Don’t Mention Murder It was a vulgar word in the swank millionaire town of San Valdesto. But knocking off a few citizens here and there seemed more than a grave social error to a tough-minded detective like Joe Puma. It made him sore when he discovered the natives would rather protect a well-bred killer than put up with a low-brow private eye. So he taught them a lesson and his red-blooded tactics set the town’s blue blood to boiling. The Wayward Widow...another mad whirl on a murder-go round with that damsel-chasing knight in amour - Joe Puma.
"The Lady Rakehell's redemption ... Unmarriageable, untamable, unforgettable, Lady Juliana Myfleet was the Ton's most notorious widow. With her reputation nearly in tatters, Juliana knew the one thing that would save her from ruin was the one thing she did not want-marriage! Martin Davencourt knew there was more to Juliana than gossip and scandal. But he was walking a fine line in saving his childhood friend from herself. If Juliana was not the sweet innocent he remembered, his liaison with a lady of dubious repute would cost him everything he held most dear. Still, Martin had paid the price for letting Juliana go once-and he'd willingly risk all before letting that happen again ..."--BOOK COVER
A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR • A “furious and addictive new novel” (The New York Times) about mothers and daughters, and one woman's midlife reckoning as she flees her suburban life. “Exhilarating ... reads like a burning fever dream. A virtuosic, singular and very funny portrait of a woman seeking sanity and purpose in a world gone mad.” —The New York Times Book Review Samantha Raymond's life has begun to come apart: her mother is ill, her teenage daughter is increasingly remote, and at fifty-two she finds herself staring into "the Mids"—that hour of supreme wakefulness between three and four in the morning in which women of a certain age suddenly find themselves contemplating motherhood, mortality, and, in this case, the state of our unraveling nation. When she falls in love with a beautiful, decrepit house in a hardscrabble neighborhood in Syracuse, she buys it on a whim and flees her suburban life—and her family—as she grapples with how to be a wife, a mother, and a daughter, in a country that is coming apart at the seams. Dana Spiotta's Wayward is a stunning novel about aging, about the female body, and about female complexity in contemporary America. Probing and provocative, brainy and sensual, it is a testament to our weird times, to reforms and resistance and utopian wishes, and to the beauty of ruins.
There's power in stories. This is a story of power. Dead bodies aren't unusual in the alleyways of Fenest, capital of the Union of Realms. Especially not in an election year, when the streets swell with crowds from near and far. Muggings, brawls gone bad, debts collected – Detective Cora Gorderheim has seen it all. Until she finds a Wayward man with his mouth sewn shut. His body has been arranged precisely by the killer and left conspicuously, waiting to be found. Cora fears this is not only a murder, but a message. As she digs into the dead man's past, she finds herself drawn into the most dangerous event in the Union: the election. In a world where stories win votes, someone has gone to a lot of trouble to silence this man. Who has stopped his story being told? _______________________________________________________ 'An utterly absorbing tale set in a fascinating world' MICK FINLAY. 'If you love storytelling, you'll love this' S.J. MORDEN. 'It's rare to find such a richly imagined world about the art of myth and storytelling' CHRISTOPHER FOWLER. 'Irresistibly thrilling, weaving together gaslit crime, fantasy and mystery... I can't wait for more' TIM MAJOR. 'There is more than meets the eye in this gripping and inventive debut... Rife with intrigue, deceit and cultural tension' JAMES AITCHESON.
Liv Bergen is hunting a serial killer who uses the same method as an uncaught serial killer from the past, working with FBI agent Streeter Pierce, who finds himself falling in love with her, as he tries to recruit her into the bureau.
Escaping a troubled marriage, Annie Cameron brings her autistic son Charlie and mother-in-law to Mico Island. With the friendship of Winston Mann and his wife, their new home becomes a sanctuary. Until the dreams start. Years ago the Manns' son mysteriously drowned. Winston thinks the woman who once lived in Annie's house caused his death. Except she's been dead for two hundred years. Charlie and his mentally fragile grandmother sense a malevolent presence in the house. But they don't know how to fight back as Annie slowly becomes possessed. Now Annie has discovered the door to the widow's walk and the house's dangerous past. A storm is brewing. Someone waits to finish what was started long ago. And Annie will keep a promise she never made.
Biologist, Ned Fielding leaves the tattered remains of his marriage behind to spend six months on Winward Island, a property shared by SENCA, his land conservation group, and the reclusive, Widow Barlow. Dispatched to the island to study a rare species of carrion beetle, Ned finds himself much more interested in studying the island’s only other human, the beautiful, Addie Barlow, whose screams of terror awaken him in the dead of night. A hurricane and near drowning throw the island’s two inhabitants together and they begin a smoldering love affair. The locals call the Widow Barlow a witch and enchantress. They claim she murdered her much older husband, the philanthropist, King Barlow, but Ned cannot quite believe the wild tales about the gentle woman he adores. Enchantress, maybe—with her closest companions, an osprey, dolphin and coyote – but murderess? Will Ned’s quest for the truth destroy their love and Addie’s heart?
Based on clerical ideals of female comportment and Golden Age playwrights’ fixation on questions of honor, modern scholarship, whether historical or literary, has viewed women as subjects and objects of patriarchal control. This study analyzes tensions and contradictions produced by the interplay of patriarchal norms and the realities of widows’ daily lives to demonstrate that in Castile patriarchy did not exist as a monolithic force, which rigidly enforced an ideology of female incapacity. The extensive analysis of archival documents shows widows actively engaged in their families and communities, confounding images of their reclusion and silence. Widows’ autonomy and authority were desirable attributes that did not collide with the demands of a society that recognized the contingent nature of patriarchal norms.
