It’s 1946 and Mabel has never been happier. She’s a wife, a new mother, and the owner of the town’s most popular bakery. The black clouds that had followed her in the past have parted and her future has never looked brighter. Or so it seemed. A devastating loss and murder abruptly turn Mabel’s tranquil life upside down. As rumours run rampant, conclusions are drawn, and doubt takes hold, Mabel is left questioning her marriage, her faith and her very existence. Or so it seemed is a stand-alone, page-turning mystery that reintroduces many of the unforgettable characters fans of The Bread Maker have come to either love or loathe, cry for or curse. Readers of this evocative and stirring novel will also be treated to a rich cast of new characters, including Mabel’s strange neighbour, a handsome young priest, and a hilarious gaggle of mischievous boys; all of whom come together to remind us that things aren’t always as they seem.

In this tender, funny, and sharp memoir-in-essays, the author of Amateur Hour examines marriage, divorce, and the ways love, loss & longing shape a life. Six weeks after she and her husband announced their divorce, Kimberly Harrington began work on a book that she thought would be about divorce, full of dark humor and a not-small amount of annoyance. After all, on the heels of planning to dissolve a twenty-year marriage, they had chosen to still live together in the same house with their kids. Over the course of two years of what was supposed to be a temporary period of transition, she sifted through how she had formed her ideas about relationships, sex, marriage, and divorce. And she dug back into the history of her marriage—how she and her future ex-husband had met, what it felt like to be madly in love, how they changed, the impact that having children had on their relationship, and what they still owed each other. But You Seemed So Happy is an honest, intimate biography of a marriage, from its heady, idealistic, and easy beginnings to its slowly coming apart, and finally to its evolution into something completely unexpected. As she probes what it means when everyone assumes you’re happy as long as you’re still married, Harrington skewers the casual way we make life-altering decisions when we’re young. Ultimately, this moving and funny memoir-in-essays is an irreverent act of forgiveness—of ourselves, our partners, and the relationships that have run their course but will always hold a permanent place in our lives. “An honest, tender, and often hilarious book on the end of a modern marriage. No matter your relationship status, But You Seemed So Happy begs the question, What are we all doing here? I laughed, I cried, I found myself in the pages over and over again.” —Kate Baer, New York Times–bestselling author of What Kind of Woman: Poems “Intimate and raw yet meticulously scrubbed of the slightest tinge of self-pity, Harrington explores the pain and intricacies of a marriage and its dissolution with a ruthless, unflinching honest and gallows humor that makes you feel like you buried a body with her.” —Emily Flake, cartoonist for The New Yorker

In this third of the “brilliant” (Bookreporter) Alexander Hawke series, intrepid intelligence operative Alex Hawke must thwart a deadly alliance between China and France before they annihilate everything and everyone in their rush toward world domination. Aboard a ship in the south of France, an American spy faces certain death for the vital, explosive intelligence he possesses. In Paris, a ruthless and powerful descendant of Napoleon has forged an unholy alliance with China for its growing nuclear arsenal, poised to send the world to the brink of a gut-wrenching showdown. Now, in a maelstrom of razor’s-edge danger, Alex Hawke must enter the nightmare visions of madmen to defuse an axis of evil no one could have predicted—and no living soul would survive. Packed with unrelenting action, glamour, and high style, Pirate is a spellbinding thriller. Be prepared for Alex Hawke’s most daunting and heart-pounding mission yet.

A murder in Istanbul is entangled with international politics and deadly secrets when an embassy official is shot trying to swim the Dardanelles Straits. Special Branch officer Seymour’s investigation ranges through Istanbul’s graveyards, box shops, and crowded coffee houses, leading to the heart of Topkapi Palace. From the Trade Paperback edition.

True Stories of Make-Believe to Entertain Readers New book is an anthology of engaging short stories filled with mysteries and adventures. McMinnville, OR Author Wave Joann Stevens treats young readers and fantasy-lovers as she releases, through Xlibris, a rich collection of exciting tales carved out of her imaginative mind. Mystery, Adventure & Nonsense: True Stories of Make-Believe takes readers to a world of the bizarre, eccentric, and utter fun. Composed of six different stories that are somehow interrelated, this release entertains with its unusual themes and unpredictable twists. Throughout the engaging pages, readers will follow The Adventures of Ollie and Willie, the peculiarity of the Reflections in the Mirror, the unconventional twirling of The Ballerina, the oblivion of The Boy, the consequences of being Topsyturvy, and the comfort of the Wooden Arms. Offering not only amusement, all these stories are filled with lessons and morals that are oftentimes forgotten in todays modern lifestyle. With its unconventional characters and uncanny yet highly amusing feel, Mystery, Adventure & Nonsense: True Stories of Make-Believe is a complete compilation of tales that exude the importance of having dreams, the bliss of friendship, and the essence of nature. This book will entertain both the young and the young at heart. For more information on this book, log on to www.Xlibris.com.

Rosy Weeks works for a local horse trainer at a once-successful stable, now fallen on hard times. In love with the morose owner and passionate about her favourite horse, Roly Fox, can Rosy turn the stable's fortunes around?

Susan Orlean’s bestseller and New York Times Notable Book is “a sheer delight…as rich in insight and as varied as the treasures contained on the shelves in any local library” (USA TODAY)—a dazzling love letter to a beloved institution and an investigation into one of its greatest mysteries. “Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book” (The Washington Post). On the morning of April 28, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. The fire was disastrous: it reached two thousand degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who? Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a “delightful…reflection on the past, present, and future of libraries in America” (New York magazine) that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before. In the “exquisitely written, consistently entertaining” (The New York Times) The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries; brings each department of the library to vivid life; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago. “A book lover’s dream…an ambitiously researched, elegantly written book that serves as a portal into a place of history, drama, culture, and stories” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis), Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country.

Waldo Astley comes to Bexham on a personal mission, and finds that his mission involves him in the lives of several Bexham women who each coped in her own way with War World II.