Lucky in Love by Joan La Blanc – Summer 2019
“This unsentimental but nevertheless sweet romance will appeal to readers who enjoy well-researched historical fiction and a leisurely pace.” – Publishers Weekly
At 4 PM on a holiday weekend in 1943, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s premier express departs Washington’s Union Station for a high-speed run to Penn Station in New York City. Among the 541 passengers in its sixteen coaches are a disillusioned war widow and a Navy submarine officer on route to an exciting new duty. Over the next hours, these strangers discover they share not only adjoining seats but the same final destination—Portsmouth, New Hampshire—and an intriguing attraction. As the Congressional Limited barrels into Philadelphia, however, Fate intervenes to tear them apart and change their lives in ways neither could have foreseen.
Based on an actual disaster, LUCKY IN LOVE explores the challenges this couple faces in the aftermath of that eventful journey. Thoroughly researched and richly detailed, this is the latest in Joan La Blanc’s series of engaging novels backgrounded by World War II. It offers a compelling glimpse of the many faces of that conflict, including the roles of both railroads and military hospitals of the era. Carefully blending fact and fiction, this is a novel for anyone who relishes a good romance.
Publication Date: June 1, 2019. 295 pages. ISBN-13: 978-1-937997-93-9 . Trade Romance. Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934128. Also available as an ebook.
Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $14.95 U.S.
Twisted Fate by Dana Miller
“A funny and moving look at the way friendship, grief and destiny inform love . . . a comedy that makes you laugh and a drama that makes you cry. Supremely satisfying, the way a great romantic comedy makes you feel.” — Susan Cartsonis, producer of What Women Want and The Duff
“Lainia Jorden’s life is due for a change of fortune in debut author Miller’s moving, funny romance about rebuilding old relationships, trusting in fate, and healing grief . . . A truly sympathetic main character, sparkling dialogue, and a deeper message about loving oneself first make this contemporary a must-read.” – Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
“Dana Miller’s charming romantic debut has the lightness of a meringue. But do not be deceived. Beneath the frothiness is a story of depth and insight and compassion about first love, fate, and following your heart.” – Nina Solomon, author of Single Wife and The Love Book
Laina Jorden can barely drag herself out of bed before lunch. Her Shakespeare-themed Staten Island bookstore is failing, her room’s a disaster, and she’s lost her belief in fate since her childhood sweetheart moved away, leaving her brokenhearted. Any man who asks her out she quickly kicks to the curb. No one can compare to Jared.
Then her roommate forces her to attend his cousin’s wedding, and suddenly she’s walking down the aisle as an emergency bridesmaid in a dress sized for someone nine months pregnant. Even after drinking too much and setting herself on fire, Laina catches Mason’s eye. He seems perfect. But months later, meeting his family in the Bahamas, she discovers his stepbrother, “JP”, is her old flame Jared.
Is it too late to untangle the web she’s twisted in? Laina must uncover secrets, face a few of her own, balance friendship against romance, and fight to regain control of her fate.
Publication Date: January 1, 2019 6 x 9” trade paper, List: $12.95 US. 242 pages
ISBN-13: 978-1-937997-89-2 BISAC: Trade Romance
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952278
Also available as an ebook, ISBN 978-1-937997-90-8, $5.99 US.
Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $12.95 U.S.
The Anna Donovan Novels
The Anna Donovan novels are Joan La Blanc’s linked four-volume series of carefully researched and beautifully written historical romances about young nurse Anna Donovan’s life before, during, and after World War Two. All four books are available through any bookstore or online seller in quality trade paperback, or they may be ordered here either in paperback or as Ebook editions.
Innocence of Angels
by Joan la Blanc
The first in the series. In spring, 1941, as war looms, Anna Moss’s life seems on course for a secure, comfortable future. Not only does she have a good job as a nurse in a naval hospital, she’s engaged to a promising young writer who shares her values of diligence, thrift, and moderation in all things. But then she meets Dan Donovan, a new patient on her ward. Intrigued by the handsome but brash young submarine officer, she’s challenged to experience more of life than she’s previously dared. Eventually unable to resist, she’s caught up in a wartime world where the romance is heady, the risks great, and the realities stark. Yet even as she faces loss, sorrow, and an uncertain future, she’s comforted by the knowledge that she’s followed her dreams into a love deeper and richer than she ever imagined.
ISBN 978-1493583-04-1
Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $13.95 U.S.
Ministry of Angels
by Joan la Blanc
In October, 1943, after the loss of both her Navy officer husband and the baby they were expecting, 25-year-old widow Anna Donovan leaves her parents’ New Hampshire home to work as resident nurse on a remote, isolated island off the coast of Maine. Hoping to find new purpose for her life, she moves into an old hotel operated by another young woman with her own sense of loss. Their friendship is tested when a German U-boat blows up offshore, and Jean becomes involved with a fugitive enemy sailor.
Meanwhile, Anna is increasingly attracted to Dr. Jim Millett, the crippled doctor she works for, but with no expectation he’ll ever share her passion. Tragedy draws them together briefly, but soon dashes her hopes of ever winning his love. Or maybe not…
ISBN 978-1937997-45-8
Ebook Edition, $4.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $13.95 U.S.
Odyssey of Angels
by Joan la Blanc
To the World War Two battlefield casualties evacuated from bloody Pacific beachheads to the clean white beds of hospital ships, the nurses who care for them are angels. For young Ensign Anna Donovan, however, the stresses chip away at her morale, revealing a side of her that’s anything but angelic. Far from family and friends aboard USS Compassion, she’s horrified to find herself drawn to a charismatic but married Navy chaplain.
As the war reaches its bloody climax, Anna soothes her conscience by rationalizing that all that really matters is that she performed her duty. But is her plan to return to her interrupted civilian life, with the man she really loves, just a delusion? And when she leaves the ship, the friends she served with, and the man who shared her illicit passion, what will happen in that bright postwar future so many died to win for her?
ISBN 978-1482622-52-2
Ordinary Angels
by Joan la Blanc
Coming home at the end of World War Two, Anna Donovan jumps into marriage to Dr. Jim Millett, to whom she was engaged before she joined the Navy. But she’s still caught up in recollections of her wartime hospital-ship romance with the Rev. Mark Whitmore. Even as her fondest plans come to fruition, the shadows of her past darken her wonderful new life. Forced at last to confront her ghosts, Anna suffers a breakdown that threatens to rob her of everything she holds dear … unless she can muster the courage to confess.
ISBN 978-1937997-52-6
Ebook Edition, $5.99 U.S. Trade Paper Edition, $14.95 U.S.
Northampton House Press 