Elizabeth Musser books in order

A youth yanked out of the only life he’s known to live on the other side of the Atlantic with a grandmother he’s never seen before…

A mother who shrugs off her son’s anguish with breezy assurances like “You’ll love America, Emile”…

A father’s sudden disappearance from his son’s life with no explanation or even a goodbye…

Following his father’s dubious disappearance, adolescent Emile de Bonnery is forced to leave his native France for Atlanta, Georgia, never suspecting what awaits him in the South of 1964—culture shock, racism, and friendship with a strange girl named Eternity Jones. He brings with him to America an odd collection of “treasures” used by his father during the French Resistance. 

With the aid of these “treasures.” Emile and Eternity find themselves on a journey through abuse, betrayal, and prejudice that will ultimately lead them into a spiritual quest for healing.

Lissa Randall's future was bright with academic promise until the tragic accident that took her mother's life--and brought her own plans to a screeching halt. Eighteen months later Lissa is still unable to get back behind the wheel.

Ev McAllistair's driving school looks like Lissa's best hope for getting her life back on the road again. His patience and fatherly wisdom seem to transcend the driving experience. But Ev's own complicated past is about to resurface, with consequences for everyone in his orbit....

The Singleton family's fortunes seem unaffected by the Great Depression, and Perri--along with the other girls at Atlanta's elite Washington Seminary--lives a carefree life of tea dances with college boys, matinees at the cinema, and debut parties. But when tragedies strike, Perri is confronted with a world far different from the one she has always known.

At the insistence of her parents, Mary "Dobbs" Dillard, the daughter of an itinerant preacher, is sent from inner-city Chicago to live with her aunt and attend Washington Seminary, bringing confrontation and radical ideas. Her arrival intersects at the point of Perri's ultimate crisis, and the tragedy forges an unlikely friendship.

Sometimes going home means leaving everything you have ever known.

When the doctor pronounces "incurable cancer" and gives Bobbie Blake one year to live, she agrees to accompany her niece, Tracie, on a trip back to Austria, back to The Oasis, a ministry center for refugees that Bobbie helped start twenty years earlier. Back to where there are so many memories of love and loss.

Bobbie and Tracie are moved by the plight of the refugees and in particular, the story of the Iranian Hamid, whose young daughter was caught with a New Testament in her possession back in Iran, causing Hamid to flee along the refugee Highway and putting the whole family in danger. Can a network of helpers bring the family to safety in time? And at what cost?

Could she ever share the secret of The Awful Year?

There is one story that novelist Josephine Bourdillon shirked from writing. And now she may never have a chance. Trapped in her memories, she lies in a coma.

The man who put her there is just as paralyzed. Former soldier Henry Hughes failed to complete the kill. What's more: he never received full payment--funds that would ensure surgery for his son.

As detectives investigate disturbing fan letters, a young but not-so-naïve Paige Bourdillon turns to her mother's turbulent past for answers. Could The Awful Year be worse than the one they're living now?

Two courageous young women, tied together by blood and shared passion, will risk everything to save what they love most.

For as long as she can remember, Allie Massey, a gifted physical therapist, has dreamed of making her grandparents' ten-acre estate into a trauma recovery center using equine therapy--a dream her grandmother, Nana Dale, embraced wholeheartedly. But when her grandmother's will is read, Allie is shocked to learn the property has been sold to a developer.

Decades earlier, headstrong Dale Butler's driving passion is to bring home the prized filly her family lost to the Great Depression, but with World War II looming, she's called upon in ways she never could have imagined. And while her world expands to include new friends and new love, tragedy strikes close to home one fateful night during the Battle of the Atlantic, changing her life forever.

As Nana Dale's past comes to light in Allie's search for answers, Dale's courage and persistence may be just what Allie needs to carry on her grandmother's legacy and keep her own dreams alive.

The day is almost boiling hot. I lay on the hot pavement of the driveway, my ears pricked forward, my eyes attentive, my heart racing - not only from the heat, but from hope. Perhaps this will be the day hew returns... 

Peter is a young teen who is emotionally and physically scarred following a tragic accident. Hoping to find a way to help Peter reconnect with his family, his mother, Lanie, agrees to let him adopt a dog from the Humane Society. So begins the relationship between Peter and his neurotic mutt, Sunny. Told from the alternating points of view of Sunny and Lanie, Waiting for Peter is the story of the healing power of love between a boy and his dog, and an allegory of how we should view our relationship with God, our Master.

Emily Derracott loves her childhood friend Thomas McGinnis, but she cannot marry a man who doesn’t share her strong convictions about the freedmen. Besides, she harbors a secret love for someone else. But the prospect of becoming his wife is not only improbable—it is completely impossible.

From four CBA bestselling authors . . . In the most turbulent decade of our nation's history, four Southern women--destinies forged by birth, hearts steeled by war--face near impossible choices on their journeys in life . . . and in love.   

To Mend a Dream by Tamera Alexander (#1 CBA Bestselling Author)

Savannah Darby would do almost anything to revisit her family home. So when new owner, Aidan Bedford, a Boston attorney and former Union soldier, seeks to redecorate the house for his fiancée, Savannah jumps at the opportunity. But the clock is ticking. Can she find the box her father supposedly hid there during the war before her assignment is completed? And before she sees yet another battle lost on the home front. This time, one of the heart.

An Outlaw's Heart by Shelley Gray

When Russell Stark returns to Fort Worth, he's determined to begin a new life. But when he arrives at his mother's homestead, he discovers she's very ill, and the woman he loved is still as beautiful and sweet as he remembered. With time running out, Russell must come to terms with both his future and his past.

A Heart So True by Dorothy Love

Abigail knows all too well what is expected of her: to marry her distant cousin Charles and take her place in society. But her heart belongs to another. A terrible incident forces Abby to choose between love and duty.

Love Beyond Limits by Elizabeth Musser

Emily has a secret: She's in love with one of the freedmen on her family's plantation. Meanwhile, another man declares his love for her. Emily realizes some things are not as they seem and secrets must be kept in order to keep those she loves safe. Each novella includes a scrumptious Southern recipe that's inherent to each author's story and that will suit your book club meeting to a T!

Two Crosses

When Gabriella Madison arrives in the French village of Castelnau in 1961 to continue her university studies, she doesn't anticipate being drawn into the secretive world behind the Algerian war for independence from France. And the further she delves into the war efforts, the more her faith is challenged.

The people who surround her bring a whirlwind of transforming forces - a wise nun who knows more about the war and Gabriella's past than she's saying, a lost little girl who is carrying secret information, and a debonair man with unknown loyalties who pursues Gabriella.

Two Testaments

The slightest spark will ignite an explosion. The tinderbox of broken political and racial relations in France and Algeria provides plenty of kindling. And the growing friction, especially in Algeria, will soon combust. A tentative ceasefire offers little to cool the heat.

And in the midst of the turmoil, Gabriella Madison guards the orphans in her care, while battling jealousy when Anne-Marie Duchemin, David’s former flame, arrives in Castelnau, France. As they protect the little ones in their care amid rising discomfort in the community with the multi-cultural orphanage, each wonders who David will choose.

Two Destinies

When Rislène Namani meets Eric Hoffmann in 1994 France, the spark between them ignites a firestorm of trouble. She fears the repercussions from her staunchly Muslim family for her attraction to a Christian.

Yet Eric captures her heart. More than that, his faith captures her soul - a faith she comes to embrace. And it all stirs up a wasps' next of danger, mystery, and love that could cost her everything, even her life. The risk is real, especially when Rislène's family discovers her secret. Eric must save her from a forced marriage in Algeria.

As the civil war in Algeria escalates in the midst of Ramadan, and poverty and social ills in France boil over, their lives become as tumultuous and uncertain as the world around them. Clinging to faith, they fight a battle as contemporary as today's headlines.

When Gabriella Madison arrives in the French village of Castelnau in 1961 to continue her university studies, she doesn't anticipate being drawn into the secretive world behind the Algerian war for independence from France. And the further she delves into the war efforts, the more her faith is challenged. 

The people who surround her bring a whirlwind of transforming forces - a wise nun who knows more about the war and Gabriella's past than she's saying, a lost little girl who is carrying secret information, and a debonair man with unknown loyalties who pursues Gabriella. 

When she discovers a long-hidden family secret, it leads to questions about trust, faith in action, and the power of forgiveness to move beyond the pain of the past.

The slightest spark will ignite an explosion. The tinderbox of broken political and racial relations in France and Algeria provides plenty of kindling. And the growing friction, especially in Algeria, will soon combust. A tentative ceasefire offers little to cool the heat.

And in the midst of the turmoil, Gabriella Madison guards the orphans in her care, while battling jealousy when Anne-Marie Duchemin, David’s former flame, arrives in Castelnau, France. As they protect the little ones in their care amid rising discomfort in the community with the multi-cultural orphanage, each wonders who David will choose.

Meanwhile, David is trapped in Algeria, caught in the turmoil of a country gone mad. He seeks a way to guard his life and, at the same time, protect the refugees he came to help. And escape seems impossible.

Unable to predict what lies ahead, Gabriella and David learn that in life, waiting is the hardest part.

The answers lie in two testaments.

When Rislène Namani meets Eric Hoffmann in 1994 France, the spark between them ignites a firestorm of trouble. She fears the repercussions from her staunchly Muslim family for her attraction to a Christian. 

Yet Eric captures her heart. More than that, his faith captures her soul - a faith she comes to embrace. And it all stirs up a wasps' next of danger, mystery, and love that could cost her everything, even her life. The risk is real, especially when Rislène's family discovers her secret. Eric must save her from a forced marriage in Algeria. 

As the civil war in Algeria escalates in the midst of Ramadan, and poverty and social ills in France boil over, their lives become as tumultuous and uncertain as the world around them. Clinging to faith, they fight a battle as contemporary as today's headlines.

Mary Swan Middleton has always taken for granted the advantages of her family's wealth. But a tragedy that touches all of Atlanta sends her reeling in grief. When the family maid challenges her to reach out to the less fortunate as a way to ease her own pain, Mary Swan meets Carl--and everything changes. For although Carl is her opposite in nearly every way, he has something her privileged life could not give her. And when she seeks his help to uncover a mystery, she learns far more than she ever could have imagined.

At twenty, Ellie Bartholomew knows a lot about broken things.

In a family of successes, she's the embarrassment, still defiantly refusing to color inside the lines. Perhaps being a server at a trendy Atlanta restaurant isn't a dream career, but it's her work. She has friends, she has neighbors, she has causes.

But Ellie has never fit in.

When her artist mother's fight with cancer takes a bad turn, Ellie is forced to reenter her family's perfect world to help care for her. As the two women struggle to reconnect, Ellie begins to understand that her family might not be as unblemished as it seems.

As her mother's condition worsens, Ellie embarks on a journey toward forgiveness, hope, and healing. Is there a place of peace for her? And like her mother, must she travel halfway around the world to find it?

With her oldest son taking a gap year in Europe, her aging father losing his sight and his memory, and her husband of twenty years announcing that he's leaving her, Abbie Jowett is surrounded by overwhelming loss.

Desperate to mend her marriage and herself, she follows her son, Bobby, to walk the famed Camino pilgrimage. During their journey they encounter Rasa, an Iranian woman working in secret helping other refugees, and Caroline, a journalist who is studying pilgrims on the Camino while searching for answers from her broken past.

Each individual has their own reasons for the pilgrimage, but together they learn that the Camino strips you bare and calls you into deep soul-searching that can threaten all your best laid plans.