The Art of the Visit is an invaluable resource for the socially minded. During tough economic periods people tend to visit with family and friends for a mini-vacation instead of taking more expensive trips. This practical and humorous guide establishes the ground rules for successfully spending time with those people who are most dear to us. Full of anecdotes from the author's experiences, The Art of the Visit illustrates the dos and don'ts of extended visiting from start to finish so that the reader can become the perfect host and/or the perfect guest.
If V. C. Andrews and Kate Morton had a literary love child, Emma Rous' USA Today bestseller The Au Pair would be it. One of the most anticipated books of 2019 from Pop Sugar, Bustle, Cosmo, Parade, and Goodreads! Seraphine Mayes and her twin brother, Danny, were born in the middle of summer at their family's estate on the Norfolk coast. Within hours of their birth, their mother threw herself from the cliffs, the au pair fled, and the village thrilled with whispers of dark cloaks, changelings, and the aloof couple who drew a young nanny into their inner circle. Now an adult, Seraphine mourns the recent death of her father. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a family photograph that raises dangerous questions. It was taken on the day the twins were born, and in the photo, their mother, surrounded by her husband and her young son, is smiling serenely and holding just one baby. Who is the child, and what really happened that day?
She stayed in your house. Now she wants your life . . . 'Tense, compulsive and gripping, The Perfect Guest is uncomfortable in the best possible way' Charlotte Levin, author of If I Let You Go We all have that friend - the one who doesn't quite belong. Dinah Marshall is that person and knows it. After someone drops out, she's invited to spend the weekend at a luxury holiday home with women she's known since university. However, the gulf between them has widened since then, and Dinah is conscious of being the only one with no money, career, partner or children. Feeling like an outsider, she takes to snooping around the house. She's fascinated by its owners, Sarah and Isaac Rivers - and when she discovers she can secretly stay an extra night, that fascination quickly spirals into obsession. When Isaac Rivers meets 'Diana Malone' at an exclusive members club, he introduces her to his wife and friends, and she's soon welcomed into the group. She seems to be trying a little too hard, however, and as her somewhat intense behaviour starts to raise both eyebrows and questions, one of her new acquaintances begins to suspect she isn't who she says she is. For Diana - or is it Dinah? -this is a disaster: she's worked hard to get where she has, and these suspicions threaten everything. But Diana isn't the only one with secrets, and if she's going down, then she might just take everyone else with her . . .
Instant New York Times Bestseller Longlisted for Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence 2020 New England Society Book Award Winner for Fiction “The Guest Book is monumental in a way that few novels dare attempt.” —The Washington Post The thought-provoking new novel by New York Times bestselling author Sarah Blake An exquisitely written, poignant family saga that illuminates the great divide, the gulf that separates the rich and poor, black and white, Protestant and Jew. Spanning three generations, The Guest Book deftly examines the life and legacy of one unforgettable family as they navigate the evolving social and political landscape from Crockett’s Island, their family retreat off the coast of Maine. Blake masterfully lays bare the memories and mistakes each generation makes while coming to terms with what it means to inherit the past.
**A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller** A year after a summer guest dies under suspicious circumstances, her best friend lives under a cloud of grief and suspicion in this “fast-paced and gripping” (People) thriller filled with “dizzying plot twists and multiple surprise endings” (The New York Times Book Review). Littleport, Maine, has always felt like two separate towns: an ideal vacation enclave for the wealthy, whose summer homes line the coastline; and a simple harbor community for the year-round residents whose livelihoods rely on service to the visitors. Typically, fierce friendships never develop between a local and a summer girl—but that’s just what happens with visitor Sadie Loman and Littleport resident Avery Greer. Each summer for almost a decade, the girls are inseparable—until Sadie is found dead. While the police rule the death a suicide, Avery can’t help but feel there are those in the community, including a local detective and Sadie’s brother, Parker, who blame her. Someone knows more than they’re saying, and Avery is intent on clearing her name, before the facts get twisted against her. “A riveting read…from master of suspense, Megan Miranda,” (Mary Kubica, New York Times bestselling author of The Good Girl) The Last House Guest is a clever, twisty mystery that brilliantly explores the elusive nature of memory and the complexities of female friendships.
AN INSTANT 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 gripping mystery perfect for fans of Agatha Christie.” –Good Housekeeping “Another nail-biter perfect for an all-nighter.” –Entertainment Weekly A weekend retreat at a cozy mountain lodge is supposed to be the perfect getaway . . . but when the storm hits, no one is getting away It's winter in the Catskills and Mitchell's Inn, nestled deep in the woods, is the perfect setting for a relaxing--maybe even romantic--weekend away. It boasts spacious old rooms with huge woodburning fireplaces, a well-stocked wine cellar, and opportunities for cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, or just curling up with a good murder mystery. So when the weather takes a turn for the worse, and a blizzard cuts off the electricity--and all contact with the outside world--the guests settle in and try to make the best of it. Soon, though, one of the guests turns up dead--it looks like an accident. But when a second guest dies, they start to panic. Within the snowed-in paradise, something--or someone--is picking off the guests one by one. And there's nothing they can do but hunker down and hope they can survive the storm--and one another.
The New York Times bestselling novel that has been called “a tour de force” (Wall Street Journal), “unputdownable” (The Washington Post), “a delicious hothouse of a novel” (USA Today), “effortless” (The Economist), “seductive” (Vanity Fair) and “pitch perfect” (Salon) “Superb, bewitching…Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey; this novel is one of the most sensual you will ever read, and all without sacrificing either good taste or a "G" rating” – NPR “One of the year’s most engrossing and suspenseful novels…a love affair, a shocking murder, and a flawless ending … Will keep you sleepless for three nights straight and leave you grasping for another book that can sustain that high.” — Entertainment Weekly (A rating) “Volcanically sexy, sizzingly smart, plenty bloody and just plain irresistible." —USA Today (4 stars) It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa—a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants—life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life—or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be. Short-listed for the Man Booker Prize three times, Sarah Waters has earned a reputation as one of our greatest writers of historical fiction, and here she has delivered again. A love story, a tension-filled crime story, and a beautifully atmospheric portrait of a fascinating time and place, The Paying Guests is Sarah Waters’s finest achievement yet.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “Fully realized, wholly absorbing and almost painfully suspenseful...The journey is mesmerizing.” —New York Times A woman receives an unexpected visitor during a deadly snowstorm in this chilling thriller from New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf. True crime writer Wylie Lark doesn’t mind being snowed in at the isolated farmhouse where she’s retreated to write her new book. A cozy fire, complete silence. It would be perfect, if not for the fact that decades earlier, at this very house, two people were murdered in cold blood and a girl disappeared without a trace. As the storm worsens, Wylie finds herself trapped inside the house, haunted by the secrets contained within its walls—haunted by secrets of her own. Then she discovers a small child in the snow just outside. After bringing the child inside for warmth and safety, she begins to search for answers. But soon it becomes clear that the farmhouse isn’t as isolated as she thought, and someone is willing to do anything to find them. Don’t miss Heather’s upcoming twisty locked-room thriller, EVERYONE IS WATCHING! And don't miss these other great stories by Heather! The Weight of Silence These Things Hidden Little Mercies MIssing Pieces Not a Sound Before She Was Found This is How I Lied
