The Cornish beach house creaked in the salty sea wind and, from the weathered wooden porch, Mara watched a lone magpie circle above. It was silly to think that her mother's spirit was still with her, but Mara felt as if there was something keeping her here. A secret that needed to be told... When Mara Hughes inherits her late mother's tumbledown beach house overlooking the bright, sandy sweep of Magpie Cove, it couldn't have come at a worse time. With her marriage on the rocks and her husband threatening to take the family home, the beach house - with all the bittersweet memories it holds - might be the thing that finally sends Mara's world crashing down around her. She tells herself she'll only spend a few days there: sell it and move on to rebuilding her life. When Mara arrives, the house is in a worse state than she feared - holes in the bedroom ceiling, birds' nests in the attic and the beautiful, wrap-around porch on the brink of collapse... but she loves it anyway. With all its history it feels like the last link to her late mother and, determined to do whatever it takes to keep it in the family, Mara strikes a deal with local handyman - and town heartthrob - Brian Oakley to save the crumbling cottage from ruin. But when a box of unopened old letters arrives on her new doorstep - a bequest from her mother's will - Mara's resolve to save the beach house will be tested to the limit. Because Mara's mother's perfect childhood in Magpie Cove was forever spoiled by one haunting day in July, and the letters contain a secret about her family that Mara can scarcely believe to be true... A story of secrets, family and forgiveness, this heartfelt read set in beautiful Cornwall is perfect for fans of Susanne O'Leary, Fern Britton and Rosanna Ley. What readers are saying about The House at Magpie Cove: 'I loved this book. Read in a night. Brilliant... All the secrets Mara's mother had made a great story. A must read.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'Totally transported to the windswept shores of Cornwall for the most intriguing read... this book was full of fabulous surprises, I cannot praise it enough.' Goodreads reviewer, 5 stars 'A delightful story about new beginnings and healing.' Goodreads reviewer 'Had trouble putting it down... Would highly recommend.' Goodreads reviewer

Plagued by gaps in her childhood memories, Ellie Pringle has spent years in therapy trying to unlock the secrets of her past. But it's the unexpected death of a grandmother she hasn't seen in over three decades that catapults her into a journey of profound discovery. Inheriting a fortune along with an antebellum mansion in Charleston's historic South Battery, Ellie decides to leave behind her life in San Francisco—and a heart-wrenching breakup—to confront her past head-on. Stepping into the cavernous halls of her ancestral home, Ellie immediately senses she's not alone. The house seems to whisper with ghosts of the past, the most pressing of whom is her own deceased mother. When Ellie stumbles upon her mother's leather-bound journal on a dusty bookshelf, she's plunged into a maze of haunting revelations that demand answers. With the impending threat of Hurricane Lorene swirling toward the South Carolina coast, Ellie meets Julian Hagood—a charismatic architect with the skills to restore her crumbling mansion and perhaps heal her shattered heart. But delving deeper into her mother's diaries, her discoveries send her spiraling down a path of shocking realizations and harrowing truths.

'I LOVED IT! An intoxicating mixture of bewitching characters and intriguing clues... be prepared to be enchanted by this story!' USA Today bestselling author Leighann Dobbs ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ In the sleepy town of Lost Maidens Loch, people sometimes disappear... Down a quiet lane in town sits a little shop full of oddities you'd probably miss if you weren't looking for it. This is Love's Curiosities Inc., and its owner, Temerity Love, is sought by experts all over the world for her rare and magical gift: the ability to find lost things and learn their stories. When Lost Maidens' pretty local school teacher is found murdered by a poisoned cup of tea, a strange antique hand mirror is discovered nearby. Temerity - with the help of witchy sister Tilda, their cats Scylla and Charybdis and the lovingly eccentric local townspeople - is determined to divine the story behind the mirror and its part in Miss Molly Bayliss' untimely death. If only grumpy out-of-towner Angus Harley of Lost Maidens Police wasn't on the scene. Temerity can't solve the crime without him, but he's distracting, and in more ways than one. Can this unconventional duo solve the most mysterious murder ever to blight Lost Maidens Loch before the killer strikes again? A magical and unputdownable whodunnit, perfect for fans of Adele Abbott, Amanda M. Lee and Leighann Dobbs.

Newbery Honor–winning author Gennifer Choldenko deftly combines humor, tragedy, fascinating historical detail, and a medical mystery in this exuberant new novel. San Francisco, 1900. The Gilded Age. A fantastic time to be alive for lots of people . . . but not thirteen-year-old Lizzie Kennedy, stuck at Miss Barstow’s snobby school for girls. Lizzie’s secret passion is science, an unsuitable subject for finishing-school girls. Lizzie lives to go on house calls with her physician father. On those visits to his patients, she discovers a hidden dark side of the city—a side that’s full of secrets, rats, and rumors of the plague. The newspapers, her powerful uncle, and her beloved papa all deny that the plague has reached San Francisco. So why is the heart of the city under quarantine? Why are angry mobs trying to burn Chinatown to the ground? Why is Noah, the Chinese cook’s son, suddenly making Lizzie question everything she has known to be true? Ignoring the rules of race and class, Lizzie and Noah must put the pieces together in a heart-stopping race to save the people they love. Winner of a Los Angeles Public Library FOCAL (Friends of Children and Literature) Award Nominated for: Pennsylvania Young Reader’s Choice Awards Tennessee Volunteer State Book Award (Middle School division) Missouri Association of School Librarians (MASL) Readers Award California Library Association’s Beatty Award, Eureka List

In 1988, a retired schoolteacher named Pius Fernandes receives an old diary found in the back room of an East African shop. Written in 1913 by a British colonial administrator, the diary captivates Fernandes, who begins to research the coded history he encounters in its terse, laconic entries. What he uncovers is a story of forbidden liaisons and simmering vengeances, family secrets and cultural exiles--a story that leads him on an investigative journey through his own past and Africa's.