Reading House

Dorothy Martin and her husband, Alan Nesbitt, recently retired from Scotland Yard, get word that she has received a small inheritance. But she must travel from her home in England to her native Indiana to claim it. The deceased has also left a letter suggesting that he's been murdered. At first, that seems absurd. He was 96-years-old and died of pneumonia. Upon further investigation, however, the two sleuths find several suspects with the means, motives, and opportunities to abet Mother Nature.

Paris, France: 1860’s. Hundreds of houses are being razed, whole neighborhoods reduced to ashes. By order of Emperor Napoleon III, Baron Haussman has set into motion a series of large-scale renovations that will permanently alter the face of old Paris, moulding it into a “modern city.” The reforms will erase generations of history - but in the midst of the tumult, one woman will take a stand. Rose Bazelet is determined to fight against the destruction of her family home until the very end; as others flee, she stakes her claim in the basement of the old house on rue Childebert, ignoring the sounds of change....

Evoking the spirit and hardships of small-town America during World War II, Carolyn Hart's beautifully written story follows a young reporter, Gretchen Gilman, who investigates the puzzling murder of an acquaintance. Gretchen's assignments at the local newspaper weren't very exciting, but the job was a good opportunity for a young woman with talent and ambition. That summer, everyone was talking about Faye Tatum, who was found dead in her living room.

El Sultán ha pedido a los artistas más reputados del país un gran libro que celebre las glorias de su reino. Su tarea será iluminar esa obra al estilo europeo. Pero como el arte figurativo puede ser considerado una ofensa al Islam, el encargo se convierte a todas luces en una proposición peligrosa. La élite gobernante no debe conocer el alcance ni la naturaleza de ese proyecto, y el pánico estalla cuando uno de los miniaturistas desaparece. La única pista para resolver el misterio -¿quizá un crimen?- reside en las miniaturas inacabadas.

In Girls That Never Die, award-winning poet Safia Elhillo reinvents the epic to explore Muslim girlhood and shame, the dangers of being a woman, and the myriad violences enacted and imagined against women’s bodies. Drawing from her own life and family histories, as well as cultural myths and news stories about honor killings and genital mutilation, she interlaces the everyday traumas of growing up a girl under patriarchy with magical realist imaginings of rebellion, autonomy, and power.

Annie Darling, popular proprietress of the Death on Demand bookstore, has done it again! Her murder-mystery cruise in the waters off her not-always-idyllic isle of Broward's Rock is sure to be a roaring success, with every participant dressing up as a favorite fictional sleuth. And sure enough, everything goes swimmingly, until one of the revelers plunges overboard. And despite hubby Max Darling's courageous rescue attempt, faux murder turns all too quickly into real-life death.

Normally, Annie Laurence Darling would be eagerly awaiting her trip to this year's Dixie Book Festival. But this year Annie has agreed to be the author liaison to five authors honored with the Dixie Book Festival Medallions, and she fears she is going to have her hands full. What Annie doesn't count on is the untimely death of ambitious Mint Julep Press publisher Kenneth Hazlitt.

Annie Darling, owner of the Death on Demand mystery bookstore, is understandably upset. It isn't like her P.I. husband Max to abruptly disappear—and homicide is definitely not his style. But when his car is found abandoned on a remote road with a brutally slain, once-beautiful young woman nearby and the murder weapon stashed in the trunk, Annie's worst fears seem justified.

Intrigue and foul play are no strangers to the idyllic South Carolina sea island of Broward's Rock. Mystery bookstore owner Annie Darling and her husband, Max, who specialize in solving problems, plunge into a startling web of danger and deceit when a trio of deaths is linked to the island's youth recreation center.

When wealthy, widowed art patron Virginia Neville officially announces her engagement to Jake O'Neill, her handsome, charming, and much younger fiance, at a gala gallery opening, not all the gathered friends and stepfamily are pleased. And before the last champagne bubble pops, murder disrupts the grand celebration.

Annie Darling's yuletide preparations have been put on hold because her mother-in-law, Laurel, has taken to chatting up ghosts in the local graveyard. Across Broward's Rock, onetime movie star Marguerite Dumaney Ladson has called together all of her kin and their exes for a gala celebration. Among the honored guests are Annie's father and Dr. Emory Swanson. Ladson has fallen for Swanson's new-age-pseudo-occult gobbledygook. Right after the announcement that she's leaving her fortune to the charlatan's Evermore Foundation, there's a murder.

Annie can hardly believe it: The police say her husband, Max, sits behind bars. They speak of him with a beautiful blonde. By the time Annie bails Max out, the blonde has disappeared and Max is the prime suspect in a crime. The baffling, bloodstained trail leads to the home of the Tarrants, a venerable Southern family with a violent history dating back to the Revolution - and ghosts of a more recent vintage. Infighting and mayhem reign in the family, and a killer wants hide the secrets that haunt the Tarrants.

The Women's Club prides itself on the success of its annual White Elephant Sale, but this year's sale is marred by a bizarre turn. A blackmailer coerces five of the town's citizens into donating valuable artifacts. When a volunteer fails to show up on time, Henny Brawley drives off to find the missing woman, just as a powerful squall hits the island. Hours later, a worried Annie Darling goes off in search of Henny, only to find the corpse of the missing volunteer. The victim turns out to be the blackmailer.

To celebrate an April Fool's Day appearance by the island's most famous mystery author, Death on Demand bookstore owner Annie Darling creates a unique promotion. Offering a free book to anyone who can solve a series of clues about popular whodunits, Annie and husband Max pass out their flyers all over town. But an April Fool prankster is distributing a counterfeit flyer, complete with not-so-vague accusations of murder.

In honor of Agatha Christie's 100th birthday, mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance Darling plans a week-long celebration of mystery, treasure hunts, and Christie trivia. But the last thing she or her guests expect is that the scheduled fun and mayhem will include a real-life murder. The unexpected arrival of Neil Bledsoe, the most despised book critic in America, was sure to raise a few hackles. An advocate of hard-boiled detection and gory true crime, Bledsoe drops a bombshell on the devoted Christie assemblage....

When mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance is invited to teach "The Three Great Ladies of the Mystery" class at Chastain Community College, the sometimes sleuth discovers that all is not strictly academic in Chastain's hallowed halls of learning. And when a shocking scandal in the school newspaper erupts in a suicide and two violent deaths, Professor Laurance enlists the talents of her new hubby, private eye Max Darling, and dons her thinking cap to probe intrigue and vengeance among Chastain's faculty.

Britt Barlow is certain her media mogul brother-in-law Jeremiah Addison's fatal tumble a year ago was no accident -- especially since she herself discovered, and disposed of, the trip wire someone had strung across the stairs. Now she's bringing all who were in attendance that weekend back to Golden Silk -- Addison's luxurious secluded island estate -- and inviting two extra guests, Annie and Max Darling, to help uncover a killer.

Annie and Max Darling watch the Fourth of July festival explode not only with fun and fireworks, but with murder as well. A library board newcomer who also happens to be a retired Brigadier General maneuvers the theme of the festival, which is to benefit the library, into his own vision: "Points of Patriotism." His takeover attitude has alienated everyone, including Annie, who finds it difficult to ignore him - especially when he's shot dead before her eyes.

Annie and Max Darling are completely unprepared when the arrival of a mysterious young woman shocks their sea island and stirs up more than just gossip.It turns out that Iris, the beautiful stranger, is a former resident of Broward's Rock. Her arrival throws the normally happy town into a downward spiral that pits neighbor against neighbor.

Mystery bookstore owner Annie Laurance didn't really want to go to her neighbor's Valentine Day masked ball - particularly not after the voluptuous brunette made a pass at Annie's husband, Max. So when her dizzy mother-in-law, Laurel, made a surprise visit to Broward's Rock Island, Annie thought it would be a perfect excuse to skip the party. She should have known better: True to form, Laurel accepted the invitation for all three of them. But the biggest surprise of all came at the party's end, when Annie found the amorous hostess in the gazebo - murdered.