Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America's rush toward the twentieth century. Daniel Hudson Burnham, a renowned architect, was the brilliant director of works for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor, was the satanic murderer of scores of young women in a torture palace built for the purpose near the fairgrounds Burnham overcame great obstacles...

An account of the 1963 death of the author's father describes how her mother, three sisters, and she were financially dependent on her father's wages and how their loss and Catholic faith resonated the experiences of the nation.

"Governess Abigail Chantry will do anything to save her sister and two dearest friends from destitution, even if it means breaking into an empty mansion in the hope of finding something to sell. Instead of treasures, though, she finds the owner, Lady Beatrice Davenham, bedridden and neglected. Appalled, Abby rousts Lady Beatrice's predatory servants and--with Lady Beatrice's eager cooperation--the four young ladies become her "nieces", neatly eliminating...

"The sunniest places can harbor the darkest of secrets... Santa Barbara private investigator Jaymie Zarlin has built her fledgling agency on finding missing people. Still struggling with the death of her troubled brother, who died in police custody, Jaymie is determined to help others in similar situations find their way home. Homicides are not in her repertoire. But when Lili Molina, a local teenager chosen for the coveted role of Daphne in the annual...

"When his beloved brother-in-law goes missing at the front in 1916, Angus defies his pacifist upbringing to join the war and find him. Assured a position as a cartographer in London, he is instead sent directly into the visceral shock of battle. Meanwhile, at home, his son Simon Peter must navigate escalating hostility in a fishing village torn by grief"--Amazon.com.

"Li Lan, daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. Then she receives a proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Li Lan would have a home for the rest of her days, but at a terrible price."--Provided by publisher.

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, a young wife and mother obsessed with the glamour of Jackie, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless but secure marriage or to follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. By telling the stories of the dead, Vivien...

A gothic debut inspired by The Odyssey and Moby Dick traces a century of a once-prosperous seafaring dynasty in New England, where the 15-year-old heir to a crumbling ancestral mansion studies the secrets of Greek history and navigation before embarking on a voyage that reveals her family's haunted history.

Varty's memoir of his life in the exquisite and vast refuge of the Londolozi Game Reserve in South Africa.

The daughter of a prominent Chicago judge and his socialite wife, inner-city art teacher Mia Dennett is taken hostage by her one-night stand, Colin Thatcher, who, instead of delivering her to his employers, hides her in a secluded cabin in rural Minnesota to keep her safe from harm.