The Treasure of Life Collection

Restless Secrets​  |  The Spirit of the Autumn Wind​  |  ​Whispering Tree of the Forest
By Dorae Shae

EXPLORE THE SERIES:

Restless Secrets (2017)

This powerful collection of three novellas follows the lives of compelling and diverse women who all face the challenges of self-discovery and overcoming hardship. From early 1900s farm life in Poland to wine country in British Columbia to the coal-mining towns of West Virginia, Restless Secrets takes readers on three very different journeys that are all woven together with a common thread: the resilience of women in the face of adversity that threatens to destroy their lives and the lives of their loved ones.

"The Angry Land” tells the story of Elena, who is forced into an arranged marriage with a poor crop share tenant’s son who shares her dream of one day leaving the Old Country to escape their life of poverty.

In “Evangeline,” Angeline not only conceals that she’s pregnant on her wedding day, but that the baby she is carrying is her husband’s brother’s; a secret she is determined to keep so it doesn’t destroy the ones she cares about the most.

​In “Violet Eyes,” Amethyst Reynolds discovers she was adopted when she receives a letter informing her that her birth mother has left her a sizable inheritance. When she goes back to West Virginia to prove this was all a mistake, she learns the truth about her tangled past— and discovers her life could be in danger.

The Spirit of the Autumn Wind (2019)

Set in post-World War II Morocco, Ireland, and the Mediterranean, The Spirit of the Autumn Wind is a high-seas adventure brimming with mystery and romance. 

When respected sea captain Regan Quinn and his lifelong friend, Niko, are accidentally involved in the murder of a drug lord’s son in a back alley in Tangiers, they fear for their lives and must flee on separate ships. They make a plan to meet up in Ireland, where they hope to leave the past behind and start a new life. Niko hides out working as a galley cook aboard the Autumn Wind, where he is entrusted with the care of Regan Quinn’s son, Christos, and must keep him, as well as a young family being smuggled aboard, safe from an unstable captain and the vengeful drug lords pursuing the ship. Regan Quinn, captain on the Seaward Angel, finds himself in a dangerous dilemma as he falls in love with Loren Lombardi, an attractive undercover investigator on board with a mission to prove he is guilty of murder. 

As the two ships sail toward their final destinations, danger and intrigue ensue while the colourful cast of characters, desperate to find answers and a safe place to land, must band together to survive. 

​Whispering Tree of the Forest (2020)

When ambitious young Clancy Calhoun leaves his small town in Ireland to start a new life in West Virginia, his world collides with the beautiful and mysterious Rowan O’Reilly aboard the ship to America. Banished from her hometown by a priest and sent away to marry a man she has never met, Rowan is hiding a painful secret, and Clancy puts his dreams at risk to help her. Alone together in a strange new country, they must evade the violent and determined criminal she was meant to marry in order to begin a new life free from the pasts that haunt them.
A series of books that through a variety of characters depict the phases of life. The restless years when we face the challenges of being young adults. The spirited years, when as adults, we pursue happiness amid busy and full lives, and the whispering years when the maturity of age has taught us that the true value of that happiness comes only with love and forgiveness. Tucked in the pages of these books are characters whose lives and experiences are timeless.