On a spring night, a lone nightingale starts to sing in the boughs of the old village oak tree and a local psychic predicts that it will sing every night until a village mystery is solved... As if the excitement surrounding Megan and Jack's forthcoming nuptials isn't enough, a TV antiques show arrives in Bliss Bay to film an episode on the village green, and a trinket Des bought years ago in a junk shop for pennies turns out to be worth thousands… and a magnet for trouble. And when Jack finds a mysterious package on his doorstep, it's the start of a journey that will change his and Megan's lives forever. Pull up a comfortable chair, grab a cuppa, and join in the fun in the final Bliss Bay Village Mystery.

What happens when small-town murder meets a big-hearted café owner? Light, clean, fun, cozy mysteries, set in an English coastal town, with characters who'll stay with you long after you've finished reading, and recipes to try for yourself. No gore, graphic language, sex or violence, and no cliffhangers! Christmas comes but once a year, but murder visits more often... When an unpopular St. Eves' resident is found dead, the shadow of suspicion falls upon a familiar face returning to the town, a group of visiting newcomers, and a trusted friend to many. As reluctant amateur sleuth Charlotte Costello digs ever-deeper in her quest to find the murderer, more lives are thrown into peril, and the race to stop a killer from striking again is on. And who is playing Secret Santa? This is the seventh book in the Charlotte Denver Cozy Mystery series, and is a clean mystery read with no graphic violence, profanity or sex. Cozy murder mystery series, cozy murder mystery, cozy murder mystery books, cozy murder, cozy mystery, cozy mysteries, cozy romance mystery, amateur sleuth, female amateur sleuth, British cozy mystery, British cosy mystery, culinary cozy mystery, culinary cozy mystery series, cozy mystery with recipes, small-town mystery, lighthearted cozy mystery, happy endings, standalone cozy mystery, international cozy mystery, clean cozy mystery, cozy mystery with dog, animal cozy mystery, quirky characters, nosy old women

During a memorial service in St Eves for the victims of a crash that killed five people exactly one year before, a scream rings out and an unpopular member of the small town is found dead, lying against a gravestone in the cemetery. When it comes to light that the victim was murdered hours before the scream was heard, detectives get to work to solve the puzzling mystery, and amateur sleuth Charlotte, along with her old friend Ava, start doing a little detective work of their own. When the shocking truth behind the murder, and the crash, is revealed, and a killer is finally brought to justice, the close-knit community takes a collective breath, and life starts to get back to normal. But then, tragedy strikes... Note: This is a clean mystery, with no profanity or sex, and no cliffhangers

Part of the regionalist movement that included Grant Wood, Paul Engle, Hamlin Garland, and Jay G. Sigmund, James Hearst helped create what Iowa novelist Ruth Suckow called a poetry of place. A lifelong Iowa farner, Hearst began writing poetry at age nineteen and eventually wrote thirteen books of poems, a novel, short stories, cantatas, and essays, which gained him a devoted following Many of his poems were published in the regionalist periodicals of the time, including the Midland, and by the great regional presses, including Carroll Coleman's Prairie Press. Drawing on his experiences as a farmer, Hearst wrote with a distinct voice of rural life and its joys and conflicts, of his own battles with physical and emotional pain (he was partially paralyzed in a farm accident), and of his own place in the world. His clear eye offered a vision of the midwestern agrarian life that was sympathetic but not sentimental - a people and an art rooted in place.

One of the most beloved novels of all time, Colleen McCullough's magnificent saga of dreams, struggles, dark passions, and forbidden love in the Australian outback has enthralled readers the world over. The Thorn Birds is a chronicle of three generations of Clearys—an indomitable clan of ranchers carving lives from a beautiful, hard land while contending with the bitterness, frailty, and secrets that penetrate their family. It is a poignant love story, a powerful epic of struggle and sacrifice, a celebration of individuality and spirit. Most of all, it is the story of the Clearys' only daughter, Meggie, and the haunted priest, Father Ralph de Bricassart—and the intense joining of two hearts and souls over a lifetime, a relationship that dangerously oversteps sacred boundaries of ethics and dogma.

First published in Germany in 1929, The End and the Beginning is a lively personal memoir of a vanished world and of a rebellious, high-spirited young woman's struggle to achieve independence. Born in 1883 into a distinguished and wealthy aristocratic family of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, Hermynia Zur Muhlen spent much of her childhood travelling in Europe and North Africa with her diplomat father. After five years on her German husband's estate in czarist Russia she broke with both her family and her husband and set out on a precarious career as a professional writer committed to socialism. Besides translating many leading contemporary authors, notably Upton Sinclair, into German, she herself published an impressive number of politically engaged novels, detective stories, short stories, and children's fairy tales. Because of her outspoken opposition to National Socialism, she had to flee her native Austria in 1938 and seek refuge in England, where she died, virtually penniless, in 1951. This revised and corrected translation of Zur Muhlen's memoir - with extensive notes and an essay on the author by Lionel Gossman - will appeal especially to readers interested in women's history, the Central European aristocratic world that came to an end with the First World War, and the culture and politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

"In the course of fund-raising for civilian victims of World War I, Edith Wharton assembled this monumental benefit volume by drawing upon her connections to the era's leading authors and artists. The unique compilation forms a 'Who's Who' of early 20th century culture, featuring poetry, stories, illustrations, music and other contributions from scores of luminaries. ... Much of the text is presented in both English and French. Includes an Introduction by former U. S. President Theodore Roosevelt."--

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.