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  A Terribly Strange Bed - A man...

  Wilkie Collins

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  Wilkie Collins was born on 8th January 1824 in Marylebone, London.  
   
  The family moved several times in his early years before, at 12, they travelled to France and Italy for 2 years where the sights and atmosphere made a deep and lasting impression on him. 
   
  He resumed his education at Mr Cole’s private boarding school in Highbury, Islington.  Here, he began his literary career under unusual circumstances: the school bully would give him no peace until he had been told a bedtime story.  This ‘little brute’ helped create one of England’s greatest writers.  
   
  On leaving school, in 1841, he became a clerk at a tea merchant before, 2 years later, publishing his first short story.  However, his first novel was rejected and remained so during his lifetime.  
   
  A brief stint at Lincoln’s Inn to please his father and to acquire a steady income was halted by his father’s death.  Collins then wrote and published his fathers’ memoirs.  He then completed his legal education though he would never practice.  
   
  In March 1851, he was introduced to Charles Dickens and there now started a period of sustained literary output and a remarkable lifelong friendship.  His stories were published in Dicken’s magazines, and he toured with Dicken’s theatrical before the two of them travelled to the Continent. 
   
  By the early 1860’s worrying signs of ill-health appeared with rheumatic gout.  As it worsened, he sought respite and cures in German spa towns and gave up writing to help his recuperation. 
   
  His personal life had become very complicated.  He was living with the widowed Caroline Graves and conducting an affair with a much younger Martha Rudd.  With the serialised release of ‘The Moonstone’ and vicious attacks of gout Caroline left him and married another.  Collins was now prescribed opium and was soon its lifelong dependent.  Martha bore him two children and with the return of a now divorced Caroline Graves he now divided his time between the two women. 
   
  In 1874 he set aside writing to tour North America on a reading tour. 
   
  Throughout his later years he continued to write and publish.  In all 30 novels, 14 plays, 60 short stories and over a 100 non-fiction essays as well as many more collaborations with Dickens. 
   
  In 1884 the Society of Authors elected him as it’s Vice-President. 
   
  Wilkie Collins died from a paralytic stroke on September 23rd, 1889, in London. He was 65.

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  Lost Hearts

  M. R. James

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  Author Montague Rhodes James, known as M.R. James, who lived from 1862–1936, was a most distinguished medievalist, biblical scholar and antiquarian who served as Provost of King’s College, Cambridge and of Eton College in England. Despite his formidable intellectual and administrative achievements, he is best known today, as he was in his lifetime, as the author of some 30 examples of the most frightening, learned and humorous ghost stories ever written. Lost Hearts tells the story of Stephen Elliott, an orphan aged 11 years and of an inquiring frame of mind, who is sent to stay with his much older cousin, the scholarly Mr. Abney, at a remote country mansion, Aswarby Hall, in Lincolnshire. Things get strange when Stephen is repeatedly troubled by visions of a young gypsy girl and a traveling Italian boy with their hearts missing.  And then weirder upon discovering Mr. Abney is an alchemist obsessed with making himself immortal. The tale is read by Oscar nominated and Emmy Award Winning Special Makeup FX Artist Edward E. French.

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  Beneath Her Skin - A completely...

  Gregg Olsen

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  “Absolutely amazing. Just Wow!” NetGalley reviewer ?????  
  “I couldn’t read this fast enough!” KKEC Reads ?????  
  “I loved it!” Goodreads reviewer ?????  
  “A definite page-turner!” Goodreads reviewer ?????  
     
  The girl was slumped over the edge of the old clawfoot tub, her eyes tiny shards of broken glass, her expression void of anything. Her long, wet hair dripped onto the floor. She was dead.   
     
  The night Katelyn Berkley died, everything changed…  
     
  For as long as they can remember, twins Hayley and Taylor Ryan have been able to hear the dead. With a true crime writer and psychiatric nurse for parents, the twins were taught to use their gift to give a voice to the innocent.  
     
  When the body of troubled teen Katelyn Berkley is found in her bathtub, the small town of Port Gamble is shaken to its core. The Berkley family had many problems and on the surface Katelyn’s death appears to be a cry for help gone wrong.  
     
  But soon the twins begin to receive messages from Katelyn. Something darker was behind her death. As the halls of Kingston High are rocked by the scandal, everyone from the most popular cheerleader to the class outcast could have reason to want her dead.  
     
  And as the twins get closer to the truth, it becomes clear that someone is watching them. Are they next on the hitlist?  
     
  From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes an addictive thriller about toxic friendships, dark secrets and the hunt for an unlikely killer. Perfect for fans of Melinda Leigh, James Patterson and ONE OF US IS LYING.  
     
  This book was originally published as ENVY. This new edition has been re-edited since its publication in 2011.  
    Read what everyone is saying about Beneath Her Skin:  
  “Wow Wow Wow! Absolutely heart pounding, tense and fast paced. A book I just couldn't put down. Brilliant writing, great story.” NetGalley reviewer, ?????  
     
  “Will leave you utterly speechless … I couldn’t read this fast enough … This story is fast-paced—all the way to the end. Once the twist hits, you will be left gasping for air.” KKEC Reads ?????  
     
  “A fantastic thriller … full of twists, thrills and questions that need to be answered … pick this one up and enjoy staying up way to late at night to finish it!” Goodreads reviewer, ?????  
     
  “YES!!! Gregg Olsen is back with another must read! He has become one of my favorite authors…amazing.” Heidi Lynn’s Book Reviews, ?????  
     
  “Loved… will keep you turning pages to the end!” Goodreads reviewer, ?????  
     
  “Kept me guessing until the end!” Tara’s Book Reviews, ????

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  COLD BURN - A Steve Cline...

  Kit Ehrman

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  When Bruce Claremont quit his job working on a thoroughbred breeding farm and vanished, his sister Corey asks barn manager Steve Cline for help. So Steve slips into Bruce’s world, and the more he learns, the more he suspects that Corey may never see her brother again. Because all is not as it seems in this pastoral setting where secrets and jealousies and obsessions are the norm, and the present seems to be repeating its fiery past. If Steve’s not very careful, he just might get burned . . .  
  From Publisher's Weekly: Ehrman's knowledge and exposition of life on a horse farm is most impressive and enjoyable.  
  From Booklist: Ehrman skillfully ratchets up the suspense en route to a surprising conclusion that nonetheless makes perfect sense. That is to say she fully engages the reader, then leaves him or her satisfied. What more could you ask of a mystery? 
  From The Daily Oakland Press: “COLD BURN is a terrific, engaging novel full of bits of horse breeding arcana, and a more complex and realistic view of life and death - and birth - than can usually be found in the standard mystery novel.” 

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  The Man with the Twisted Lip -...

  Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

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  Neville St. Clair, a respectable businessman, has disappeared and his wife claims she saw him at the upper window of an opium den. Rushing upstairs to the room she found only a beggar who denied any knowledge of St. Clair – whose clothes are later found in the room, and his coat, laden with coins, in the River Thames outside the window. The beggar is arrested, but a few days later St. Clair's wife receives a letter from her husband. Holmes concludes, then proves, that the beggar is actually St. Clair in disguise; he confesse that he has been leading a double life as a beggar, making more money that way than in his nominal work.

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  Killer Novel - A Hunter Harden...

  SM Kahan

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  The Bookworm's Citadel, the largest independent bookstore in the USA, boasts an extensive collection of rare and forbidden murder mystery books that attract readers from around the globe. But could these tomes conceal a malevolent force, compelling readers to commit unspeakable acts, much like the killers depicted in the stories they cherish? Detective Hunter Harden's unyielding pursuit of the truth plunges him into a perilous game of cat and mouse with an elusive murderer. As the pages turn and clues surface, they edge closer to a horrifying revelation, with the store itself serving as the dramatic backdrop for a high-stakes showdown.

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