Secret at Dark Castle (Prickly Hawthorn Village Book 1) by Karen Dean Benson
A secret no one dared whisper… 1816 County Waterford, Hawthorn Village, Ireland Mairéad, left in a basket on the steps of The Sacred Heart Convent and raised by the nuns, intends to take vows in the fall when she turns eighteen. Having lived her life within the cloister, she knows nothing of the secular world except for the dealings she has had with people who bring their manuscripts to be illuminated. Her delicate artistry is a source of income for the convent. A local aristocrat, Lord Darnley, willing to pay a vast amount for work on his manuscript, demands she stay at Rockmore Hall for the summer to illuminate a book he wrote about his ancestors. [more]
Would history repeat itself? “Look what happened to our British friends at Gallipoli. Of the first two hundred men that landed at Cape Helles, only twelve made the beach alive.” As early as 1919, Marine General “Howling Mad” Holland Smith knew the US would likely be involved in another World War against Japan. He feared that it was only a matter of time. His eyes turned to the Pacific islands as the most logical theatre of war. How, he wondered, could the Marines possibly land troops and keep them alive long enough to fight? In 1928, the killer Okeechobee Hurricane strikes Florida. Don Roebling, grandson of the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, is determined to invent a rescue boat that can conquer the swamps, the flooding and the debris strewn terrain to save lives! Together, these two Americans will face nightmares of red tape, engineering challenges, corruption and personal set-backs to train and equip the US Marines for their greatest challenges of WWII, and shape world history.
