A New Orleans businessman and white-collar criminal is celebrating his early release from prison. But his freedom will be short lived… Scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava, are off to a party. Prominent socialite Margo Leland is throwing an extravagant fete to welcome home her husband, Jerry Earl. There’s a zydeco band, champagne ice luge, and waiters in ties and tails. But in the midst of the revelry, Jerry Earl is murdered—then stuffed inside a clothes dryer. When the grieving widow turns to her for help, Carmela can’t say no. But Jerry Earl took a lot of people to the cleaners with his underhanded business tactics, so Carmela’s going to be hard-pressed to identify which of his enemies was steamed enough to kill him. As she sorts through Jerry Earl’s dirty laundry, she needs to collar the killer before another victim is set to tumble dry… Scrapbooking Tips and Recipes Included!

Exercise is over-rated! Eja Kane joins a dojo hoping to shape up and zone out before her wedding to Deming Swann. Instead of sweat and spiritual healing, she finds a simmering cauldron of sex, jealousy, and greed. When a con-woman's corpse literally drops at her feet, Eja and the entire Swann clan plunge into a nasty bullion scam that imperils Deming's clients and snares even the virtuous in its grip.

Enjoy this humorous cozy locked room mystery with a fashionable amateur detective and a cast of quirky characters by national bestselling author Diane Vallere… All that glitters isn’t gold When Samantha Kidd’s jewel of a husband, shoe designer Nick Taylor, is named a finalist for Designer of the Year at an industry function, Samantha sponsors a banquet table and invites close friends and family to the celebration. But by the time the night arrives, most of them aren’t on speaking terms. Even romance with Nick suffers thanks to his dad’s move into the couple’s spare bedroom. Before the cash bar closes, the toastmaster’s body is found with a gilded knife in her chest. What should have been a golden evening becomes a 24-karat disaster, and brutal weather conditions keep the cops at bay. Locked in a ballroom with two hundred suspects and seven angry tablemates, Samantha’s got just four hours to take a stab at solving the murder…before the murderer stabs again. Gilt Trip is the fourteenth humorous Killer Fashion cozy mystery featuring amateur sleuth and fashion expert Samantha Kidd, although each book in the series can be read as a standalone. For fans of Julie Mulhern, Sophie Kinsella, and Leighann Dobbs, if you like tense circumstances, fair-play whodunits, and humorous family dynamics, you’ll love this funny, stranded-in-a-hotel-in-a-snowstorm mystery. Diane-Fans describe “her vintage Vallere goodness,” and say she is a “great storyteller” with “a way with creating strong female characters and intrigue” who is “a superb and very humorous writer.” Her gift of creating “spunky sleuths in fun settings” take readers to Dallas, Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Pennsylvania, and outer space.

Louisiana businessman Jerry Earl Leland served only a fraction of his five-year sentence for white-collar crime, thanks to some political connections and a few greased palms. But he won’t have long to enjoy his freedom… After Jerry Earl’s early release, his wife, Margo—a much-married Garden District doyenne—throws an extravagant Get Out of Jail Free Party, complete with a Zydeco band, champagne ice luge, and waiters in ties and tails. The guest list includes many prominent New Orleans socialites, as well as scrapbook shop owner Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava Gruiex. But sometime during the swirl of partying and drinking, Jerry Earl is brutally murdered—then stuffed inside a clothes dryer. Carmela has earned a reputation around town for solving murders, and when the grieving widow turns to her for help, she can’t say no. But Jerry Earl took a lot of people to the cleaners with his underhanded business tactics, so Carmela’s going to be hard-pressed to identify which of his enemies was steamed enough to kill him. As she sorts through Jerry Earl’s dirty laundry, she needs to collar the killer before another victim is set to tumble dry… Scrapbooking Tips and Recipes Included!

Tracking the movement of finance capital toward far-flung investment frontiers, Noam Maggor reconceives the emergence of modern capitalism in the United States. Brahmin Capitalism reveals the decisive role of established wealth in the transformation of the American economy in the decades after the Civil War, leading the way to the nationally integrated corporate capitalism of the twentieth century. Maggor’s provocative history of the Gilded Age explores how the moneyed elite in Boston—the quintessential East Coast establishment—leveraged their wealth to forge transcontinental networks of commodities, labor, and transportation. With the decline of cotton-based textile manufacturing in New England and the abolition of slavery, these gentleman bankers traveled far and wide in search of new business opportunities and found them in the mines, railroads, and industries of the Great West. Their investments spawned new political and social conflict, in both the urbanizing East and the expanding West. In contests that had lasting implications for wealth, government, and inequality, financial power collided with more democratic visions of economic progress. Rather than being driven inexorably by technologies like the railroad and telegraph, the new capitalist geography was a grand and highly contentious undertaking, Maggor shows, one that proved pivotal for the rise of the United States as the world’s leading industrial nation.

In the court of King Henry VIII, nothing is free-- and love comes at the highest price of all. When Kitty Tylney's best friend, Catherine Howard, worms her way into King Henry VIII's heart and brings Kitty to court, she's thrust into a world filled with fabulous gowns, sparkling jewels, and elegant parties. No longer stuck in Cat's shadow, Kitty's now caught between two men--the object of her affection and the object of her desire. But court is also full of secrets, lies, and sordid affairs, and as Kitty witnesses Cat's meteoric rise and fall as queen, she must figure out how to keep being a good friend when the price of telling the truth could literally be her head.

A luxurious and richly compelling new novel from the bestselling author of Blush, about a famous family jewelry dynasty and the hidden past that could topple it all. One perfect diamond is all it takes to divide a family. Could one summer be enough to fix it? The Pavlin family built an empire on love. As the first jewelers to sell diamond engagement rings, they started a tradition that has defined the industry ever since. But when an ill-fated publicity stunt pits the three Pavlin sisters against one another for a famous family jewel, their bond is broken. No ordinary diamond ring, the Electric Rose splinters the sisters, leaving one unlucky in love, one escaping to the shores of Cape Cod, and the other, ultimately, dead. Now, more than a decade later, the only Pavlin granddaughter, Gemma Maybrook is still reconciling the reality of her mother's death. Left orphaned and cast out by her family after the tragic accident, Gemma is ready to reclaim what should have been hers: the Electric Rose. And, as a budding jewelry designer in her own right, Gemma isn't just planning on recovering her mother's lost memento, she's coming back for everything....

"Everything Mr. Krugman has to say is smart, important and even fun to read . . . he is one of a handful of very bright, relatively young economists who do everything well." — Peter Passell, New York Times Book Review In this wonderfully cohesive set of sharp and witty essays, Paul Krugman tackles bad economic ideas from across the political spectrum. In plain English, he enlightens us on the Asian crisis, corporate downsizing, and the globalization of the American economy, among other topics. The writing here brilliantly combines the acerbic style and clever analysis that has made Krugman famous. Imagine declaring New York its own country and you get a better picture of our trade balance with China and Hong Kong. Try reducing the economy to the production of hot dogs and buns and you’ll understand why common beliefs about the impact of production efficiency on labor demand are wrong. This is a collection that will amuse, provoke, and enlighten, in classic Paul Krugman style. "[Paul Krugman] writes better than any economist since John Maynard Keynes." — Rob Norton, Fortune "[Paul Krugman is] probably the most creative economist of his generation." — The Economist Winner of the John Bates Clark Medal

Introduces Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, and narrative poems, and discusses major themes, characters, and dramatic techniques