Her one joy was her friendship with a poor but charming student, Jamie, whom her father forbade her to wed. When her father suddenly died from arsenic poisoning, the means, motive, and opportunity all pointed to Davina herself. Alone, she escaped to the colonies in Africa. But with the Boer War came danger and the return of dark secrets from the past that threatened her reputation and her very life . . .

    But when Charity arrived at their hotel in the picturesque French town of Avignon, she had no way of knowing that she was to become the principal player in the last act of a strange and brutal tragedy. Most of it had already been played. There had been love--and lust--and revenge and fear and murder.Very soon her dreams turn into a nightmare, when by befriending a terrified boy and catching the attention of his enigmatic, possibly murderous father, Charity has inadvertently placed herself center stage. She becomes enmeshed in the schemes of a gang of murderers. And now the killer, with blood enough on his hands, is waiting in the wings.

    As she finds herself drawn to a man intrigued by the town for reasons of his own, old ghosts reappear and danger returns--as a killer walks among them once more...."Evocative, moving, suspenseful--another surefire winner from the writer who taught all of us how it should be done."--BARBARA MICHAELSPHYLLIS A. WHITNEY IS A WINNER OF THE GRAND MASTER AWARD FOR LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE MYSTERY WRITERS OF AMERICA

    Jo's task is to evaluate the house's contents for a sale, but she soon finds herself drawn into the complex lives of Thirlbeck's inhabitants, each with their own secrets and desires.Jo is absorbed by the tragic story of The Spanish Lady, whose young life was cut short at Thirlbeck many centuries before. She also encounters La Española, the brilliant diamond which, according to legend, brings disaster to all who try to possess it. And she is shocked to learn of her own mother's connection to Thirlbeck.Meet the residents of ThirlbeckRobert Birkett, the Earl of Askew: returning to Thirlbeck after many years abroad, a decorated war hero who also spent time in prison after a fatal car accident for which he was blamed.Carlota, the Spanish Condesa: the Earl's sophisticated companion, who yearns to leave the cold of Cumberland for the warmth of the Mediterranean sun.Nat Birkett: the local farmer, and single father of two young boys, who is the reluctant heir to Thirlbeck. His passion is for the land rather than titles and possessions.Gerald Stanton: Jo's wise mentor and friend, who is like a father to her.George Tolson: the brooding keeper of Thirlbeck, who jealously guards it from unwelcome strangers.Jessica Tolson: George's intelligent but fragile granddaughter, who must be protected from herself.Jo will struggle with difficult discoveries as she unlocks the puzzles which link Thirlbeck's past and present residents.About Catherine GaskinBorn in Ireland and raised in Australia, Catherine Gaskin studied music at the conservatorium in Sydney, before becoming a bestselling author at the age of just seventeen. After moving to London she met her future husband, a US TV executive, on a blind date. The couple lived in Manhattan for ten years, before moving to the Virgin Islands, followed by Ireland, and then the Isle of Man. After her husband's death, Catherine returned to Australia where she spent the rest of her life.During her lifetime Catherine Gaskin's books sold over 40 million copies worldwide, and she was known as “The Queen of Storytellers” and “The Girl with the Golden Pen.”

    Jo grew anxious when Mary confided that she heard a thin, insistent wail that rose up beyond the dark Maine woods. And Mary’s desperate midnight searches for the anguished voice aroused a chilling terror within Jo. Maybe Mary was losing her mind. But then it came again—the mystifying cry in the night. And this time Jo heard it, too...

    The woman, he gradually comes to realise, was his family's beloved servant many years ago, in his native town of Ruffano. He returns to his birthplace, and once there, finds it is haunted by the phantom of his brother, Aldo, shot down in flames in '43.Over five hundred years before, the sinister Duke Claudio, known as The Falcon, lived his twisted, brutal life, preying on the people of Ruffano. But now it is the twentieth century, and the town seems to have forgotten its violent history. But have things really changed? The parallels between the past and present become ever more evident.

    A young Oxford don, Richard Myles and his wife Frances are about to leave for their usual long vacation on the continent. At the request of a Foreign Office friend of Richard's they agree to serve as messengers to a man who has been involved in rescue work and anti-Nazi espionage, a man who now seems to have gone missing. Their qualifications? Next to nothing except for Richard's superb memory and the fact that they look so very innocent. Across a continent on the brink of war from Paris to Innsbruck and beyond Richard and Francis travel ever deeper into danger.

    Dr. Paige Taylor: She swore it was euthanasia, but when Paige inherited a million dollars from a patient, the D.A. called it murder. Dr. Kat Hunter: She vowed never to let another man too close again-until she accepted the challenge of a deadly bet. Dr. Honey Taft: To make it in medicine, she knew she'd need something more than the brains God gave her. Racing from the life-and-death decisions of a big major hospital to the tension-packed fireworks of a murder trial, Nothing Lasts Forever lays bare the ambitions and fears of healers and killers, lovers and betrayers.

    Tormented by horrific nightmares since the death of her baby five years before, literary agent Lyn Ravenshaw agrees to accompany an author to Wales, where she encounters an eccentric young widow desperately afraid for her own infant's safety and a reclusive playwright who could be her only salvation.

    The Forgotten Garden is a captivating, atmospheric and compulsively readable story of the past, secrets, family and memory from the international best-selling author Kate Morton.Cassandra is lost, alone and grieving. Her much loved grandmother, Nell, has just died and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything dear to her. But an unexpected and mysterious bequest from Nell turns Cassandra’s life upside down and ends up challenging everything she thought she knew about herself and her family.Inheriting a book of dark and intriguing fairytales written by Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—Cassandra takes her courage in both hands to follow in the footsteps of Nell on a quest to find out the truth about their history, their family and their past; little knowing that in the process, she will also discover a new life for herself.

    Now, at nineteen, Paul must bear witness against his friend to avoid prison. Louisa's own dark secrets led her to flee a desperate infatuation gone wrong many years before. Now she spends her days steeped in history, renovating the grounds of a crumbling Elizabethan garden. But her fragile peace is shattered when she meets Paul; he's the spitting image of the one person she never thought she'd see again.These two, scarred and solitary, begin a secret affair. Louisa starts to believe she can again find the happiness she had given up on. But neither of them can outrun his violent past.A story of secrets and guilt set among the ruins of a sixteenth- century English garden, The Dark Rose explores the extremes of obsessive love and loyalty, devotion and desperation. Like Kelly's critically acclaimed debut novel, The Poison Tree, this fantastically creepy, atmospheric novel thrills until the final shocking moments.

    But from the moment that Brigadier Brindley relates the story about a fortune in lost diamonds--a story in which Miranda herself figures in an unusual way--the vacation atmosphere becomes transformed into something more ominous. And when murder strikes on the night train to Berlin, Miranda finds herself unwillingly involved in a complex chain of events that will soon throw her own life into peril. Set against a background of war-scarred Berlin in the early 1950s, M. M. Kaye's Death in Berlin is a consummate mystery from one of the finest storytellers of our time.

    Their life seems perfectly ordinary except that daughter Liza has been kept isolated from the outside world for all of her sixteen years. And that she has seen her beautiful mother commit murder... more than once. Now, as the police come searching for a missing man, Liza's sheltered, strange world begins to fall apart. Piece by piece she will reveal her mother's tale of betrayal, desire, and obsession. Step-by-step we discover how much like mother, like daughter she is.

    Loo when he came back from the War. She had known Rupert since childhood. He was handsome, strong, and deeply in love with her. Everyone agreed, it would have been such a suitable marriage, they were a perfect match.How strange then that John Gabriel, an war hero and and one of the candidates in a post-war election in Cornwall, should appear in her life. Nobody expected Isabelle to fall for him. John was Rupert's opposite -- a man of ruthless ambition, overwhelming appetites, who desired Isabella, but despised everything she stood for.From the moment they met, Isabella knew John would gladly destroy her… yet she could not resist him… For Isabella, the price of love would mean abandoning her dreams of home and happiness forever. For John, it would destroy his chance of a career and all his ambitions....

    A barricade blocked the way. Dark figures surrounded them. Christina had no time to cry out as strong arms caught her from behind. A hand covered her mouth. She bit it as hard as she could.She looked up at the tall, masked stranger, and a mysterious, frightening sensation swept over her. Those fiery brown eyes gazed at her in a way she had never known before ...