gap, Tennessee, ex-Marine Brynn Callahan faces her first official homicide. On a cold February morning, a lone cross-country skier stumbles across the mutilated body of a young woman. Sent to investigate, Brynn is shocked when she recognizes the victim as a fellow Traveller, Maura Keene. Maura held a solid standing both within the Travellers’ insular community and among the settled townspeople—a fact that makes her murder all the more disturbing to Brynn, who also straddles the two worlds. After her trained K-9, Wilco, digs up human bones, and then a scrap of paper scrawled with arcane Latin phrases is uncovered, Brynn finds evidence leading her to question those closest to her—and closing the case becomes a deeply personal matter. While trying to suppress local superstitions and prejudices, Brynn discovers that Maura was keeping a dangerous secret. And as the bones Wilco found are analyzed by forensics, Brynn harbors the troubling suspicion that she knows who they belong to. Still struggling with PTSD, Brynn must put her career on the line and her life at risk to find justice for a woman not unlike herself—haunted by her past, and caught in a vicious cycle she may never escape . . .

French rule in Syria and Lebanon coincided with the rise of colonial resistance around the world and with profound social trauma after World War I. In this tightly argued study, Elizabeth Thompson shows how Syrians and Lebanese mobilized, like other colonized peoples, to claim the terms of citizenship enjoyed in the European metropole. The negotiations between the French and citizens of the Mandate set the terms of politics for decades after Syria and Lebanon achieved independence in 1946. Colonial Citizens highlights gender as a central battlefield upon which the relative rights and obligations of states and citizens were established. The participants in this struggle included not only elite nationalists and French rulers, but also new mass movements of women, workers, youth, and Islamic populists. The author examines the "gendered battles" fought over France's paternalistic policies in health, education, labor, and the press. Two important and enduring political structures issued from these conflicts: * First, a colonial welfare state emerged by World War II that recognized social rights of citizens to health, education, and labor protection. * Second, tacit gender pacts were forged first by the French and then reaffirmed by the nationalist rulers of the independent states. These gender pacts represented a compromise among male political rivals, who agreed to exclude and marginalize female citizens in public life. This study provides a major contribution to the social construction of gender in nationalist and postcolonial discourse. Returning workers, low-ranking religious figures, and most of all, women to the narrative history of the region--figures usually omitted-- Colonial Citizens enhances our understanding of the interwar period in the Middle East, providing needed context for a better understanding of statebuilding, nationalism, Islam, and gender since World War II.

After your faith has fractured, let what takes its place be the real thing . . . at last. Somewhere along the way, the Christianity you knew began to crumble. You began to suspect your faith was misplaced. Disillusionment set in. Churches hurt you. Their people failed you. Christian institutions were exposed as fake. And in it all, God was silent. Is He gone? Or is God really there, waiting for you to find Him instead of the counterfeits? If you’re walking this difficult spiritual path, Lina AbuJamra understands you. After experiencing the near deconstruction of her own faith, Lina had to rebuild something more solid when the faith she once knew let her down. With her diagnostic style that comes from her training as an ER doc, Lina helps you grapple with questions like: Where is God in my pain? Is this how Christians are supposed to act? Why did my story end up this way? Is this the normal Christian life? Why is it so hard for Christians to love? Let Fractured Faith help you find your way back to God. You just might discover that the real God has been waiting for you all along.

St. Augustine, the North African bishop of Hippo (AD 354-430), has been much studied. But there has been no systematic attempt to consider the context which shaped his life and thought. Augustine's long and controversial career and his vast literary output provide unrivalled evidence for understanding the diverse ways in which Christianity confronted, assimilated, and finally transformed the traditional society of late antiquity. This book sets Augustine in his cultural and social context showing how, as a Christian, he came to terms with the philosophical and rhetorical ideals of classical culture, and, as a bishop, with the ecclesiastical, ascetic, and political structures of late antique society. According to Augustine, the Fall of man and Original sin fracture and vitiate mankind's ability to know or to will the good. This is revealed as the keystone of his theology, effecting a decisive break with classical ideals of perfection and shaping the distinctive theology of Western Christendom.

Particles Of Truth In Fractured Sunlight is a Book of poetry and thoughtful reflections written by Peter McDonough Sr. It is an exploration of multiple themes across various perceptions always with a common theme of seeking truth. It is a window into the world the author has experienced living in Maryland just outside the city of DC his entire life. It represents a relentless search for purpose and meaning.

I commend Dr. Mattocks for his forthright presentation of Broken Family--Fractured Society, which addresses the alarming and deteriorating condition of the family in our contemporary society, and offers advice and encouragement based on a firm foundation of biblical principles. The author's intent is to promote the preservation of marriage in the values that the Lord gave the human family in the Garden of Eden. This is an invaluable work for those interested in one of the most crucial issues facing humankind. This insightful book is a must-read for every family, church leader, teacher, and counselor--anyone interested and involved in the challenge of restoring holiness in marriage. Mary Melton, MA, California Dr. Mattocks shows that marriage goes far beyond man and woman coming together and exchanging vows and rings. It is in fact fundamental to the survival of mankind and critical in God's plan. Sonia Golding, Birmingham, England