Frank Carlson Library

On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of the slightly disreputable, the temporarily lost, and the patently eccentric live on houseboats, rising and falling with the great river's tides. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they cling to one another in a motley yet kindly society. There is Maurice, by occupation a male prostitute, by happenstance a receiver of stolen goods. And Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man whose boat dominates the Reach....

"Covid-19 has arrived in London, and the entire world quickly succumbs to the surreal, chaotic mundanity of screens, isolation, and the disasters small and large that have plagued recent history. As our unnamed narrator--a classics academic immersed in her studies of ancient prophecies--navigates the tightening grip of lockdown, a marriage in crisis, and a ten-year-old son who seems increasingly unreachable, she becomes obsessed with predicting the...

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Perfume Collector comes this charming, witty novel about a "professional" flirt. "Unique situation for an attractive, well-mannered, morally flexible young man. Hours irregular. Pay generous. Discretion a must…" When struggling, out-of-work actor, Hughie Venables-Smythe sees the mysterious job description in the classifieds, he's convinced he's found his destiny. For, though he's become accustomed...

A most inconvenient marriage...Forced by bankruptcy and scandal into exile in France, Lord Waverly expects never to return to his homeland until, staggering home from a gambling hell in the wee hours of the morning, he encounters a young novice escaping from a convent. When she asks him to escort her to England, promising him that her English grandfather will reward him handsomely for her safe conveyance, Waverly reluctantly agrees.Alas, he soon realizes...

After years as a sweet, good-natured pushover, Annie Markham has had to face up to three hard truths: • You've got to be tough to succeed in business and romance. • Sometimes your meddling loved ones areright about your worthless, no-good boyfriend being worthless and no good. • The only reliable thing about men is thatthey're totally unreliable. Okay, she's been persuaded. So now, seven years after wisely and abruptly dumping the "love of...

A young English thief stumbles on, and subsequently is recruited for, a super-secret operation that trains teenagers in remote viewing and astral projection techniques in order to engage in spying.

In 1920s London, pickpocket Alice Diamond scrambles to survive in her gritty neighborhood. With her father in prison and her brother in debt to a crime syndicate, she struggles to protect her father's territory. Recruited by Mary Carr, Alice joins a female gang, the Forty Elephants, and tastes success. But it's not long before she wants more--no matter the cost.

¿Aquello era una venganza... o una segunda oportunidad? Hacía algunos años, Laura Jackson se había enamorado locamente de Gabriel Greppi. Pero cuando le pidió que se casara con él ella lo rechazó porque pensó que eran demasiado jóvenes... Gabriel no había podido perdonar a Laura. Ahora él era millonario y ella estaba al borde de la ruina. El guapísimo argentino había planeado volver a seducirla para luego rechazarla como ella lo había...

In 1831 a new entity appeared on the American landscape: the garden cemetery. Meant to be places where the living could enjoy peace, tranquility and beauty, as well as to provide a final resting place for the dead, the garden cemeteries would forever change the culture of death and burial in the United States. The ideal cemetery would become one in which ornamental trees, bushes, flowers, and waterways graced the ever more artistic (for those who...

A neurodivergent, hyperlexic book editor, Jo Jones, taking possession of a possibly haunted family estate in North Yorkshire, finds herself at the center of a murder investigation when the groundskeeper is found dead and a family portrait goes missing, and to clear her name, she must unearth the town's secrets--and her own.