The Queens of Crime is a thrilling story by Marie Benedict, inspired by a true story from Dorothy Sayers' life. Set in London, 1930, the novel tells the tale of the five greatest women crime writers who form a secret society to challenge their male counterparts in the Detection Club.
Led by the formidable Dorothy L. Sayers, the group includes legendary authors such as Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Margery Allingham, and Baroness Emma Orczy. Together, they call themselves the Queens of Crime, embarking on a mission to solve the murder of a young woman found strangled in a French park.
May Daniels, a young English nurse, vanishes during an excursion to France. Her body is discovered months later, leading to a locked room mystery that challenges the Queens of Crime. As they unravel the case, they face threats and uncover secrets, proving that they are stronger together.
This novel is a celebration of female friendship, determination, and the power of women writers in a male-dominated world. Join the Queens of Crime as they unpuzzle a mystery that could be torn from the pages of their own novels.
Life after crime from the International Booker-shortlisted author of Elena Knows. Fifteen years after killing her husband's lover, Inés is fresh out of prison and trying to put together a new life. Her old friend Manca is out now too, and they've started a business – FFF, or Females, Fumigation, and Flies – dedicated to pest control and private investigation, by women, for women.
But Señora Bonar, one of their clients, wants Inés to do more than kill bugs – she wants her expertise, and her criminal past, to help her kill her husband's lover, too.
Crimes against women versus crimes by women; culpability, fallibility, and our responsibilities to each other—this is Piñeiro at her wry, earthy best, alive to all the ways we shape ourselves to be understandable, to be understood, by family and love and other hostile forces.
Sarah Nickerson is like any other career-driven supermom in Welmont, the affluent Boston suburb where she leads a hectic but charmed life with her husband Bob, faithful nanny, and three children - Lucy, Charlie, and nine-month-old Linus. Between recruiting the best and brightest minds as the vice president of human resources at Berkley Consulting; shuttling the kids to soccer, day care, and piano lessons; convincing her son’s teacher that he may not, in fact, have ADD; and making it home in time for dinner, it’s a wonder this over-scheduled, over-achieving Harvard graduate has time to breathe. A self-confessed balloon about to burst, Sarah miraculously manages every minute of her life like an air traffic controller.
Until one fateful day, while driving to work and trying to make a phone call, she looks away from the road for one second too long. In the blink of an eye, all the rapidly moving parts of her jam-packed life come to a screeching halt. A traumatic brain injury completely erases the left side of her world, and for once, Sarah relinquishes control to those around her, including her formerly absent mother.
Without the ability to even floss her own teeth, she struggles to find answers about her past and her uncertain future. Now, as she wills herself to regain her independence and heal, Sarah must learn that her real destiny - her new, true life - may in fact lie far from the world of conference calls and spreadsheets. And that a happiness and peace greater than all the success in the world is close within reach, if only she slows down long enough to notice.
Childhood friends Mackensie, Parker, Laurel, and Emmaline have formed a very successful wedding-planning business together. While helping thousands of happy couples organize the biggest day of their lives, three of the four women have all found love themselves - but workaholic Parker remains resolutely single. Her business is her life, and she devotes all her energies to it.
But as she is forced to re-evaluate her friendships, Parker finds that someone is about to divert her focus...
Mechanic Malcolm Kavanaugh loves figuring out how things work, and Parker Brown—with her mile-long legs—is no exception. As a good friend of Parker’s brother, Mal knows that moving from minor flirtation to major hookup is a serious step.
No man has rattled Parker in a long time, but the motorcycle-riding, raven-haired Mal seems to have a knack for it. His passionate kisses always catch her off guard, much like her growing feelings for him. Parker’s business risks have always paid off, but now she’ll have to take the chance of a lifetime with her heart...
Four young ladies at the side of the ballroom make a pact to help each other find husbands... no matter what it takes.
Proud and beautiful Annabelle Peyton could have her pick of suitors—if only she had a dowry. Her family is on the brink of disaster, and the only way Annabelle can save them is to marry a wealthy man. Unfortunately, her most persistent admirer is the brash Simon Hunt, a handsome and ambitious entrepreneur who wants her as his mistress.
Annabelle is determined to resist Simon's wicked propositions, but she can't deny her attraction to the boldly seductive rogue, any more than he can resist the challenge she presents. As they try to outmaneuver each other, they find themselves surrendering to a love more powerful than they could have ever imagined. But fate may have other plans—and it will take all of Annabelle's courage to face a peril that could destroy everything she holds dear.
Evelyn Ryan was an enterprising woman who kept poverty at bay with wit, poetry, and perfect prose during the "contest era" of the 1950s and 1960s. Stepping back into a time when fledgling advertising agencies were active partners with consumers, and everyday people saw possibility in every coupon, Terry Ryan tells how her mother kept the family afloat by writing jingles and contest entries.
Mom's winning ways defied the Church, her alcoholic husband, and antiquated views of housewives. To her, flouting convention was a small price to pay when it came to securing a happy home for her six sons and four daughters. Evelyn, who would surely be a Madison Avenue executive if she were working today, composed her jingles not in the boardroom, but at the ironing board.
By entering contests wherever she found them -- TV, radio, newspapers, direct-mail ads -- Evelyn Ryan was able to win every appliance her family ever owned, not to mention cars, television sets, bicycles, watches, a jukebox, and even trips to New York, Dallas, and Switzerland. But it wasn't just the winning that was miraculous; it was the timing. If a toaster died, one was sure to arrive in the mail from a forgotten contest. Days after the bank called in the second mortgage on the house, a call came from the Dr Pepper company: Evelyn was the grand-prize winner in its national contest -- and had won enough to pay the bank.
Graced with a rare appreciation for life's inherent hilarity, Evelyn turned every financial challenge into an opportunity for fun and profit. From her frenetic supermarket shopping spree -- worth $3,000 today -- to her clever entries worthy of Erma Bombeck, Dorothy Parker, and Ogden Nash, the story of this irrepressible woman whose talents reached far beyond her formidable verbal skills is told in The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio with an infectious joy that shows how a winning spirit will triumph over the poverty of circumstance.