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Yuletide Manor

Jennifer Griffith

A Christmas wedding, a dream mansion, and a loaf of hot, homemade bread.

Artisan baker Natalie Tanner is the last person who should plan a wedding. She can’t even plan a dinner party for three. But when her little sister’s Christmas wedding preparations fall apart back home, it’s up to Natalie to return to Massey Falls and give it her best.

To her shock, the wedding venue is Yuletide Manor. Yes, it's her childhood dream mansion, but it belongs to the family of Hunter Hawthorn, who humiliated her and broke her teen-aged heart.

Hunter Hawthorn has agonized for years over his cruel mistake. Little does he know, he’s going to finally get his chance to apologize. But will Natalie accept?

With gorgeous snow festivals, Christmastime family traditions, and a beautiful wedding at moonrise, Yuletide Manor is the perfect place to spend a cozy afternoon of reading.

Read Yuletide Manor by USA Today bestselling clean romance author Jennifer Griffith. All the Christmas House Romances are sweet, small-town Christmas stories with flurries of kisses and holiday happily ever afters.

The Sleigh Bells Chalet

Jennifer Griffith

Christmas, sleigh bells, and dashing through the snow—toward love.

Hotel owner Ellery Hart’s business is on the rocks. Rooms are empty, the lobby is ugly, and a huge loan payment is due. Unless she can pay, she will lose her grandpa’s legacy, the Bells Chalet. While her mom would have her marry the rich banker who is holding the hotel’s title ransom, that idea is beyond unacceptable.

Ellery needs brilliant business solution. But how to make one happen fast?

Bing Whitmore has been running the family business, Whitmore Thoroughbred Stables, on his own. But when his heart is broken by two females—horses, that is—he is thrown for an emotional loop, and all he wants to do is quit. Sell the stables. Never look at another horse again.

Instead, his cousin convinces him to take a vacation. They travel nine hours to the quietest hotel he can find—the Bells Chalet. Meeting a beautiful hotel owner makes this escape better than he could have hoped.

When Ellery needs help, Bing wants to do anything to make her smile, even if it means helping her fill the perfectly serene hotel with more guests. But when he learns that her hotel-saving plan involves the very thing he’s traveled so far to avoid, can Bing put aside his pain and help Ellery save her grandpa’s business and the jobs of the employees she loves?

The Christmas Cookie House

Jennifer Griffith

Christmas, love, and a batch of cookies.

Former bookshop keeper Leela Miller is back in Massey Falls. Her mom passed away last spring, and she's home taking care of her ailing father. Now, Leela is desperate to fill Mom’s shoes in the Ladies’ Auxiliary by chairing the Cookie House fundraiser. The hitch: mean-eyed Mrs. Coldicott refuses to host the event at her Society Row home as planned.

Leela must find a new venue big enough and fancy enough to draw in customers, or Mom's event might get canceled. There's only one perfect place: the Layton Mansion.

New vet school graduate Jay Wilson has been remodeling the Layton Mansion since he inherited it this summer. It’s almost Christmas, and the house is nearly ready to flip!

If he can get a good price for it, he can buy a partnership at a veterinary clinic out of town.

However, by stipulation of the will, Jay can't sell the house until he cleans out the attic.

Jay needs help completing the enormous task before his deadline. The beautiful Leela will eagerly help—if he agrees to allow her to use the house for her event. But, when Jay learns that the Cookie House event is the same day as his sale deadline, will he sell the house out from under the girl he might just be falling in love with?

Peppermint Drop Inn

Jennifer Griffith

A second chance romance sweeter than a peppermint stick left for Old Saint Nick.

History buff and blacksmithing enthusiast Bryony had very good reasons for dumping Colton two years ago.

Dumbfounded CEO Colton has no idea what those reasons could be. Things had been going so well before her demolition day struck. He'd even bought a ring!

Now, the exes work together daily, restoring the historic houses in town--while their relationship's history bubbles just beneath the surface.

When Colton’s meddling sister insists Colton show up at their family holiday gathering fake-engaged, can a holiday at a pink Victorian house give Colton a chance to rebuild love with the woman he lost?

He needs a Christmas miracle.

For a magical, snowy world of Christmas romance, family traditions and togetherness, plus the shimmering sparkle of renewed love, read The Peppermint Drop Inn now!

Dyslexia and Me: How to Survive and Thrive if You’re Neurodivergent

Onyinye Udokporo

 Throughout my life I have been told directly and indirectly that dyslexia is found in particular people… [In fact] dyslexia can be found in someone like me. It isn’t just ‘okay’ but something to be proud of. This book has been written because I want people to know that dyslexia can be found in people of every colour, creed, or circumstance.

In this book, rising star entrepreneur Onyinye Udokporo shares her story of growing up dyslexic in a society where neurodivergence was always presented as a white male issue.

Onyinye discusses her experience of being diagnosed at 11 years old, starting a business the following year, gaining a scholarship to a prestigious boarding school and going on to complete two degrees by the age of 22, while also being honest about the difficulties she faced throughout including with bullying and anxiety. She shares the tips she picked up over the years for thriving with dyslexia and the strategies she used to overcome her difficulties in reading and writing well, staying organised and speaking with confidence.

Illuminating wider issues of systemic racism in the educational sector and providing a timely reminder that dyslexia can be found in any community and culture, this is an empowering story of surviving and thriving in the face of adversity.

Everything is Extraordinary

Cole Moreton

‘Clive James raged against the dying of the light, as you would expect from a man who had punched out prose like a prizefighter all his life; yet he also showed grace and gratitude at being allowed to stay in that light for a little while longer. He saw beauty in even the smallest things. Every moment was potentially precious, because there were so few left. As his daughter Claerwen said, for him “Everything was Extraordinary.”‘

What if we could learn to live with such awareness long before the end? To appreciate every moment, and every encounter with another human or with the natural world around us? Might we, too, learn that everything is extraordinary? That we are interconnected and interdependent?

Each encounter we have with another person is potentially meaningful because our very humanity depends on being connected with others. As Desmond Tutu says: ‘I couldn’t be a human being on my lonesome, I wouldn’t know what to do.’

In a set of lyrical meditations, award-winning writer and interviewer Cole Moreton takes us face-to-face with the famous, the infamous — and others with insights to share — from Scarlett Johansson, Tiger Woods and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to Zahra, a refugee who crossed the Channel on a tiny, overladen rubber boat. We meet all of them as equals and each fascinating story tells us something about the way we live, love and reach out to find each other, whoever we are.

Everything Is Extraordinary builds into a mesmerising and lyrical meditation on the joy of being alive and open to the world. All we need to do is pay attention.

Ride the Pink Horse

Dorothy B. Hughes

During the annual Fiesta, three desperate men converge in a perilous New Mexico town in this “extraordinary” crime novel (The New Yorker).

It takes four days for Sailor to travel to New Mexico by bus. He arrives broke, sweaty, and ready to get what’s his. It’s the annual Fiesta, and the locals burn an effigy of Zozobra so that their troubles follow the mythical character into the fire. But for former senator Willis Douglass, trouble is just beginning.

Sailor was Willis’s personal secretary when his wife died in an apparent robbery-gone-wrong. Only Sailor knows it was Willis who ordered her murder, and he’s agreed to keep his mouth shut in exchange for a little bit of cash. On Sailor’s tail is a cop who wants the senator for more than a payoff. As Fiesta rages on, these three men will circle one another in a dance of death, as they chase truth, money, and revenge.

Eight Faces at Three

Craig Rice

“The grand dame of mystery mixed with screwball comedy” introduces her popular, sharp-witted Chicago lawyer/sleuth (Ed Gorman, Ellery Queen Award–winning author).

John J. Malone, defender of the guilty, is notorious for getting his culpable clients off. It’s the innocent ones who are problems. Like Holly Inglehart, accused of piercing the black heart of her well-heeled and tyrannical aunt Alexandria with a lovely Florentine paper cutter. No one who knew the old battle-ax liked her, but Holly’s prints were found on the murder weapon. Plus, she had a motive: She was about to be disinherited for marrying a common bandleader.

With each new lurid headline, Holly’s friends and supporters start to rally. There’s North Shore debutante Helene Brand; Holly’s groom’s press agent, Jake Justus; the madam of a local brothel, and Alexandria’s hand-wringing servants. But not one of them can explain the queerest bent to the crime: At the time of the murder, every clock in the Inglehart mansion stopped dead. And that’s only the first twist in a baffling case of “aunty-cide”—because Alexandria won’t be the last to die.

Making his debut in this fun and funny novel, Craig Rice’s one-of-a-kind Chicago attorney is “an inspired creation . . . an unapologetic champion of the defense bar . . . a defender of the guilty whose contempt for society outstrips his contempt for criminals” (Jon L. Breen, Edgar Award–winning author).

Eight Faces at Three is the 1st book in the John J. Malone Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

Vultures in the Sky

Todd Downing

A train headed for Mexico City meets murder when it stalls out in the desert . . .

The journey of the Mexico City-bound Pullman seems ill-fated from the outset ― what with the engine troubles and the threat of an impending railway strike ― but no one aboard expects the terror that will descend upon the luxury train between Laredo and its destination. First a man dies as the vehicle passes through a dark tunnel and then, just as United States Customs Agent Hugh Rennert begins to investigate, the train comes to a screeching halt in the middle of the desert.

More deaths follow as night falls, and when it becomes clear that a murderer is on the loose, the stationary cars transform into an isolated hall of horrors. The varied and intriguing cast of passengers begins to panic, but Rennert remains calm and collected, untangling the web of motives in a desperate search for the culprit. Will he be able to unmask the killer before the voyage ends?

A suspenseful whodunnit that charts a path through the Mexican wilderness, Vultures in the Sky highlights the best aspects of the Golden Age mystery, mixing classical detective work with a tense, closed-circle setting. The third novel in Todd Downing’s Hugh Rennert series (which can be enjoyed in any order), it shows an undeservedly forgotten author working at the top of his craft.

The Wall

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Murder visits a seaside mansion in this gothic mystery from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author known as the American Agatha Christie.

The house called Sunset has been Marcia’s summer home for her entire life. Both of her parents died there, and she and her brother spent their youth exploring its rambling hallways and seaside grounds. They love the old house, but Marcia’s sister-in-law has never taken to it. Juliette loathes the sea, and soon comes to loathe her husband, as well. After they divorce, Juliette pays a final visit to Sunset, demanding alimony. She is there for a few tense days before she disappears. It takes them a week to find her body.

The peace at Sunset has been shattered, and Marcia must work quickly to keep her beloved childhood home from being forever spoiled. Somewhere in the creaky old mansion, a murderer lurks. Will Marcia be accused of the crime? Or will she be the next victim?

Desert Thieves

Dan Walker

Author Daniel Walker, has created an imaginative world where thieves sail the skies in flying galleons - an action-packed adventure series of epic scale. Zoya DeLarose wakes amongst the smoldering wreckage of the Dragonfly, the rest of the crew are nowhere to be seen but she doesn't have time to look for them, the Aviation Army are approaching and the only option she has as a fugitive is to run. Now Zoya must put everything she's learnt as a sky thief to the test as she travels across the vast desert plains, evading capture, to find the Dragonfly's crew and defeat her enemies once and for all. The second book in an exciting new series, perfect for fans of adventure.

The Conjuror's Apprentice

G J Williams

‘Right up there with C J Sansom… A brilliant historical thriller’ Philip Gwynne Jones
‘Thoroughly engaging… beautifully written’ Zoe Sharp
‘Engaging and compelling’ Mark Ellis
‘A rollicking tale with just the right pinches of sex and humour’ Shots Magazine

Finding the battered body of a young boy was not unusual in Bloody Mary’s cruel England. However, the stabbed tongue, a false seal and strange letter implicate Princess Elizabeth, threatening to bring down the Tudor Dynasty.

Doctor John Dee and his secret apprentice, Margaretta, using his brilliant mind and her strange abilities, embark on a perilous journey to solve this brutal murder. Before their work can really begin, another body is found.

As Dee and Margaretta delve deeper into their investigation, they uncover a web of deceit, political intrigue and treachery that threatens to engulf them both. When more bodies are discovered and arrests are made, time is running out. With rumours of witchcraft and treason swirling around them, can they untangle the mystery before it’s too late?

‘The beginning of a wonderfully different Tudor crime fiction series’ Alis Hawkins
‘A wonderful debut’ Jules Swain
‘Absolutely spellbinding… alive with atmosphere and realism’ Chris Lloyd