Shirlee Busbee

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Minnesota

Haunted by tragedy and scandal, Thea Garrett guards her wounded heart by playing the role of notorious outcast for all it's worth, never giving a second thought to love.

Swear by the Moon

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Jane Borodale

Incredible #historicalfiction about love, making one's own way in the world, and #pyrotechnics in 18th-century #London. Library discard with usual markings and dust jacket cover. No writing on text.

Hardcover (under 2 lbs)

Rhode Island

The Book of Fires

b527d21a-7879-4649-bd65-5b3f1fa3aaae-1

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

Ohio

Queen of Thieves 

Isabel Wolff

Slightly sticky residue where sticker was removed over barcode on the back. Dust jacket looks new. Pages free from creases. 314 pages. 

Washington

A Novel

The Very Picture of You

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Zadie Smith

Some wear on the cover but nothing that affects readability 

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Missouri

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION FINALIST FOR THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE FOR FICTION An ambitious, exuberant novel moving from northwest London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty. Two brown girls dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, about what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them.

Swing Time

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Julia Whelan

Major Motion Picture Already in Development with Temple Hill Entertainment Set amidst the breathtaking beauty of Oxford, this sparkling debut novel tells the unforgettable story about a determined young woman eager to make her mark in the world and the handsome man who introduces her to an incredible love that will irrevocably alter her future—perfect for fans of JoJo Moyes and Nicholas Sparks. American Ella Durran has had the same plan for her life since she was thirteen: Study at Oxford. At 24, she’s finally made it to England on a Rhodes Scholarship when she’s offered an unbelievable position in a rising political star’s presidential campaign. With the promise that she’ll work remotely and return to DC at the end of her Oxford year, she’s free to enjoy her Once in a Lifetime Experience. That is, until a smart-mouthed local who is too quick with his tongue and his car ruins her shirt and her first day. When Ella discovers that her English literature course will be taught by none other than that same local, Jamie Davenport, she thinks for the first time that Oxford might not be all she’s envisioned. But a late-night drink reveals a connection she wasn’t anticipating finding and what begins as a casual fling soon develops into something much more when Ella learns Jamie has a life-changing secret. Immediately, Ella is faced with a seemingly impossible decision: turn her back on the man she’s falling in love with to follow her political dreams or be there for him during a trial neither are truly prepared for. As the end of her year in Oxford rapidly approaches, Ella must decide if the dreams she’s always wanted are the same ones she’s now yearning for.

My Oxford Year

40377565-7a1b-44d7-a45c-7f6b02f3a587-1

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

California

Set in post-war London, this novel of the racial, political, and social upheaval of the last half-century follows two families--the Joneses and the Iqbals, both outsiders from within the former British empire--as they make their way in modern England. A first novel. 50,000 first printing.

White Teeth

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**Barnes & Noble - Exclusive Edition**
Minor shelf wear.
Retail sticker on the cover.
SEE PICTURES!

New Jersey

Girl Abroad

Phaedra Patrick

West Virginia

"Sixty-nine-year-old Arthur Pepper lives a simple life. He gets out of bed at precisely 7:30 a.m., just as he did when his wife, Miriam, was alive. He dresses in the same gray slacks and mustard sweater-vest, waters his fern, Frederica, and heads out to his garden. But on the one-year anniversary of Miriam's death, something changes. Sorting through Miriam's possessions, Arthur finds an exquisite gold charm bracelet he's never seen before. What follows is a surprising and unforgettable odyssey that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife's secret life before they met-- a journey that leads him to find hope, healing, and self-discovery in the most unexpected places"--Back cover.

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

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George. Orwell

Florida

An empty purse leads an English writer to find lodgings in the slums of two great cities

Down and Out in Paris and London

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Emma Donoghue

Beautiful paperback with deckled edges and sturdy spine. Minor yellowing of pages and a soft corner. Otherwise, amazing condition!

Texas

Born to rough cloth in working-class London in 1748, Mary Saunders hungers for velvet and lace—a desire that leads her to a life of prostitution, where she encounters a freedom unknown to virtuous young women. In the end, it is clothes, their splendour and their deception, that bring Mary to the brink of disaster. Slammerkin is both a brilliant evocation of another era and a timeless tale of the rage of adolescence.

Slammerkin

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Excellent Women is probably the most famous of Barbara Pym's novels. The acclaim a few years ago for this early comic novel, which was hailed by Lord David Cecil as one of 'the finest examples of high comedy to have appeared in England during the past seventy-five years,' helped launch the rediscovery of the author's entire work. Mildred Lathbury is a clergyman's daughter and a spinster in the England of the 1950s, one of those 'excellent women' who tend to get involved in other people's lives - such as those of her new neighbor, Rockingham, and the vicar next door. This is Barbara Pym's world at its funniest.

Excellent Women

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Matthew J. Kirby

North Dakota

It's London 1888, and Jack the Ripper is terrorizing the people of the city. Evelyn, a young woman disfigured by her dangerous work in a matchstick factory with nowhere to go, does not know what to make of her new position as a maid to the Elephant Man in London Hospital. Evelyn wanted to be locked away from the world, like he is, shut away from the filth and dangers of the streets. But in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man, she finds a gentle kindred, who does not recoil from her, and who understands her pain.When the murders begin, however, Joseph and Evelyn are haunted nightly by the ghosts of the Ripper's dead, setting Evelyn on a path to facing her fears and uncovering humanity's worst nightmares, in which the real monsters are men.A terrifying and haunting tale from the Edgar and PEN Award-winning author of Icefall, Matthew J. Kirby.

A Taste for Monsters

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Jessica Andrews

New York

A Best Book of 2020:Open Letters Review

"Andrews's writing is transportingly voluptuous, conjuring tastes and smells and sounds like her literary godmother, Edna O'Brien . . . What makes her novel sing is its universal themes: how a young woman tries to make sense of her world, and how she grows up."
-Penelope Green,The New York Times Book Review

This "luminous" (TheObserver) feminist coming-of-age novel captures in sensuous, blistering prose the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother

It begins with our bodies . . . Safe together in the violet dark and yet already there are spaces beginning to open between us.

From that first immaculate, fluid connection, through the ups and downs of a working-class childhood in northern England, the one constant in Lucy's life has been her mother: comforting and mysterious, ferociously loving, tirelessly devoted, as much a part of Lucy as her own skin. Her mother's lessons in womanhood shape Lucy's appreciation for desire, her sense of duty as a caretaker, her hunger for a better, perhaps reckless life.

At university in glamorous London, Lucy's background sets her apart. And then she is finished, graduated, adrift. She escapes to a tiny house in Donegal left empty by her grandfather, a place where her mother once found happiness. There she will take a lover, live inside art and the past, and track back through her memories and her mother's stories to make sense of her place in the world.

In "a stunning new voice in British literary fiction" (The Independent) that lays bare our raw, dark selves, Jessica Andrews's debut honors the richness and imperfection of the bond between a daughter and her mother. Intricately woven in lyrical vignettes,Saltwater is a novel of becoming-- a woman, an artist-- and of finding a way forward by looking back.

Saltwater

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Tim Major

New book with publisher’s remainder mark on the bottom edge

Massachusetts

A thrilling chase as Sherlock Holmes is set a fiendish puzzle by Irene Adler over a snowy London Christmas, in this stunningly packaged mystery.

Sherlock Holmes's discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of 'theft without theft', such as a statue missing from a museum found hidden in the room it was taken from. 
 
In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes's preoccupation with the "Adler Variations" risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep. Could they really be gifts from a strange spirit that has pursued Nansen since the completion of his expedition to cross Greenland? And might this case somehow be related to Irene Adler's great game?

Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Thefts of Christmas

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Kate Khavari

Brilliant botanist Saffron Everleigh is back and ready for adventure in Kate Khavari’s next mesmerizing historical mystery. “A cleverly plotted puzzle” (Ashley Weaver) in the vein of Opium and Absinthe, this second installment is perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Sujata Massey. 1920s London isn’t the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron’s assistance. The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers— there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead. Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought she’d left behind forever. Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own in Kate Khavari’s second intoxicating installment.

A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality

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#fiction #history #romance #ghoststory #london #feminism #historical #paperback 

A Kirkus Review Best Book of 2017 and a Washington Post Notable Work of Fiction. Winner of the British Book Awards Fiction Book of the Year and overall Book of the Year, selected as the Waterstones Book of the Year, and a Costa Book Award Finalist "A novel of almost insolent ambition--lush and fantastical, a wild Eden behind a garden gate...it's part ghost story and part natural history lesson, part romance and part feminist parable. I found it so transporting that 48 hours after completing it, I was still resentful to be back home." -New York Times “An irresistible new novel…the most delightful heroine since Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice…By the end, The Essex Serpent identifies a mystery far greater than some creature ‘from the illuminated margins of a manuscript’: friendship.” -Washington Post "Richly enjoyable... Ms. Perry writes beautifully and sometimes agreeably sharply... The Essex Serpent is a wonderfully satisfying novel. Ford Madox Ford thought the glory of the novel was its ability to make the reader think and feel at the same time. This one does just that." -Wall Street Journal An exquisitely talented young British author makes her American debut with this rapturously acclaimed historical novel, set in late nineteenth-century England, about an intellectually minded young widow, a pious vicar, and a rumored mythical serpent that explores questions about science and religion, skepticism, and faith, independence and love. When Cora Seaborne’s brilliant, domineering husband dies, she steps into her new life as a widow with as much relief as sadness: her marriage was not a happy one. Wed at nineteen, this woman of exceptional intelligence and curiosity was ill-suited for the role of society wife. Seeking refuge in fresh air and open space in the wake of the funeral, Cora leaves London for a visit to coastal Essex, accompanied by her inquisitive and obsessive eleven-year old son, Francis, and the boy’s nanny, Martha, her fiercely protective friend. While admiring the sites, Cora learns of an intriguing rumor that has arisen further up the estuary, of a fearsome creature said to roam the marshes claiming human lives. After nearly 300 years, the mythical Essex Serpent is said to have returned, taking the life of a young man on New Year’s Eve. A keen amateur naturalist with no patience for religion or superstition, Cora is immediately enthralled, and certain that what the local people think is a magical sea beast may be a previously undiscovered species. Eager to investigate, she is introduced to local vicar William Ransome. Will, too, is suspicious of the rumors. But unlike Cora, this man of faith is convinced the rumors are caused by moral panic, a flight from true belief. These seeming opposites who agree on nothing soon find themselves inexorably drawn together and torn apart—an intense relationship that will change both of their lives in ways entirely unexpected. Hailed by Sarah Waters as "a work of great intelligence and charm, by a hugely talented author," The Essex Serpent is "irresistible . . . you can feel the influences of Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, and Hilary Mantel channeled by Perry in some sort of Victorian séance. This is the best new novel I’ve read in years" (Daily Telegraph).

The Essex Serpent

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Josie Silver

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * A Reese Witherspoon x Hello Sunshine Book Club Pick "Get ready to be swept up in a whirlwind romance. It absolutely charmed me."--Reese Witherspoon "Josie Silver writes with a warmth so palpable her characters sneak their way into your heart and stay for a long time."--Jill Santopolo, New York Times-bestselling author of The Light We Lost Two people. Ten chances. One unforgettable love story. Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist anywhere but the movies. But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man who she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Certain they're fated to find each other again, Laurie spends a year scanning every bus stop and cafe in London for him. But she doesn't find him, not when it matters anyway. Instead they "reunite" at a Christmas party, when her best friend Sarah giddily introduces her new boyfriend to Laurie. It's Jack, the man from the bus. It would be. What follows for Laurie, Sarah and Jack is ten years of friendship, heartbreak, missed opportunities, roads not taken, and destinies reconsidered. One Day in December is a joyous, heartwarming and immensely moving love story to escape into and a reminder that fate takes inexplicable turns along the route to happiness.

One Day in December

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Helen Bryan

Kentucky

Alice Osbourne, the stolid daughter of the late vicar, is reeling from the news that Richard Fairfax broke their engagement to marry Evangeline Fontaine, an American girl from the Deep South. Evangeline's arrival causes a stir in the village but not the chaos that would ensue if they knew her motives for being there. Scrappy Elsie Pigeon is among the poor of London who see the evacuations as a chance to escape a life of destitution. Another new arrival is Tanni Zayman, a young Jewish girl who fled the horrors of Europe and now waits with her newborn son, certain that the rest of her family is safe and bound to show up any day. And then there's Frances Falconleigh, a madcap, fearless debutante whose father is determined to keep her in the countryside and out of the papers. --amazon.com.

War Brides

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#hardcover #fiction #runaway #london #blackmail #thief 

Lady A is the most notorious blackmailer in the city. With just a mask and a gown to disguise her, she sweeps into lavish balls and exclusive events collecting the most valuable currency in 1725 London-secrets. But leading a double life isn't easy. By day Lady A is just a seventeen-year-old girl named Arista who lives in fear of her abusive master,Bones, and passes herself off as a boy to move safely through the squalor of London's slums. When Bones attempts to dispose of his pawn forever, Arista is rescued by the last person she expects: Jonathan Wild, an infamous thief who moves seamlessly between the city's criminal underworld and its most elite circles. Arista partners with Wild on her own terms in order to save enough money to buy passage out of London. Everything changes when she meets Grae Sinclair, the son of a wealthy merchant. Grae has traveled the world, seen the exotic lands Arista has longed to escape to her whole life, and he loves Arista for who she is-not for what she can do for him. Being with Grae gives something Arista something precious that she swore off long ago: hope. He has promised to help Arista escape the life of crime that has claimed her since she was a child. But can you ever truly escape the past?

Tangled Webs

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Deborah Crombie

Wisconsin

"Chilling and humane....Skillful and subtle....A deeply moving novel that transcends genre."

--Richmond Times Dispatch

 

A sinister mystery that leads all the way back to the Holocaust ensnares Scotland Yard detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James in Where Memories Lie from award-winning "masterful novelist" (Denver Post) Deborah Crombie. A writer in the same elite class as Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes, and Anne Perry, Crombie mesmerizes with a story at once gripping and poignant that explores the dark places in the human heart, and the shadowy corners Where Memories Lie.

Where Memories Lie

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Natasha Pulley

In 1884, Thaniel Steepleton returns home to his London apartment to find a new watch on his pillow. But he has bigger things to worry about than generous burglars; he is a telegraphist at the Home Office, where he has just received a bomb threat. Six months later, the watch saves his life, warning him of a blast that destroys Scotland Yard. At last, he goes in search of its maker. Keita Mori, the artisan behind the mysterious watch, is a Japanese immigrant who remembers the future. Mori and Thaniel bond quickly, and as their friendship deepens, Mori uses his gift to tweak Thaniel's daily life in his favor. But then Grace Carrow, an Oxford physicist attracted to the telegraphist's refreshingly direct nature, unwittingly interferes. Soon, events spiral beyond Thaniel's control, and nothing is certain-not the present, and definitely not the future. The Watchmaker of Filigree Street is a sweeping, atmospheric narrative that takes the reader on an unexpected journey through Victorian London, Japan as its civil war crumbles long-standing traditions, and beyond. It breathes a new authenticity into the era of Sherlock Holmes, exploring historical moments in a new light-as well as the prevailing social and scientific views of the age-and plays speculatively with time and destiny, ushering in a new kind of magic.

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

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Grace Burrowes

Colorado

Duncan Wentworth tried his hand at rescuing a damsel in distress once long ago, and he's vowed he'll never make that mistake again. Nonetheless, when he comes across Matilda Wakefield in the poacher-infested and far-from-enchanted woods of his estate, decency compels him to offer aid to a lady fallen on hard times. Matilda is whip-smart, she can read Duncan's horrible penmanship, and when she wears his reading glasses, all Duncan can think about is naughty Latin poetry. Matilda cannot entrust her secrets to Duncan without embroiling him in the problems that sent her fleeing from London, but neither can she ignore a man who's honorable, a brilliant chess player, and maddeningly kissable. She needs to stay one step ahead of the enemies pursuing her, though she longs to fall into Duncan's arms. Duncan swears he has traded in his shining armor for a country gentleman's muddy boots, but to win the fair maid, he'll have to ride into battle one more time.

When a Duchess Says I Do

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#london #murder #mystery #thriller #courtroom #drama

A William Monk Novel

No author since Dickens has captured the shadow side of Victoria's England as masterfully as Anne Perry. In The Silent Cry, she once again exposes the particular vices spawned by an age renowned for its virtues and reforms. And our able guide is investigator William Monk, "the dark and brooding hero who infuses this luxuriantly detailed series with its romantic soul" (The New York Times Book Review). Deep in London's filthy, dangerous slums, Victorians transacted their most secret and shameful business. For a price, a man could procure whatever he wanted, but it happened now and then that the price he paid was his life. Now, in sunless Water Lane, respected solicitor Leighton Duff lies dead, kicked and beaten to death. Beside him lies the barely living body of his son, Rhys. The police cannot fathom these brutal assaults, until shrewd investigator William Monk uncovers a connection between them and a series of rapes and beatings of local prostitutes. Then it begins to seem shockingly clear that young Rhys Duff must have killed his own father. In a heartstopping courtroom drama, the Crown's case against Rhys Duff, accused of patricide, begins its inexorable unfolding. With it Anne Perry adds another haunting chapter to her magnificent recreation of a bygone era.

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Save this search

Shirlee Busbee

Swear by the Moon

Jane Borodale

The Book of Fires

Breezy Marsh

Queen of Thieves

Isabel Wolff

The Very Picture of You

Zadie Smith

Swing Time

Julia Whelan

My Oxford Year

Zadie Smith

White Teeth

Elle Kennedy

Girl Abroad

Phaedra Patrick

The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper

George. Orwell

Down and Out in Paris and London

Emma Donoghue

Slammerkin

Barbara Pym

Excellent Women

Matthew J. Kirby

A Taste for Monsters

Jessica Andrews

Saltwater

Tim Major

Sherlock Holmes and the Twelve Thefts of Christmas

Kate Khavari

A Botanist's Guide to Flowers and Fatality

Sarah Perry

The Essex Serpent

Josie Silver

One Day in December

Helen Bryan

War Brides

Lee Bross

Tangled Webs

Deborah Crombie

Where Memories Lie

Natasha Pulley

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street

Grace Burrowes

When a Duchess Says I Do

Anne Perry

The Silent Cry