Bücher von Nona Austin Roberts

For many years Andovia was a military school for boys from wealthy families, but somewhere along the way, it was abandoned and eventually turned into an orphanage. It was the place where ten-and-a-half-year-old Amelia, nicknamed Meely, had lived for the better part of her childhood and where, she believed, nothing would ever change. Then on a Monday morning, in the spring of 1950, at breakfast, in between bites of yucky mush, Sybil whispered that a new girl was coming soon, an odd-looking mulatto, and no one really wanted her, but they were forced to take her. Amelia didn't know what a mulatto was or if Sybil was right, but she was such a know-it-all, always acting like she knew things that no one else knew, she didn't ask. It didn't matter anyway since there were no empty beds in her ward. And then the very next day, Fanny, who had been in the bed next to her, was adopted. Susie Maitland, the mulatto, was put in that bed, and everything changed.

When Sarah Madigan lost her three children to diphtheria, she also lost her hair and was shunned and thought to be crazy, a thought not far from her own assessment or her husband's. Broken in spirit and pregnant with her fourth child, she stole a Diary in which she found some release for her sorrow and pain. When the baby came, she was ready to begin again until her husband, bedridden after being trampled by his horse, secretly sent their fourth child away, pushing her to the edge of insanity and leaving her in charge of their farm with only an old ex-slave to help her. It is April 1910. Sarah Madigan's husband of ten years controls everything in her life. Without her baby son, she is desperate and tormented. The only thing keeping her going is her determination to do whatever she has to do to prove to her husband that she is capable and worthy so he will allow their child to come back home.