"In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa...

Set in the Limberlost Swamp area of Indiana, “Freckles” is American writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter's 1904 novel about the titular character, a one-handed adult orphan who takes a job guarding timber in the swamp. Freckles has lived all his life in a Chicago orphanage and has been missing his right hand as long as he can remember. Now an adult, he is hired on by the Grand Rapids lumber company to guard their valuable timber in the Limberlost...

Jane Eyre is the story of the life of its titular protagonist, Jane Eyre, starting with her abusive childhood in Gateshead Hall, and continuing with her challenging education at Lowood School, her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her mysterious employer, Mr. Rochester, her time in the Moor House, where she is courted by her earnest but cold cousin, St. John Rivers, and finally with her reunion with Rochester. Jane...

When an estranged couple is killed in a tragic accident, strangers Lily Robinson and Sean McGuire are named the guardians of their three orphaned children and must find a way to become a family.

When a financial crisis in 1850s New York leaves three orphaned sisters nearly destitute, the oldest, Elise Neumann, knows she must take action. She's had experience as a seamstress, and the New York Children's Aid Society has established a special service: placing out seamstresses and trade girls. Even though Elise doesn't want to leave her sisters for a job in Illinois, she realizes this may be their last chance. The son of one of New York City's...

Determined to find her lost younger sister, Marianne Neumann takes a job as a placing agent with the Children's Aid Society in 1858 New York. She not only hopes to offer children a better life, but prays she'll be able to discover whether Sophie left the city on an orphan train. Fellow agent Andrew Brady is a former schoolteacher who has an easy way with children, but he seems to carry a grief that won't go away. As the two place orphans in the...

1850. After witnessing a crime, Sophie Neumann needs to flee New York with her two young charges. She manages to find passage to Illinois on an orphan train, with the aid of the Children's Aid Society. Reinhold Weiss has finally purchased his own small farm when an old friend shows up, pleading for help. But how can he help her when mounting debts and past scars still haunt him? -- adapted from back cover and perusal of text.

"Evan Smoak returns in The Last Orphan, the latest New York Times bestselling Orphan X thriller--when everything changes and everything is at risk. As a child, Evan Smoak was plucked out of a group home, raised and trained as an off-the-books assassin for the government as part of the Orphan program. When he broke with the program and went deep underground, he left with a lot of secrets in his head that the government would do anything to make sure...

Rudyard Kipling's epic rendition of the imperial experience in India is also his greatest long work. Born in India and growing into early manhood, Kim is the son of an Irish soldier born under British Imperial rule in 19th century India. Left in the care of a half-caste woman, Kim is free to explore the back allies and bazaars of Lahore. But when he meets with his father's old regiment he trades his native clothes for European suits and abandons his...

"1822. Richard Brockwell, younger son of Ivy Hill's most prominent family, hasn't been home for Christmas in years. He prefers to stay far away from Brockwell Court, the old family secret that haunts him, and the shadows of his past mistakes. After his mother threatens to stop funding his carefree life unless he comes home for Christmas, he plans to return to London and his unencumbered bachelor life as soon as the festivities are over. Christmas...