A handsome movie star in her kitchen, and a corpse in the swimming pool. Just your typical Monday morning…. Maggie McJasper is starting over in a little California beach town. She has a bead shop, a nice circle of friends, and a handsome movie star who keeps flirting with her. Life would be pretty great if she could just stop stumbling over dead bodies…. Do you like dogs, crafts, quirky friends, a slow-building romance between grown-ups who genuinely like each other, and a twisty little mystery with red herrings galore? Then this is for you. The Maggie & Jasper Capers are fun and flirty cozies, with no swearing or love scenes, and no gruesome violence to keep you up at night.

If Grace Cassidy had known she was going to find a naked corpse in her hotel bed, lose every penny she had in the world, and encounter zany characters straight from the Mad Hatter's tea party, she might have kept her usual poise when she spotted husband Charlie's mistress at their business convention in San Francisco. She wouldn't have left in a temper to drive up the northern California coast. She certainly wouldn't have stopped at an obscure bed and breakfast called Wimberly Place-or become the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

Another excellent historical adventure from Susanna Gregory featuring 17th-century spy Thomas Chaloner ------------------------ London in the spring of 1665 is a city full of fear. There is plague in the stews of St Giles, the Dutch fleet is preparing to invade, and a banking crisis threatens to leave Charles II's government with no means of paying for the nation's defence. Amid the tension, Thomas Chaloner is ordered to investigate the murder of Dick Wheler, one of the few goldsmith-bankers to have survived the losses that have driven others to bankruptcy - or worse. At the same time, a French spy staggers across the city, carrying the plague from one parish to another. Chaloner's foray into the world of the financiers who live in and around Cheapside quickly convinces him that they are just as great a threat as the Dutch, but their power and greed thwart him at every turn. Meanwhile, the plague continues to spread across the city, and the body count from the disease and from the fever of avarice starts to rise alarmingly . . .

In the last three decades, the human body has gained increasing prominence in contemporary political debates, and it has become a central topic of modern social sciences and humanities. Modern technologies – such as organ transplants, stem-cell research, nanotechnology, cosmetic surgery and cryonics – have changed how we think about the body. In this collection of thirty original essays by leading figures in the field, these issues are explored across a number of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, including pragmatism, feminism, queer theory, post-modernism, post-humanism, cultural sociology, philosophy and anthropology. A wide range of case studies, which include cosmetics, diet, organ transplants, racial bodies, masculinity and sexuality, eating disorders, religion and the sacred body, and disability, are used to appraise these different perspectives. In addition, this Handbook explores various epistemological approaches to the basic question: what is a body? It also offers a strongly themed range of chapters on empirical topics that are organized around religion, medicine, gender, technology and consumption. It also contributes to the debate over the globalization of the body: how have military technology, modern medicine, sport and consumption led to this contemporary obsession with matters corporeal? The Handbook’s clear, direct style will appeal to a wide undergraduate audience in the social sciences, particularly for those studying medical sociology, gender studies, sports studies, disability studies, social gerontology, or the sociology of religion. It will serve to consolidate the new field of body studies.

An Aussie scientist digs up some dirt about the history and science of soil

In the cold winter of 1786, the streets of Paris are bubbling with discontent, warning of the Revolution to come. When a murdered man is found in a Parisian cemetery, struggling writer Aristide Ravel recognizes the strange symbols surrounding the body to be Masonic. What secrets are lurking in the city of Paris? In this stunning historical mystery from Susanne Alleyn, Ravel will seek answers in Paris' intellectual demimonde and discover a world of conspiracy, secret societies and scandal. The third Aristide Ravel mystery, a prequel set in the raucous years leading up to the French Revolution, The Cavalier of the Apocalypse is a fascinating look at a world in turmoil--steeped in atmosphere and peril.

Tanya Huff’s Smoke trilogy is now available in a single omnibus edition. Book One: Smoke and Shadows Working as a Production Assistant on a show about a vampire detective is nothing compared to Tony Foster’s past as a vampire’s lover. True, he’s still wrangling beautiful people with big egos and the power to crush him, but there are far fewer demons, and TV blood is colored corn syrup. When shadows on set begin moving independently of the people they’re supposed to be attached to, Tony can’t dismiss it as a trick of the light. Especially not after finding a guest star dead in a locked dressing room. The head of special effects may be an actual wizard, but Tony still has to bring in his ex, the vampire Henry Fitzroy, to help defend against a terrifying, otherworldly attack. With survival unlikely, Tony will have to assist his butt off to give them anything like a chance. But being thrust into a spotlight doesn’t make him a hero... Book Two: Smoke and Mirrors When Darkest Night, the highest rated vampire detective show in syndication, sets up to film at an isolated historic mansion, Tony Foster, PA and wizard-in-training, expects disruptions: no cell signal, extras bumbling around the set, lighting cords tangled in hundred-year-old hallways. He doesn’t expect ghosts. But hey, a few dead folks wandering around shouldn’t disturb much when only the sensitive can perceive them. Unfortunately, a number of the cast and crew turn out to be sensitive. And the house isn’t home to only a few spirits. Trapped in the mansion overnight—with his boss, his vampire ex, the smoking-hot straight actor sending mixed signals, and the executive producer’s bratty kids—Tony has to dodge, sneak, and scramble to cover up the unexplainable. With memories of murders playing out around them, the crew wants answers. And the house wants blood... Book Three: Smoke and Ashes Coming out of the wizard closet has barely changed Tony Foster’s life. He’s been promoted...to deploy sorcery against construction noise. His crush on the gorgeous second lead has devolved to overanalyzing paparazzi pics. His magic studies progress when he’s not working or sleeping, which is never. When he intervenes to prevent a potentially fatal accident, he discovers the stuntwoman involved is the immortal survivor of a 3500-year-old sex cult with a hellgate tattooed around her midriff. In return, she tells Tony the dawn of a demonic convergence means he can look forward to eldritch horrors attempting entry to Vancouver through the Darkest Night soundstage. They still owe the network two episodes, so Tony, as the on-staff wizard, needs to handle it. Meanwhile, the crew—and one infuriating actor—are endangering themselves trying to help and something’s bound to give...