First, There is a River

A family conceals a cruel secret.

Emma Perkins' life appears idyllic. Her husband, Jared, is a hardworking farmer and a dependable neighbor. But Emma knows intimately the brutality prowling beneath her husband's façade. When he sends their children away, Emma's life unravels.

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A woman seeks her spirit.

Deep in despair, Emma seeks refuge aboard her uncle's riverboat, the Spirit of the River . This is Emma's story and the story of the colorful characters working and living along the river: captains, mates, engineers, the rich, the working class, moonshiners, prostitutes, and Gage--the Spirit's reclusive engineer. Scarred for life from a riverboat explosion, Gage's insight into heartache draws him to Emma, and as they heal together, they form a deep and unbreakable bond. Emma learns to trust that anything is possible, including reclaiming her children and facing her husband.

A man seeks revenge.

Jared Perkins makes a journey of his own. Determined to bring his wife home and teach her the lesson of her life, Jared secretly follows the Spirit. His rage burns cold as he plans his revenge for everyone on board. Against the immense power of the river, the journey of the Spirit will change the course of their lives forever...

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Jasper Mountain

Two lost souls struggle to find their way in the unforgiving West of 1873...

Jack Buchanan, a worker at the Jasper Mining Company, is sure of his place in the outside world, but has lost his faith, hope, and heart to the tragedy of a fire.

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Foreign born and raised, Milena Shabanov flees from a home she loves to the strange and barbaric America.   A Romani blessed with "the sight," she is content in the company of visions and spirit oracles, but finds herself lost and alone in a brutal mining town with little use for women.
Surrounded by inhumane working conditions at the mine, senseless death, and overwhelming greed, miners begin disappearing and the officers of the mine don't care.

Tempers flare and Jack must decide where he stands: with the officers and mining president--Victor Creely--to whom Jack owes his life, or to the miners whose lives are worth less to the company than pack animals.   Milena, sensing deep despair and death in a mining town infested with restless spirits, searches for answers to the workers' disappearances.   But she can't trust anyone, especially not Jack Buchanan, a man haunted by his own past.

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Theater of Illusion

Children of an abusive father who spiraled into madness and murder, Sarah and Tobias Perkins survived by holding to each other.
 
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As adults, the siblings live and work on the Spirit of the River, the riverboat that saved their mother from their father’s wrath.  Yearning to pilot the riverboat herself, Sarah is forced by custom to stand by as her childhood rival, Jeremy Smith, becomes not only pilot but first officer.  It is 1910, and the River Board has specific opinions about where a woman belongs—and it is not behind the wheel of a riverboat.
Tragedy strikes when Théatre de L’illusion—a traveling theater extravaganza—comes aboard to entertain passengers during the journey downriver.  One of the performers vanishes, and then one by one, the passengers and crewmembers on board the Spirit of the River fall victim to a mysterious and deadly illness.
 
Plagued by the voice of his murderous father, Tobias finds peace only during overnight drinking binges.  But when he awakes each day to a trail of death and destruction, he begins to fear his father’s spirit has possessed him.  As the sins of the past threaten to destroy the future, Sarah races against time to stop a vengeful killer.  Will she bring the Spirit of the River and the surviving passengers home, or is all hope of escape an illusion?

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