In Strangers' Houses

In Strangers' Houses

Author: Elizabeth Mundy

Publisher: Constable

Published: 2018-02-08

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9781472126368

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There are some crimes you can't sweep under the carpet . . . Lena Szarka, a Hungarian cleaner working in London, knows all too well about cleaning up other people's messes. When her friend Timea disappears, she suspects one of her clients is to blame. However, the police don't share her suspicions and it is left to Lena to turn sleuth and find her friend. Searching through their houses as she scrubs their floors, Lena desperately tries to find out what has happened. Only Cartwright, a police constable new to the job, believes that this will lead to the truth - and together they begin to uncover more of Islington's seedy underbelly than they bargained for. But Lena soon discovers it's not just her clients who have secrets. And as she begins to unravel Timea's past she starts to wonder if she really knew her friend at all. 'Terrific and heartwarming; a charming debut' Daisy Waugh 'A warmly-crafted crime debut, perfect for our multicultural age' Vaseem Khan


The Stranger's Guide to Talliston

The Stranger's Guide to Talliston

Author: John Tarrow

Publisher: Unbound Publishing

Published: 2019-07-11

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1783527269

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Abandoned and alone, thirteen-year-old Joe’s world is shattered when he enters a deserted council house and becomes trapped within a labyrinth protecting the last magical places on earth. There, Joe discovers a book charting this immense no-man’s land, without time or place, its thirteen doors each leading to a different realm. Hunted by sinister foes, the boy is forced ever deeper into both the maze and the mystery of his missing parents. What will he find at the labyrinth's centre, and can it reunite him with the family he so desperately needs? Crossing through diverse landscapes from Victorian Britain to fifties New Orleans, The Stranger's Guide to Talliston is inspired by the internationally famous house and gardens dubbed 'Britain’s Most Extraordinary Home' by the Sunday Times. It is a classic YA tale of adventure that introduces readers to an otherworld hiding in plain sight, cloaked in magic and steeped in imagined history. Yet beyond its fearsome huntsmen and battling magicians dwells the secret that lies within all of us – the power to live extraordinary lives. Every copy of The Stranger’s Guide to Talliston includes one entry to the Golden Key to Talliston Grand Draw. Every year there is to be a grand draw to award the fabled Golden Key to Talliston to one fortunate child and their guardian. This will be determined by lottery at 12:00 midday on 6th October and include a private and exclusive holiday inside the magical house and gardens featured in this book.


A Stranger in the House

A Stranger in the House

Author: Shari Lapena

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-08-15

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0735221146

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A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Another thrilling domestic suspense novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door and Not a Happy Family “A Stranger in the House will have you sleeping with the lights on for weeks.” —Bustle “Smart and suspenseful. . . you'll never see the ending coming.” —PureWow In this neighborhood, danger lies close to home. Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind. There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town. The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good. Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions. Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.


The Strangers' House

The Strangers' House

Author: Alexander Poots

Publisher: Twelve

Published: 2023-03-14

Total Pages: 153

ISBN-13: 1538701588

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A penetrating study and celebration of Northern Irish literature—telling the region’s story through the extraordinary novels and poetry produced by decades of conflict. Northern Ireland is one hundred years old. Northern Ireland does not exist. Both of these statements are true. It just depends who you ask. How do you write about a place like this? THE STRANGERS' HOUSE asks this question of the region’s greatest writers, living and dead. What have they made of Northern Ireland – and what has Northern Ireland made of them? Northern Ireland is roughly the same size as the State of Connecticut, yet has produced an extraordinary number of celebrated poets and novelists. Louis MacNeice, too clever to be happy, formed by his childhood on the shores of Belfast Lough; son of a Protestant clergyman “banned for ever from the candles of the Irish poor”. C. S. Lewis, who discovered Narnia in the rolling drumlins and black rock of County Down. Anna Burns, chronicler of North Belfast and winner of the Booker Prize. And Seamus Heaney, the man of wry precision, the poet with the gift of surprise. As well as household names, Poots also examines writers who may be less familiar to an American readership. These include the dark and bawdy novels of Ian Cochrane, a half-blind writer obsessed with Columbo, and Forrest Reid, a man who saw Arcadia in the Irish countryside, and who was, perhaps, the North’s first queer author. Reading the work of these writers together produces a testament to over one hundred years of literary endeavor and human struggle. THE STRANGERS' HOUSE is the story of how men and women have written about a home divided, and used their work to move, in the words of Seamus Heaney, “like a double agent among the big concepts.”


Stranger Room

Stranger Room

Author: Frederick Ramsay

Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Published: 2012-08-31

Total Pages: 270

ISBN-13: 1615951687

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"Ramsay skillfully weaves historical fact into his story, all the while blending brisk action with excellent characterization." —Publishers Weekly Elderly Jonathan Lydell III is proud of his lineage. He is related to the Virginia Lees and to the Custis family. For Lydell, family, status, and history are the only realities—that and his antebellum house. Lydell's house has a very colorful history, and Lydell is committed to restoring it to its pre-Civil War configuration, complete with a "stranger room." In the 1800s, many family homes sported these attached rooms with separate entrances and locks that were kept ready for unknown travelers. The intent was to protect the family from unsavory guests. Nearly 150 years ago, an inexplicable murder took place inside the Lydell's locked stranger room. The murderer was never caught. Lydell thinks this brutal history adds to the house's rich character. But when an identical murder is committed in the newly restored stranger room, even Sheriff Ike Schwartz and FBI agent Karl Hedrick can't explain it....


You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home

You Will Meet a Stranger Far from Home

Author: Alex Jeffers

Publisher: Lethe Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 1590211030

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From the acclaimed author of Safe as Houses and The Abode of Bliss, ten wondrous tales of yesterday, today, and tomorrow--of our familiar world and others. An American teenager meets Adonis on a sailing cruise off the coast of Turkey. A merchant of the Silk Road encounters an odd dog--and a brother--from another world. An old lady on a distant planet attempts to help her great-grandson grow up in a world that will soon forget women ever existed. A Massachusetts boy refuses an offer to visit fairyland. Another American teenager on vacation encounters three fallen angels and is transformed. Alex Jeffers's first collection of fantastical stories is a treacherous box of delights.


Other People's Houses

Other People's Houses

Author: Lore Segal

Publisher: Sort of Books

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1908745762

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'First published 54 years ago and yet feels as timely as any book I've read this year' Observer Nine months after the Nazi occupation of Austria, 600 Jewish Children assembled at Vienna station to board the first of the Kindertransports bound for Britain. Among them was 10 year old Lore Segal. For the next seven years, she lived as a refugee in other people's houses, moving from the Orthodox Levines in Liverpool, to the staunchly working class Hoopers in Kent, to the genteel Miss Douglas and her sister in Guildford. Few understood the terrors she had fled, or the crushing responsibility of trying to help her parents gain a visa. Amazingly she succeeds and two years later her parents arrive; their visa allows them to work as domestic servants - a humiliation for which they must be grateful. In Other People's Houses Segal evokes with deep compassion, clarity and calm the experience of a child uprooted from a loving home to become stranded among strangers.


The House on Tradd Street

The House on Tradd Street

Author: Karen White

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2018-12-31

Total Pages: 402

ISBN-13: 198480216X

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The brilliant, chilling debut of Karen White's New York Times bestselling Tradd Street series, featuring a Charleston real estate agent who loves old houses—and the secret histories inside them. Practical Melanie Middleton hates to admit she can see ghosts. But she's going to have to accept it. An old man she recently met has died, leaving her his historic Tradd Street home, complete with housekeeper, dog—and a family of ghosts anxious to tell her their secrets. Enter Jack Trenholm, a gorgeous writer obsessed with unsolved mysteries. He has reason to believe that diamonds from the Confederate Treasury are hidden in the house. So he turns the charm on with Melanie, only to discover he's the smitten one... It turns out Jack's search has caught the attention of a malevolent ghost. Now, Jack and Melanie must unravel a mystery of passion, heartbreak—and even murder.


I Won't Go With Strangers

I Won't Go With Strangers

Author: Dagmar Geisler

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2018-04-03

Total Pages: 43

ISBN-13: 1510735364

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Lu won’t go with just anyone! Lu is waiting to be picked up after school. She stands on the sidewalk, all alone, and it starts to rain. Ms. Smith walks by, and offers to take her home. Ms. Smith lives in Lu’s neighborhood—but does Lu really know her? Lu asks herself, what’s her first name? Does she dye her hair red? What’s her dog’s name? And she says, “I don’t know you, so I won’t go with you! And besides, Mama said I should wait.” As other adults—all of whom Lu has met in some capacity before—offer to take her home, Lu continues to consider if she really knows them. One by one, she refuses to go with them. Until, finally, the person Mama said she should go home with shows up—though his appearance is a surprise to the reader! This sensitively narrated story illustrates how clear rules and arrangements can help protect and empower children during an especially vulnerable time of day. The ending includes a prompt for readers to create their own similar “safe” list, and a list of resources for parents.


All The Houses I've Ever Lived In

All The Houses I've Ever Lived In

Author: Kieran Yates

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2023-04-27

Total Pages: 164

ISBN-13: 1398509841

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‘I tore through the pages. A book I’ll read over and over again’ CANDICE CARTY-WILLIAMS, author of Queenie ____________________________________________ We've all had our share of dodgy landlords, mould and awkward house shares. But journalist Kieran Yates has had more than most: by the age of twenty-five she'd lived in twenty different houses across the country, from council estates in London to car showrooms in rural Wales. In prose that sparkles with humour and warmth, Yates charts the heartbreaks and joys of a life spent navigating the chaos of the housing system. Drawing on interviews with marginalised tenants across the country and the stories behind our interiors, she explores the unexpected ways we can fight back – finding beauty in the wreckage of a broken system, friendships in cramped housing conditions, and home even in the most fragile circumstances. All the Houses I’ve Ever Lived In is at once a rallying cry for change, a gorgeous coming-of-age story and a love letter to home in all its forms. ____________________________________________ ‘Illuminating, thoughtfully written, damning’ OBSERVER ‘I read this in two sittings . . . so incisive it's hard to put down’ PANDORA SYKES ‘A beautiful exposition of home and what it means. Stunning’ BOLU BABALOLA, author of Honey & Spice ‘So relatable . . . injects a glorious dose of love and joy and hope' BIG ISSUE ‘Yates manages the unthinkable: she makes the housing crisis funny’ i