Fans of Laura Dave's The Last Thing He Told Me, Kiersten Modglin's The Arrangement, and Liane Moriarty's The Husband's Secret will devour this pulse-pounding tale of secrets and suspense. Readers are Raving: “The ending was absolutely brilliant!” “...found myself second guessing every thought I had continuously.” “...impossible to put it down.” ★★★★★ A knock on the door in the wee hours of Christmas morning brings a terrifying revelation to Madeline Williams. Snowed in during a stay at her mountain home with her family, and with roads closed and a new storm brewing, the man waiting beyond the door is the last person she expected to see. Not only does Madeline know the man standing in the cold, begging her to let him in, but he alone harbors a scandalous secret that could be the bombshell to disrupt her quiet domestic life-- and her marriage to good-natured Tom. When the threat turns physical and police get involved, the stakes climb higher and higher. With extended family due to arrive the next morning, a holiday dinner to prepare, and now a motherload of old feelings stirred up by her uninvited guest, Madeline must find a way to protect her precious family and save Christmas. Will her husband and kids find out Madeline’s secret? Will they stand by the woman they know and love, anyway? The Merry is a standalone, holiday-themed domestic suspense novel with gripping twists. It will keep you guessing right up until its shocking end. (Publisher's Note: A shorter version of this story was previously published as Her Holiday Guest in Kelly Utt's Rosemary Run series.)

Val is invited to New Zealand by his Uncle Rufus to help run his business, which he describes to Val as 'control of the New Zealand fruit trade'. Restless Val hopes that his new life will be adventurous and exciting but when he realises that his job is merely selling fruit and veg in a small shop in Auckland he parts from his uncle immediately and looks for adventures elsewhere. When he finds an advertisement for an advance agent to join a travelling theatrical troupe – 'Merry Marauders Dramatic Company' – he feels that he's found what he was looking for. He joins the troupe and their tour around New Zealand begins. As he promises in a letter to his friend, 'One thing is certain; we shall have some adventures on the road that should be worth relating' – this promise is definitely fulfilled. The Merry Marauders is an epistolary novel, first published in 1913, which chronicles the funny misadventures of an accident-prone theatrical troupe touring through the small towns of frontier New Zealand around 1900 and encountering various rogues, setbacks and turns of fortune.

Readers around the world continue to mourn the 1995 death of a beloved literary icon, but this rich and varied collection of Robertson Davies's writings on the world of books and the miracle of language captures his inimitable voice and sustains his presence among us. Coming almost entirely from Davies? own files of unpublished material, these twenty-four essays and lectures range over themes from "The Novelist and Magic" to "Literature and Technology," from "Painting, Fiction, and Faking," to "Can a Doctor Be a Humanist?" and "Creativity in Old Age." For devotees of Davies and all lovers of literature and language, here is the "urbanity, wit, and high seriousness mixed by a master chef" (Cleveland Plain Dealer)?vintage delights from an exquisite literary menu. Davies himself says merely: "Lucky writers. . .like wine, die rich in fruitiness and delicious aftertaste, so that their works survive them." Viking will publish Robertson Davies? Happy Alchemy in July 1998 Many fine works by Robertson Davies are available from Penguin including The Deptford Trilogy, The Cornish Trilogy, and The Salterton Trilogy

From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from the beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, "The Merry Spinster" takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and the best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature has become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg's eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief. Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg's oeuvre will delight in this collection's unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface. Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night. Bed time will never be the same.

The Merry Devil of Edmonton lay unperformed from the early seventeenth century until the 1980s. Dating from around 1604, it was first published in 1608 and was performed at the Globe Theatre by the King's Men. With its scenes of magic, deer poaching, and abduction from a nunnery, The Merry Devil of Edmonton combines romance and comedy in a highly entertaining way, and was a favorite production on the seventeenth century stage.

Danny, who has cerebral palsy, is faced with another frustrating day at the playground watching the other children play, until a friendly gesture from another kid gives him an unexpected adventure and helps him feel better about himself.

"Codi Hall brings all the feels."—Monica Murphy, New York Times bestselling author Curl up this Christmas with a fun, festive romcom full of Christmas tree farm shenanigans and a romance between an outdoorsy single dad and the kind, ambitious, Christmas-loving neighbor he can't stop thinking about. A guarded single dad. A woman scared to love. Clark Griffin and Merry Winters are determined to be friends and nothing more. But they've been anonymously flirting with each other online, and with a little Christmas magic and the help of a precocious kid, these two might just get their one wish this year. "A fun, engaging, and romantic read that is perfect for Christmastime!" —The Nerd Daily for Nick and Noel's Christmas Playlist