Dark Angel
by Karen Harper

Well-researched and rich in detail, this addictive follow-up to 2004's Dark Harvest transports readers back to the peaceful Amish community in rural Maplecreek, Ohio. Young spinster schoolteacher Leah Kurtz becomes involved in a conflict between her horse-and-buggy culture and futuristic genetic research after she agrees to adopt the infant daughter of a friend dying from one of the hereditary diseases that plague the Plain People (in real life as well as in fiction). Vicious graffiti targeting "English" outsider Mark Morelli, a doctor researching disease cures, sets a sinister mood that grows darker when his ultra-responsible, teenage Amish assistant mysteriously vanishes. After someone switches Leah's adopted baby in the cradle for another infant, Leah and Mark team up to investigate a series of unsolved disappearances that may lead back to Leah's former fiancé, who abandoned her at the altar years earlier. With its tantalizing buildup and well-developed characters, which ensure that the burgeoning romance between Leah and Mark is as potent as the book's suspense, this offering is certain to earn Harper high marks.

Other Books by Karen Harper

Mistress of Mourning

The Queen's Governess

The Irish Princess

Mistress Shakespeare

The Fatal Fashione

The Fyre Mirror

Dark Harvest

The Falls

The Stone Forest

The Queen's Cure

Karen Harper's Bio

A New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, Karen Harper is a former college English instructor (The Ohio State University) and high school literature and writing teacher. A lifelong Ohioan, Karen and her husband Don divide their time between the midwest and the southeast, both locations she has used in her books. Besides her American settings, Karen loves the British Isles, where her Scottish and English roots run deep, and where she has set many of her historical Tudor-era mysteries and her historical novels about real and dynamic British women. Karen's books have been published in many foreign languages and she won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for 2005. Karen has given numerous talks to readers and writers across the county.

Her author collection is with The Ohio State University Rare Books and Manuscript Library.

Photo of Karen Harper by Jeffrey A. Rycus