Frank Carlson Library

Reverend John Ames is dying in 1956 in Gilead, Iowa. Glory Boughton has returned to care for her dying father and soon her brother, Jack, the prodigal son, comes home, too. As the Reverend John Ames approaches the hour of his own death, he writes a letter to his son chronicling three previous generations of his family, a story that stretches back to the Civil War and reveals uncomfortable family secrets. In 1956, toward the end of Reverend John Ames's...

In a small Ozark community the Matthews family live in the shadow of tragedy. Their only daughter had died in childbirth, after the man she loved had betrayed and deserted her. Young Matt had lived his life under the shadow of a curse ; the promise to kill the man who abandoned his mother. A stranger arrives in the mountains and becomes known as "the Shepherd" because of his kindness to the people of the mountains.

It was the happiest day of her life...
Until Heather Waters was cruelly jilted at the altar. Yet now that very church is a beacon of hope for the tornado-ravaged town. With her charity mission, Heather finally comes home to High Plains and faces the man she believes betrayed her trust that day: Reverend Michael Garrison. As they work together to restore the town's faith, Heather's own heart remains in tatters. Until Michael, along with his precocious...

Having pursued intellectual matters all of his life, Father Tim discovers the joys of working with his hands when he discovers a worn-out nativity scene and begins to restore it.

After five hectic years of retirement from Lord's Chapel, Father Tim Kavanagh returns with his wife, Cynthia, from a so-called pleasure trip to the land of his Irish ancestors. While glad to be at home in Mitford, something is definitely missing: a pulpit. But when he's offered one, he decides he doesn't want it. Maybe he's lost his passion. His adopted son, Dooley, wrestles with his own passion -- for the beautiful and gifted Lace Turner, and his...

Thrilling new addition to Margaret Coel's New York Times best-selling Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden Wind River Mysteries.

"A sinful act ruins the lives of three people, especially that of Hester Prynne, a young, beautiful, and dignified woman, who has conceived a child out of wedlock and receives a public punishment of having to wear a scarlet "A" on her clothing. Despite Hester's attempts through the years to distance herself from her past and repent for her sins, she continues to be rejected by society. A best-seller upon its publication in 1850, The Scarlet Letter's...

Two broken people come together to make each other whole in 1850s Utah. He is a Presbyterian minister who turned gold prospector after the death of his wife, she is an Irish girl who was sold into slavery to an American during the potato famine. They meet in the wilds, she lying unconscious in the snow, having been abandoned.

The Gathering was the twenty-fourth in Kienzle's series of mysteries, featuring Father Robert Koesler as a Roman Catholic priest whose intuitiveness and caring nature have led him to an unusual calling: solving mysteries, mostly of the murderous kind. In this entry, revisit Koesler's adolescent and teen years, to a time when young Catholic men and women were encouraged, even expected, to become priests and nuns, whether or not their vocation was...

The Daughters of the Immaculate Conception are about to open a retirement home for priests and nuns.