Offering “a vibrant picture of the roles Black and mixed-race people played in Regency life” (Publishers Weekly), this unique historical mystery series, featuring a mixed-race heroine with a notorious past, will appeal to Bridgerton fans who want a sharper edge to their drama. A marriage of convenience saved Lady Abigail Worthing’s family from disgrace, but she’s finding her absent husband's endless conditions increasingly repressive. Unable to stay at their London home during the oncoming winter, she accepts a ride to the country from her neighbor, Stapleton Henderson. However, she's less than delighted that she’s his excuse to avoid a dinner held by Lord Charles Duncan, one of London's most powerful—and relentless—magistrates. More irritating, women are decidedly unwelcome at the evening’s prestigious discussion of criminality—even though Abigail and Stapleton have solved several cases together . . . Then an unexpected blizzard strands them at Lord Duncan’s with his now-houseguests. Suddenly, an evening of fine dining, fine brandy, and insightful debate becomes an inescapable—and deadly—ordeal. The ultimate test for Abigial’s skill. One of the dinner guests is found dead in front of the Berkley Square mansion. And when another party is murdered, Abigail discovers each had received a taunting, prophetic nursery rhyme . . . coincidence, or clues left by a killer on the loose? Through deft interrogation, she learns everyone present is connected to Lord Duncan's greatest failure in the courts: the conviction of a Martinique plantation informant for a murder he didn’t commit. But as Abigail races to find who was really responsible for the miscarriage of justice, she'll be forced to put her own and Stapleton's lives at risk in a gambit that will alter their fates forever—or end them permanently.

“Riveting and transformative, evocative and immersive...by turns vibrant and bold and wise, discovering Dorothy’s story is a singular pleasure.”--The New York Times A remarkable, sweeping historical novel based on the incredible true life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free Black woman who rose from slavery to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the colonial West Indies. Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her freedom—and that of her sister and her mother—from her Irish planter father and built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent. Vanessa Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing attentions of the men in her life: a restless shipping merchant, Joseph Thomas; a wealthy planter hiding a secret, John Coseveldt Cells; and a roguish naval captain who will later become King William IV of England. From the bustling port cities of the West Indies to the forbidding drawing rooms of London’s elite, Island Queen is a sweeping epic of an adventurer and a survivor who answered to no one but herself as she rose to power and autonomy against all odds, defying rigid eighteenth-century morality and the oppression of women as well as people of color. It is an unforgettable portrait of a true larger-than-life woman who made her mark on history.

ondon 1816 After rescuing a lovely woman from an attempted robbery, Captain Lacey discovers that she's the widow of a colonel who had been accused of murdering an English officer during the recent war. Lydia declares that her husband was innocent and that she knows the true culprits' identities. Intrigued, Lacey begins to investigate, and soon finds himself mired in scandals past and present. Book 2 of the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries. This is a full-length novel.

Book 5 in the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries In April 1817, a Bow Street Runner summons Captain Gabriel Lacey to a Berkeley Square ballroom where a young dandy has been found stabbed to death during a society ball. The prime suspect: Lacey’s former commander, Colonel Brandon. Instead of denying the charges, Colonel Brandon allows himself to be arrested, and claims, to Lacey’s shock, that the lady he’d stayed protectively near at the ball is his mistress. Lacey realizes that he is the only person not convinced of Brandon’s guilt—all present, including Brandon’s wife, believe Brandon committed the murder. Colonel Brandon’s reticence to tell the truth proves to be Lacey’s greatest obstacle in his race against time to prove Brandon’s innocence. Lacey’s hunt for evidence uncovers dark secrets that go back to the Peninsular Wars and involve the origins of Lacey’s and Brandon’s own private war.

A New York Times Notable Book An NPR Best Book of the Year For readers of Behind the Beautiful Forevers and Nothing to Envy, this is a breathtaking real-life story of four street children in contemporary Zambia whose lives are drawn together and forever altered by the mysterious murder of a fellow street child. Based on years of investigative reporting and unprecedented fieldwork, Walking the Bowl immerses readers in the daily lives of four unforgettable characters: Lusabilo, a determined waste picker; Kapula, a burned-out brothel worker; Moonga, a former rock crusher turned beggar; and Timo, an ambitious gang leader. These children navigate the violent and poverty-stricken underworld of Lusaka, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities. When the dead body of a ten-year-old boy is discovered under a heap of garbage in Lusaka’s largest landfill, a murder investigation quickly heats up due to the influence of the victim’s mother and her far-reaching political connections. The children’s lives become more closely intertwined as each child engages in a desperate bid for survival against forces they could never have imagined. Gripping and fast-paced, the book exposes the perilous aspects of street life through the eyes of the children who survive, endure and dream there, and what emerges is an ultimately hopeful story about human kindness and how one small good deed, passed on to others, can make a difference in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.