Can a straitlaced engineer, three psychic children, and a lonely witch find love? The daughter of an earl, Lady Phoebe Malcolm Duncan has the ability to talk to animals. She longs to be a veterinarian, but education requires more coin than she possesses. When the walls of her home come tumbling down, she has to take two steps back—to servitude. Inventor Andrew Blair keeps his nose to the grindstone, knowing his friends and family depend on his talent for turning machines into money. He is about to embark on his biggest investment yet—rebuilding crumbling tenements in Old Town Edinburgh— until his beleaguered cousin begs him to hide his precocious children from a killer. When the School of Malcolms sends Lady Phoebe as governess for his wards, Drew’s well-ordered beliefs are upended. Ladies don’t live in slum housing like the one he’s about to tear down, nor do they command ravens or encourage children to talk to dead mothers. It might take a vengeful ghost to show the disparate pair how to join forces, fight their fears and their enemies, and reveal a path to love.

Bartholomew Schultz is content to remain in his country home learning magic and keeping to himself, but when his family is used to blackmail him into attacking a gang working to control the streets of Grand Rapids, he must find a way to achieve his goals while keeping his family safe?and himself from being further drawn into the dark world of magic and intrigue. ~~~~~ Excerpt ~~~~~ Derek palmed his thirty-eight as he watched Schultz walk to his truck. He set his jaw and gathered his resolve. He went to make his move but had to stop as a wave of vertigo passed over him. Eying Schultz though, he continued on.He strode with purpose towards Schultz, and with murder in his voice screamed, ?Die mother-xxx!? with all the hate he could muster as he pulled the trigger again and again.However, each time the hammer fell on his double-action revolver all that followed was a dull ?click?.His eyes widened, as with that same little smirk plastered on his face, Schultz calmly walked toward him. Fear twisted up inside Derek's guts as he got closer and closer. Then Schultz grabbed his face with his right hand and shoved him back until he hit the wall. Without saying a word Schultz grabbed Derek's gun in his left hand. Schultz then calmly stuck his hand in Derek's left pocket, the same pocket he kept his extra rounds in. He proceeded to replace the spent rounds, and then placed the gun against his own head and pulled the trigger five times. And five times the gun went click.Then Schultz gave the gun back to Derek and stepped back. Derek fought as hard as he could, but within moments he felt the cold steel of the gun barrel against his own temple. He squeezed the trigger. BANG!Derek collapsed where he had been standing in the shadows of the alleyway, his ass hitting the cold cement hard. Schultz was long gone. Derek was sweating profusely, fear still clenching in his belly like an icy, steel fist.His mind reeled, trying to reconcile what he?d just experienced?or thought he had?with the fact that he was still breathing. With a sudden sickening gurgle, he twisted onto his hands and knees and puked on the wall, while feeling a wet warmth spread from his groin as his bladder let go.Derek wiped his mouth as he stood and staggered off, leaving his gun on the ground. He couldn't look at it, much less touch it, without that sick feeling returning.

In the footsteps of Victoria Holt and Jane Aiken Hodge comes a new historical gothic series from Patricia Rice. Like the grand dames of gothic mysteries and romance you loved years ago, the Gravesyde Priory books give you that same "I couldn't put it down" feeling. In Regency England: The descendant of adventuring—dead—aristocrats, Clarissa Knightley supplements a modest inheritance by penning gothic novels that cost more than they earn. Upon learning that she has mysteriously inherited a share of an earl’s estate, she rashly packs up her household. In remote Gravesyde Priory, she hopes to find a safe haven and family who will welcome her and her young nephew. Instead, she discovers a drunken American army captain, his African servant, and ancient, surly caretakers. Terrified, prepared to flee, Clare is lured to linger by the prospect of secret diaries, hidden jewels, and an increasingly intriguing man. Then a killer strikes. The crumbling manor’s ominous and baffling history offers fascinating fodder for Clare’s horror novels—if only she can survive real-life madmen and a spectral murderer who may seek the jewels at any price. GRAVESYDE PRIORY MYSTERY BOOKS Book #1 The Secrets of Wycliffe Manor Book #2 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress Book #3 The Bones in the Orchard Book #4 The Question of the Wedding Pearls Book #5 The Case of the Purloined Pages

Bestselling author Patricia Rice offers the next book in her Regency historical mystery series... Wycliffe Manor, a magnet for murder... On a long-delayed errand to remote Wycliffe Manor, ex-Lieutenant Jack de Sackville stumbles across the murdered body of London dandy, Basil Culpepper, in the hedgerow, a long way from his usual haunts. To Jack’s dismay, he discovers the earl’s daughter Culpepper ruined hiding in Wycliffe’s kitchen. Disguised as a lowly cook, Lady Elspeth Villiers may have liked to shoot Culpepper for ruining her life, but she dropped out of sight for more immediate reasons than an old scandal—her wealth has become the focus of greedy men. The arrival of Jack, the man she’s adored since childhood, along with Culpepper’s corpse, mean her hiding place is no longer safe. But once Lady Elsa reveals herself to the unconventional inhabitants of Wycliffe Manor, they become the protective family she has never known. Outraged to learn the beautiful woman he once loved and lost has become a target of greed, Jack joins the investigation into Culpepper’s death. With a murderer on the loose, the amateur sleuths must unravel a deadly tangle of kidnappers and counterfeiters or the Manor’s eccentric inhabitants will be in as much danger as their cook. GRAVESYDE PRIORY MYSTERY BOOKS Book #1 The Secrets of Wycliffe Manor Book #2 The Mystery of the Missing Heiress Book #3 The Bones in the Orchard Book #4 The Question of the Wedding Pearls Book #5 The Case of the Purloined Pages

The first major work to examine Joseph Cornell's relationship to American modernism Joseph Cornell (1903–1972) is best known for his exquisite and alluring box constructions, in which he transformed found objects—such as celestial charts, glass ice cubes, and feathers—into enchanted worlds that blur the boundaries between fantasy and the commonplace. Situating Cornell within the broader artistic, cultural, and political debates of midcentury America, this innovative and interdisciplinary account reveals enchantment's relevance to the history of American modernism. In this beautifully illustrated book, Marci Kwon explores Cornell's attempts to convey enchantment—an ephemeral experience that exceeds rational explanation—in material form. Examining his box constructions, graphic design projects, and cinematic experiments, she shows how he turned to formal strategies drawn from movements like Transcendentalism and Romanticism to figure the immaterial. Kwon provides new perspectives on Cornell's artistic and graphic design career, bringing vividly to life a wide circle of acquaintances that included artists, poets, writers, and filmmakers such as Mina Loy, Lincoln Kirstein, Frank O’Hara, and Stan Brakhage. Cornell's participation in these varied milieus elucidates enchantment's centrality to midcentury conversations about art's potential for power and moral authority, and reveals how enchantment and modernity came to be understood as opposing forces. Leading contemporary artists such as Betye Saar and Carolee Schneemann turned to Cornell's enchantment as a resource for their own anti-racist, feminist projects. Spanning four decades of the artist's career, Enchantments sheds critical light on Cornell's engagement with many key episodes in American modernism, from Abstract Expressionism, 1930s "folk art," and the emergence of New York School poetry and experimental cinema to the transatlantic migration of Symbolism, Surrealism, and ballet.