Lamar Public Library

Samantha Sweeting, the 29-year-old heroine of Kinsella's latest confection (after Shopaholic Sister), is on the verge of partnership at the prestigious London law firm Carter Spink the Holy Grail of her entire workaholic life. But when she finds she has made a terrible, costly mistake just before the partnership decision, she's terrified of being fired. In a fog, she stumbles out of the building and onto the nearest train, which drops her in the countryside,...

"It's a mystery that begins during the Great War, when Gabriel Hughenfort dies amidst scandalous rumors that have haunted the family ever since. But it's not until Holmes and Russell arrive at Justice Hall, a home of unearthly perfection set in a garden modled on Paradise, that they fully understand the irony echoed in the family motto, Justica fortitudo mea est: Righteousness is my strength. A trail of ominous clues leads Holmes and Russell from...

Meridon, a vagabond gypsy, allows her vague memories of a very different life, as well as the necklace that is her birthright, to lead her home to Wideacre where she takes her place as its mistress.

Judah Dreghorn was a very well thought of Justice of the Peace. And yet, just before his tragic accidental death, he was accused by Ashton Gower of being corrupt and venal. Eleven years ago, Ashton Gower's ownership of his estate was questioned by his cousin, Peter Colgrave. It was Colgrave's contention that Gower had forged the deeds and that the estate rightfully belonged to him, Peter Colgrave.

Jim Henderson is one of six guests summoned by the mysterious Edwin Carson, a collector of precious stones, to a weekend party at his country house, Thrackley. The house is gloomy and forbidding but the party is warm and hospitable except for the presence of Jacobson, the sinister butler. The other guests are wealthy people draped in jewels; Jim cannot imagine why he belongs in such company. After a weekend of adventure, with attempted robbery and...

The novel's narrator, Stevens, is a perfect English butler who tries to give his narrow existence form and meaning through the self-effacing, almost mystical practice of his profession. In a career that spans the second World War, Stevens is oblivious of the real life that goes on around him -- oblivious, for instance, of the fact that his aristocrat employer is a Nazi sympathizer. Still, there are even larger matters at stake in this heartbreaking,...

Delightfully quirky Aunt Dimity series in fine style as a poison pen infiltrates a house party at the country estate of a British earl. When her best friend learns that her husband is heir to both an earldom and a fortune, Lori Shepard agrees to accompany a decidedly nervous Emma Harris to Hailesham Park to meet her in-laws. Of course, Lori enlists the help of her "Aunt Dimity," a blithe spirit who reveals her thoughts and opinions to Lori via the...

The painting of a portrait brings three sisters--beautiful Julia and intellectual Finn, both in their twenties, and observant, thirteen-year-old Maisie--and three young men--struggling artist Lucas, would-be doctor Nicholas, and Maisie's idol, Roma-blooded Daniel--together at a decaying rural Suffolk abbey for the summer of 1967, which ends in a tragic event that resonates in Daniel's life over twenty years later.