Fiction-Religious

With brilliant pacing and gorgeous prose, acclaimed novelist Greg Garrett tells the story of American TV journalist Calvin Jones, who travels to Paris to work with a producer friend he knows from their dark days covering the war in Iraq.

Cal Jones has had a quiet ten years, by design. After surviving the loss of two people he loved in the Iraq war, which he covered as a national correspondent, he fell apart and retreated to a local news job in Texas. Cal is still wrestling with those old demons when he goes to Paris to work with an old friend and encounters Nadia, a brilliant, lovely, and sad Saudi Muslim woman in Paris with plans to wed a Saudi sheikh in a family-arranged marriage.

Against his own better judgment, Cal falls for Nadia, even dragging her from the Seine when she attempts to solve her insoluble problem by taking her own life. He begins to risk a heart he thought was too badly broken to ever love again, and as the wedding ticks closer, to hope that perhaps Nadia can make a choice that includes him. Then their time rescuing each other is interrupted by the terror attack in Nice, which Cal is called out to cover. Back in that setting, Cal is thrown back into the memories of senseless violence and extremism that shattered him in Iraq--and that threaten to shatter him and his hopes now. Garrett's characters wrestle with the ghosts of their pasts, as they long for love, friendship, and faith in the present. Bastille Day is a gloriously-affecting novel about how our histories can damage us, but hope can heal us.

Otto Ringling is a straightlaced publishing executive with two kids, a lovely wife, a fine home in a fancy New York suburb, and a nagging suspicion that something's missing. How, then, does he end up traveling through Middle America with a berobed Mongolian monk? Ah. The real question to ask is, Why?

When his sister tricks him into taking her guru on a trip to their childhood home, Otto, a confirmed skeptic, is not amused. Six days on the road with an enigmatic holy man who answers every question with a riddle is not what he'd planned. But in an effort to westernize his passenger--and amuse himself--he decides to show the monk some "American fun" along the way. From a chocolate factory in Hershey to a bowling alley in South Bend, from a Cubs game at Wrigley Field to his family farm near Bismarck, Otto is given the remarkable opportunity to see his world--and more important, his life--through someone else's eyes. Gradually, skepticism yields to amazement as he realizes that his companion might just be the real thing.

In Roland Merullo's masterful hands, Otto tells his story with all the wonder, bemusement, and wry humor of a man who unwittingly finds what he's missing in the most unexpected place.

From John Gray, bestselling author of Manchester Christmas and Chasing Manhattan, comes the third novel in a heartwarming trilogy full of charm, romance, and mystery.

Always blazing their own path, newly engaged couple Chase and Gavin decide to forego a typical American wedding, followed by a honeymoon in Italy. Instead, they'll spend the month of December in Rome with a local Italian family, learning the customs and exploring every romantic adventure they can find.

On a trip to the famed Colosseum, Chase and Gavin meet an elderly artist who offers them four riddles that he promises will unlock the most romantic places in all of Italy. As the couple deciphers each clue, they are taken from the canals of Venice to the Bridge of Sighs over the Tiber, to a monastery on the Island of Elba -- meeting others who are struggling with secrets, love, and loss. They encounter heart-pounding intrigue and old-world charm on the ancient streets of Rome, and discover that almost nothing is as it seems. Will Chase and Gavin make it to their wedding on Christmas Eve or will they forever find themselves Chasing Rome?