A New York Times bestseller—“A great-aunt’s disappearance forces a troubled woman to confront her painful past. . . . Tense, enchanting and beautiful” (Kirkus). Every gift has a price . . . every piece of lace has a secret. Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations. Now the disappearance of two women is bringing Towner back home to Salem—and is bringing to light the shocking truth about the death of her twin sister. Praise for The Lace Reader “A gorgeously written literary novel that’s a doozy of a thriller.” —Chicago Tribune “Gripping.” —USA Today “Evocative, layered, smart, and astonishing.” —Joshilyn Jackson “A suspenseful, fast-paced story.” —Boston Globe “Casts an enthralling spell.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune “Compulsively readable.” —Denver Post
Could a witch hunt happen again in Salem? New York Times bestselling author of The Lace Reader Brunonia Barry returns to Salem with this spellbinding new thriller, a complex brew of suspense, seduction and murder. When a teenage boy dies suspiciously on Halloween night, Salem's chief of police, John Rafferty, wonders if there is a connection between his death and Salem’s most notorious cold case, a triple homicide dubbed "The Goddess Murders," in which three young women, all descended from accused Salem witches, were slashed on Halloween night in 1989. He finds unexpected help in Callie Cahill, the daughter of one of the victims newly returned to town. Neither believes that the main suspect, Rose Whelan, respected local historian, is guilty of murder or witchcraft. But exonerating Rose might mean crossing paths with a dangerous force. Were the women victims of an all-too-human vengeance, or was the devil raised in Salem that night? And if they cannot discover what truly happened, will evil rise again?
"Which one of you bitches is my mother?" Four elegant, successful, and sophisticated women in their forties are called to New York's Pierre Hotel to meet Lili -- a beautiful, young, and notoriously temperamental Hollywood movie star. None of the women knows exactly why she is there; each has a reason to hate Lili and each of them is astonished to see the others. They are old friends who share a guilty secret and who have for years been doing their best to keep that secret quiet. Their lives are changed forever, however, when Lili suddenly confronts them. When the women refuse to answer her, Lili proceeds to travel around the world through the playgrounds of the rich and famous, seeking to answer the question that has obsessed and almost destroyed her. From Paris to London, from the boardroom to the bedroom, Lace takes the reader into the rarified world of five unforgettable women who are as beautiful, as complex and as strong as...lace.
From Emily Calandrelli—host of Xploration Outer Space, correspondent on Bill Nye Saves the World, and graduate of MIT—comes the first novel in a brand-new chapter book series about an eight-year-old girl with a knack for science, math, and solving mysteries with technology. Ada Lace—third-grade scientist and inventor extraordinaire—has discovered something awful: her neighbor’s beloved Yorkie has been dognapped! With the assistance of a quirky neighbor named Nina (who is convinced an alien took the doggie) and her ever-growing collection of gadgets, Ada sets out to find the wrongdoer. As their investigation becomes more and more mysterious, Ada and Nina grow closer, proving that opposites do, in fact, attract.
This vivid portrait of France on the eve of the Revolution is also a touching tale of two friends torn apart by class and the powerful political force of democratic freedom.
1941, Estonia. As Stalin's brutal Red Army crushes everything in its path, Katarina Rebane is desperate to protect her grandmother's precious legacy: the weaving of gossamer-fine shawls and the intricate lace patterns holding stories passed down through generations. In Moscow, Lydia Volkova is suffocating in a prison of privilege, yearning for freedom and hoping to rediscover her beloved mother's Baltic heritage. As the battle for their homeland intensifies, these two women are caught in a fight for life, liberty and love.
Best-selling author, DiAnn Mills, has created a compelling, historical romance set in Texas during the late 1800s. In this second book of the Texas Legacy series, heroine Jenny Martin believes the one thing that will guarantee her happiness is to remove her deceased sister’s daughter from the home of Dr. Grant Andrews. But she is caught off-guard when she discovers the doctor is single and attractive. Then when danger stalks Jenny and those around her, she wonders if she is doing more harm than good by staying in Kahlerville.
The Black Lace Book of Women's Sexual Fantasies reveals the most private thoughts of hundreds of women. Here are sexual fantasies which on first sight appear shocking or bizarre - such as the bank clerk who wants to be a vampire and the nanny with a passion for Darth Vader. Kerri Sharp investigates the recurrent themes in female fantasies and the cultural influences that have determined them: from fairy stories to cult TV; from fetish fashion to historical novels.
Montmartre, Paris, 1857. Unable to move on with her life until she finds her missing mother, twenty-year-old Celeste Bazin arrives from San Francisco in her native France. She takes up with the charming Carlo di Rudio and a band of Italian and French revolutionaries who wish to overthrow Emperor Napoleon III. If Celeste agrees to act as a courier to the Court of Compiègne, revolutionary Odéon de la Mere will provide her transportation where rumor says her mother has been living. She embarks on a journey through France with the ruggedly handsome Odéon through checkpoints thick with imperial guards, secret agents, and devious spies. Celeste ignores the warnings and persists in her search despite growing fear that her mother might be a murderer. Only when she joins the plot to assassinate the emperor does she realize the power of her mother's secrets and the depth of a love that transcends time. Based on historical events and the author's on-site research in France.
This novel is one of the most ambitious and remarkable literary achievements of our time. It is a picaresque, psychological novel--a novel of the road, a journey or voyage of the human spirit in its search for reality in a world of illusion and nightmare. It is an epic of what might be called the Arabian Nights of American life. Marguerite Young's method is poetic, imagistic, incantatory; in prose of extraordinary richness she tests the nature of her characters--and the nature of reality. Miss MacIntosh, My Darling is written with oceanic music moving at many levels of consciousness and perception; but the toughly fibred realistic fabric is always there, in the happenings of the narrative, the humor, the precise details, the definitions of the characters. Miss MacIntosh herself, who hails from What Cheer, Iowa, and seems downright and normal, with an incorruptible sense of humor and the desire to put an end to phantoms; Catherine Cartwheel, the opium lady, a recluse who is shut away in a great New England seaside house and entertains imaginary guests; Mr. Spitzer, the lawyer, musical composer and mystical space traveler, a gentle man, wholly unsure of himself and of reality; his twin brother Peron, the gay and raffish gambler and virtuoso in the world of sports; Cousin Hannah, the horsewoman, balloonist, mountain-climber and militant Boston feminist, known as Al Hamad through all the seraglios of the East; Titus Bonebreaker of Chicago, wild man of God dreaming of a heavenly crown; the very efficient Christian hangman, Mr. Weed of the Wabash River Valley; a featherweight champion who meets his equal in a graveyard--these are a few who live with phantasmagorical vividness in the pages of Miss MacIntosh, My Darling. The novel touches on many aspects of life--drug addiction, woman's suffrage, murder, suicide, pregnancy both real and imaginary, schizophrenia, many strange loves, the psychology of gambling, perfectionism; but the profusion of this huge book serves always to intensify the force of the central question: "What shall we do when, fleeing from illusion, we are confronted by illusion?" What is real, what is dream? Is the calendar of the human heart the same as that kept by the earth? Is it possible that one may live a secondary life of which one does not know? In every aspect, Miss MacIntosh, My Darling stands by itself--in the lyric beauty of its prose, its imaginative vitality and cumulative emotional power. It is the work of a writer of genius.
