Book Recommendations~Stand Alones

Today I just thought that I'd share a few of my favorite books with you. These are all stand alone books. Tomorrow I will do another recommendation post, but with some of my favorite series. :)

Melissa James has a picture-perfect existence--or so it seems. In reality, she has been looking over her shoulder her entire life. Just as her secrets are about to catch up with her, she seeks a haven in Pennsylvania Amish Country. Will her stay bring her peace, or will it bring danger to the Plain community?

Flight instructor Jack Livingston has been raising his eight-year-old adopted niece, Natalie, since the accident that took her parents' lives. When he travels, Natalie is tenderly cared for by her Amish nanny, Laura Mast, who loves the little girl as her own.

Eight excruciating years ago, Kelly Maines's baby was kidnapped. Determined to find her child, Kelly has tirelessly pursued every lead to its bitter end. And now, with the clock ticking, one last clue from a private investigator ignites a tiny flame of hope: Just a few miles away lives a young girl who matches her profile.

Can this be, at long last, Kelly's beloved daughter? 

 Ariana loves her life, her parents, her little town, her job as the town's schoolteacher, her students. But one evening after classes are done and she prepares to hurry home before a blizzard hits, her whole life changes in an instant.

The two rough-looking men who abduct her and take her far from home and family make no response to her frantic questions- "Why me? What are you going to do? Where are you taking me?" Held hostage in a camp of bandits, Ariana's emotions swing between terror and boredom as days stretch into weeks.

And then the boss's son appears in the doorway of her cabin. Does this mean she will never see her mother and father again, the two who so lovingly adopted her as an infant and raised her as their own? Will she ever wear the wedding dress so carefully saved for her, her one link with her birth parents, now long dead?

Kathleen O'Malley stood on the deck of the Barreth Lily and watched the land she'd called home for more than a dozen years slip from her view. She had thought she would be glad to see the last of it, but she was not. Emotions in turmoil, her whole being yearned to slip from the ship and return to what she knew. Even though Kathleen had not been happy with her situation, it was all she had ever known. As the shoreline faded into the morning mist, her only certainty was that she was bound for America to marry a man whose name she did not even know and whose face she had never seen. On the other side of the Atlantic, Donnigan Harrison anxiously awaits Kathleen's arrival on a prairie farm far from her port of arrival in Boston. He has known the wonder of a dream fulfilled--a snug frame cabin, the sturdy log barn and outbuildings, a fine herd of livestock, and crops in the field that made his eyes sparkle. Yet Donnigan felt a loneliness on the western frontier that pierced his very soul. With so limited opportunities for finding a wife, the notion of ordering a wife that once seemed unthinkable had come to make some sense. Now that the time has come, Donnigan feels like a small boy waiting for Christmas. But Donnigan's anticipation is overshadowed with terrifying uncertainties--What have I done?

After Jimmy is blinded in an accident with a firecracker, he has to relearn all the things he used to know - how to get dressed, how to find his way around the house, even how to eat. With the help of a determined therapist, he learns to read Braille and use a cane. Then he's given the chance to have a guide dog. Learning to work with Leader is not easy, but Jimmy tries harder than he ever has before. Can Leader really give him the ability and the confidence he needs?

--I read this when I was in late elementary school, but it is still a favorite of mine.--

Have you read any of these?

What is your favorite book?