"War Can Ruin a Man, but Love Heals All Wounds"

After Win returns from a German POW camp during the Great War, Josephine is shocked by how much he has changed. The joy they once shared together soon turns to loss and heartache. Josephine is crushed at the toll the war took on him-and their life together.

When she learns that she is expecting a child, she begins to overcome the sadness she has endured. The little girl she has always prayed for is born in February of 1921, and Josephine names her Estelle.

The household adores the precious child and life is once again filled with happiness until a frightening change overcomes Estelle, which no one is able to understand. From the time she is four years old until age eleven, Estelle creates havoc at Winthrop Manor.

In desperation, she is sent to a boarding school named The Sanford Institute for Troubled Young Ladies, staffed by traditional instructors combined with experts in the new field of Psychology. Josephine is amazed at the change which overcomes her daughter, especially when she learns the truth about unthinkable incidents Estelle suffered as a child.

This novel has a bit of everything-grief, loss, sorrow, an inordinate amount of abuse, family disarray and, at long last, love. Throughout the twists and turns of this engaging tale, fear about the beginning of World War II also faces Winthrop Manor.

Dark Days at Winthrop Manor is a continuation of Mary Christian Payne's recently released historical romance novel, Winthrop Manor. The reader will recognize many of the people who appear in the first novel, but new characters are also introduced.

Readers of historical romance and war romance novels will enjoy this book.
About the Author: Mary Christian Payne was highly successful in several management positions in Fortune 500 Companies, in New York City, St. Louis, Missouri, Orlando Florida, and Tulsa, Oklahoma. Her work included Grant writing, and designing and writing Training Manuals for Executive Training Programs. She left the corporate world, and became Director of Career Development at the Women's; Resource Center at the University of Tulsa, where she designed a program that enabled hundreds of adult women to return to college and better their lives. She received the Mayor's Pinnacle Award in 1993 for this achievement. Mary left that position when the Center closed and then opened her own Career Counseling Center. She retired in 2008. Mary Christian Payne became a successful, best-selling author at the age of 71, with the help of her publisher, Tom Corson-Knowles. All of her life, she had wanted to write and had received accolades for her unpublished work. She was encouraged in college, and writing was a significant part of the various jobs she held. In 2013, she read Tom Corson-Knowles' book about publishing on Kindle. She wrote to him and he telephoned her. The rest is history. Since that time, she has published nine books, with more on the way. Mary lost her husband in June 2015, after 33 years of marriage. The grief process brought a lull to her writing, but she found that putting words on paper helped immensely. She is now in the process of writing her second novel since his death. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her two beloved Maltese dogs.