Frank Carlson Library

Why did Agatha Christie spend her career pretending that she was "just" an ordinary housewife, when clearly she wasn't? Her life is fascinating for its mysteries and its passions and, as Lucy Worsley says, "She was thrillingly, scintillatingly modern." She went surfing in Hawaii, she loved fast cars, and she was intrigued by the new science of psychology, which helped her through devastating mental illness. So why--despite all the evidence to the...

A Marriage and a Sudden Move to a New Town Won't Slow This Mischievous Writer Down! Barbara Buncle: bestselling novelist, new wife...new neighbor? In this charming follow-up to Miss Buncle's Book, the intrepid writer moves to a new town filled with fascinating folks...who don't even know they might become the subjects of her next bestselling book. Miss Buncle may have settled down, but she has already discovered that married life can't do a thing...

As the mistress of her own home with two small children to look after, Barbara Buncle (now Barbara Abbott) finds that she has little time to keep up with the goings-on of her friends and neighbours, but her niece is more than willing to keep tabs on the news in Wandlebury. And with juicy tidbits of gossip about everything from inconvenient romantic entanglements to German spies hiding in the woods, there is plenty to keep the two Mrs. Abbotts busy...

Promoting themselves from genteel poverty to fame, two beautiful sisters, one a daring fashion designer and the other a writer of scandalous novels, become each other's most staunch supporter and harshest critic in the face of misunderstandings and confidences.

On a train trip from Manchester to London in 1990, a young single mother named Joanne Rowling conceived the idea of a children's book about a boy wizard named Harry Potter. Five years later, that idea became the basis for the most successful book franchise in the history of publishing. Here is the rags-to-riches story of J.K. Rowling, who overcame numerous hardships to rise seemingly overnight from a destitute welfare mother in England to one of the...

After the death of her siblings, Charlotte has few people she can trust, and feels more alone than ever. While visiting London, Charlotte goes on a tour of Bedlam, where she is sure she recognizes a struggling Mr. Slade, her long-missing ex-lover, strapped to one of the stretchers. Of course, she starts digging, and soon finds herself trying to reveal a secret that high-powered men would, and do, kill to protect.

Walking on the cliffs in Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier stumbles upon the drowned body of a beautiful woman, dressed only in a nightgown, her hair strewn along the rocks, her eyes gazing up to the heavens. Daphne soon learns that the mysterious woman was engaged to marry Lord Hartley of Padthaway, an Elizabethan mansion full of intriguing secrets. As the daughter of the famous Sir Gerald du Maurier, Daphne is welcomed into the Hartley home, but when...