Elaine Bergstrom

In the musty attic of an upstate New York house, a woman finds an old manuscript written by a girl dreaming of a better life, fighting for survival, and coming of age in a time of chaos and danger. This wondrously told tale is a stirring adventure set in nineteenth-century England, a novel of rich history and vibrant imagination. Amid the lush fields and gardens of an English estate, in a kitchen where every meal is a sumptuous feast, a young servant called Paddy anxiously hides her true identity. Using coal soot and grease, she conceals her flaming red hair and covers her body, desperate to keep the job she needs. But the girl, whose real name is Mina, cannot conceal from herself the pain of her past or the beauty of an Ireland she remembers with love and grief—until she meets a man who convinces her to trust him, a man hiding sorrows of his own. To the mysterious Mr. Serle—the estate's skilled and quiet chef—Mina dares to confess her true identity and reveal a shattered past: her flight from the blighted fields of her homeland to the teeming streets of Liverpool...her memories of the family she lost and dreams for the future. And as Mina and Mr. Serle begin to know each other, an extraordinary journey begins—a journey of faith and identity, adventure and awakening, that will alter the course of both their lives. The sights and sounds of nineteenth-century England come vividly to life in Jonatha Ceely's magnificent novel, a tale that explores the intricate relationship forged by two people in hiding. Moving and unforgettable, Mina is historical fiction at its finest—a novel that makes you think, feel, and marvel...until the last satisfying page is turned.

A creation of magic as old as Ravenloft itself, the tapestry possesses the power to attract and absorb the evil creatures that roam the Dark Domains. Only a reclusive order of monks, the Guardians, know of the tapestry’s might. It is their duty t use it wisely and to prevent the beings bound within the cloth from escaping. Yet the number of Guardians is dwindling their hold over the tapestry slipping with each passing year. Their only hope for containing the evil is Jonathan, a youth with strange magical powers. When the boy discovers his ties to the creatures of the cloth, however, he may become the guardians doom instead of their champion.