English Womens Fiction

A schoolgirl found it on a nature hike. A severed human foot wearing pink nail polish. A gruesome but invaluable clue that leads forensic pathologist Birdy Waterman down a much darker trail - to a dangerous psychopath whose powers of persuasion seem to have no end.

Eve Babitz captured the voluptuous quality of LA in the 1960s in a wildly original, totally unique voice. These stories are time capsule gems, as poignant and startling today as they were when published in the early 1970s. Eve Babitz is not well known today, but she should be. Her firsthand experiences in the LA cultural scene, translated into haunting fiction, are an unforgettable glimpse at a lost world and a magical time.

It's been three months since Countess Annie de Silva slipped away from her home before dawn, leaving a cryptic note and no clue as to her destination. That's an eternity for friends as devoted as the Sisterhood. Now they're desperate to ensure that their founding member is alive and well, and that means tracking her down - wherever in the world she might be. Myra Rutledge, Annie's closest confidante, knows the secrets of Annie's past, including the remote mountain in Spain where Annie spent some of the best - and worst - days of her life.

Isabelle Flanders Tookus isn't expecting to involve the Sisterhood in a new mission when she strikes up a friendship with a curly-haired boy in her local park. Ben Ryan is eight years old, sweet, funny, and smarter than most adults - a child genius, in fact. He's also in much deeper danger than he realizes.

Being the sole police detective in London's Supernatural Squad is no easy task. I have to navigate my way through a world teeming with supernatural creatures, from vampires to werewolves and everything else in between. My inexperience might count against me but my own shocking supernatural abilities will stand me in good stead - especially when I'm confronted yet again by the gruesome spectre of death....

Tending to the soldiers in the trenches of France during the First World War, battlefield nurse Bess Crawford can't help but notice the photo of a young pilot's wife every time she tends to him. But then at the railway station, in a mob of troops leaving for the front, Bess glimpses a familiar face - the pilot's wife, with another man. Later, back in France, Bess sees a newspaper with a drawing of the woman's face on the front page. She'd been murdered - the very day Bess saw her.

Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts, with witches, but for Lee Barrett it's home. This October she's returned to her hometown - where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives - to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late-night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming.

The moment I saw her walk through the door of Forbidden Ink, I knew she was the one. With her wide hips, thick thighs, and perfect breasts, she's every man's wet dream. Add to that her dark, soulful eyes, pouty lips, and a body covered in gorgeous art, and I knew I needed to make her mine. She's a walking contradiction of sass and strength and determination, hidden by insecurity and self-doubt. She's everything I could ever want or need, but she doesn't see what I see.

A cursed Fox. A vengeful Silver. A whole lot of trouble. Lydia Crow has long suspected there is more beneath London than just trains but has never been keen to poke around in the dark. But when Paul Fox, powerful member of the Fox Family, blackmails her into taking a case, she has no choice. Investigating a suspicious death in a disused tunnel of the London Underground for her ex-boyfriend causes friction between her and DCI Fleet - and not the fun kind.

Lydia is pulled into the Crow Family business by her shady uncle Charlie. He has decided that Lydia needs to learn the truth about her infamous Family and to step into her role within it - whether she likes it or not. After Lydia’s wrongful arrest, her relationship with DCI Fleet is decidedly rocky, but when a teenage girl goes missing from Highgate Woods, she must put aside her emotions and work the case. Lydia is increasingly alarmed by Charlie’s methods but is trapped by loyalty.

The Ivy House team is shaping up, but there are still holes to be filled and a magical summons outstanding. Jessie needs a teacher. Someone who can fit in with the whacky Ivy House crew. And that was going just fine...until she gets a request to host a powerful, neighboring mage. A teacher isn't going to be enough. She needs more power in her crew. She needs some might.

An only child who lost both parents during her first year at college, wealthy heiress Kristine Kelly had made her husband her whole world. But she didn't see what everyone else did: that handsome, charismatic Logan Kelly was a manipulator and a user. Then, one cold December, Kristine got a chilling wake-up call when Logan vanished, along with the eight-million-dollar trust fund she had naively given him the power to control.

At twenty-nine, Valancy Stirling is an “old maid” trapped within the tedium and troubles of family life. She escapes by building the imaginary world of the Blue Castle. When she is diagnosed with a serious heart ailment, Valancy realizes she has never been happy. She doesn’t want to waste what time she has left. She seizes the moment. This catalyst for change leads her on towards relationships and entanglements far beyond what she could have predicted, including with a mysterious man known as Barney Snaith.

On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in a biblical city, an act they deem forbidden, and their judgement will echo on through her adolescence. When our narrator finally admits to her mother that she is queer, her mother's response only intensifies a sense of shame: "You exist too much," she tells her daughter. Told in vignettes that flash between the US and the Middle East, we trace her progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer.

Blossom Valley, West Virginia, is home to Smythe Orchards, Winnie and her Granny's beloved 25-acre farm and family business. But any way you slice it, it's struggling. That's why they're trying to drum up business with the "First Annual Christmas at the Orchard", a good old-fashioned holiday festival with enough delicious draw to satisfy apple-picking locals and cider-loving tourists alike - until the whole endeavor takes a sour turn when the body of Nadine Cooper, Granny's long-time, grudge-holding nemesis, is found lodged in the apple press.

Daisy Lewis is experiencing a relentless string of bad luck. Fortunately, Daisy has her sister's destination wedding coming up. A week of sand, sea, and sun in the South Pacific as the maid-of-honor is exactly what Daisy needs to forget her upturned life and focus on the positive....

The first rule of a supernatural fight club? Don't kill your opponent. When the fighters come with lethal spells, werewolf strength, and half-demon powers, that can be a lot tougher than it sounds. It's hard to attract talent if they know they might not leave the ring alive. So when fighters at a California club start dying, it's bad for business. Witch detectives Paige Winterbourne and Savannah Levine take the case.

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.

When you are in the bush, pregnant, and your husband is hurt what do you do? Will you trust just about anyone? When their car gets a flat tire in the Australian outback, it should be a simple job for capable Hal to fix. His wife pregnant, he sets to it. But an accident befalls him, leaving him immobilized. Paige is now their only hope of getting out of the bush. When Paige chances upon a stranger, it seems her prayers are answered. But the stranger doesn't want to help. She wants something else, and it's not Paige's husband....

It is November 25, 1960, and the bodies of three beautiful, convent-educated sisters have been found near their wrecked Jeep at the bottom of a 150-foot cliff on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. El Caribe, the official newspaper, reports their deaths as an accident. It does not mention that a fourth sister lives. Nor does it explain that the sisters were among the leading opponents of General Raphael Leonidas Trujillo's dictatorship.