Karen's Works, An Excerpt
Meet a remarkable woman.
Read an unforgettable love story.
Circled Heart
by Karen J. Hasley
Johanna Swan is a survivor. She escaped death twice—as a child in China during the Boxer Uprising of 1900 and twelve years later as a young woman aboard the ocean liner Titanic. An educated suffragist and social worker, Johanna is too petite and inelegant to show to advantage in the era of the graceful Gibson Girl. Not that she cares about her inadequate fashion sense or lack of style. She’s an heiress, after all, with ambitious plans to help the poor and immigrant women of Chicago using the progressive services of the Anchorage, one of many Crittenton homes that were established throughout the United States in the late nineteenth century to offer assistance to abused and destitute women—precursors of present-day women’s shelters.
Johanna manages her life the same way she runs a business. Invest sensibly and ensure a sensible return. Never be obligated. Keep emotion out of decision making. Reduce risk. Maintain secure profits. Keep firm control of your assets. But the emotional turmoil in her family and the growing confusion in her own heart when it comes to charismatic, sentimental and—she fears—deceitful Drew Gallagher are interfering with Johanna’s orderly existence. For all her logical decision making, it will be the shifting emotions of desire and despair that finally force Johanna to realize that love is more complex and life far less predictable than any business venture.
Read an excerpt from Circled Heart.
Where Home Is
by Karen J. Hasley
The year is 1910. Katherine Davis, M.D. is an intelligent, self-assured, and attractive woman whose confidence perfectly reflects the confidence of a new century overflowing with scientific, medical, and technological breakthroughs. Without a moment's hesitation, young Dr. Davis accepts the professional invitation of a lifetime when she travels to Chicago's Hull-House to work with the celebrated social reformer, Jane Addams. Katherine is an excellent doctor eager to make a difference in the world and the people around her, and Chicago's crowded tenements with their burgeoning immigrant population offer just that opportunity.
Everything Katherine believes about right and wrong, about good and evil she learned from her parents and the secure childhood they gave her. But times have changed, and Katherine can no longer rely on the values of the past. She has outgrown that past and the home of her childhood seems outdated and old-fashioned compared to the progressive society around her. She's an independent woman, who must make her own way and follow her own ideals.
When Katherine meets the dazzling Douglas Gallagher, a man as confident and as fearless as she, a successful man who has left his own past behind, an uncompromising-even ruthless-man, she is asked to choose between her past and her future. And the choice is so much more complicated than she expected! Because for Katherine, deciding where-and who-home really is will change her forever. And for good.
Read an excerpt from Where Home Is.
Waiting for Hope
by Karen J. Hasley
In 1905, Hope Birdwell is a spirited young woman of strong will and uncompromising dreams. Exchanging her routine life as the domestic servant of a wealthy family for the demanding self-reliance of a Wyoming homesteader is the first step in her plan for success. Hope is finally on her way to the home and the future she has always desired, and she will not allow any distractions into her life-or her heart.
What Hope doesn't realize is that her dream of a bright and independent future will be threatened by secrets from her past, a past darkened by the shadows of prostitution and violence. In order to make a new home and claim a new love, Hope must confront everything she is trying to escape. When she is forced to risk everything for the place and the people she has grown to love, Hope will discover the danger-and the power-and the freedom of truth.
Read an excerpt from Waiting for Hope.
Lily's Sister
by Karen J. Hasley
Louisa Caldecott, a progressive woman and independent business owner in 1880 Kansas, is principled, strong-willed, passionate, and generous to a fault. Satisfied with her comfortable life, Lou is content to live in her sister Lily's shadow. Until she meets John Rock Davis, Civil War veteran and man with a past. Until her cherished hometown is rocked by violence and fear and her friends and neighbors begin to act like strangers. Until she is forced to take a stand that threatens to destroy her safety, her happiness, and everything she holds dear. Then all hell—but heaven, too—breaks loose, and self-sufficient Lou finally understands the cost of courage and the power of love.
Read an excerpt from Lily's Sister.
Copyright © 2006 Karen J. Hasley
