Lady Susan is a novella by Jane Austen that offers a delightful glimpse into the author's early exploration of social satire and romantic intrigue. Set in the Regency era, the novella is presented as an epistolary narrative, composed of letters exchanged between characters, which unveils the scheming and manipulative Lady Susan Vernon. Known for her charm and wit, Lady Susan navigates the social circles of her time with a cunning approach to...

One bright spring morning in London, Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home. Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who's as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes....

Penelope Keeling, having endured a loveless marriage, a heartbreaking affair, and the privations of World War II, looks back over her life from the perspective of advancing age, while contemplating her childrens' attempts to get her to sell a beloved painting done by her father whose work has suddenly become quite valuable.

Captain Charles Ryder returns to the country estate of Brideshead. There he indulges in a sentimental journey that takes him back twenty years to his schoolmates at Oxford and to his seduction by the Marchmains.

The self-interested disregard of a dying woman's bequest, an impulsive girl's attempt to help an impoverished clerk, and the marriage between an idealist and a materialist — all intersect at a Hertfordshire estate called Howards End. The fate of this beloved country home symbolizes the future of England itself in E. M. Forster's exploration of social, economic, and philosophical trends, as exemplified by three families: the Schlegels, symbolizing...

"It is the summer of 1950--and at the once-grand mansion of Buckshaw, young Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison, is intrigued by a series of inexplicable events: A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Then, hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest...

Detective Hercule Poirot sets out to catch a killer when murder becomes part of the curriculum at the Meadowbank school for privileged young ladies.

The Morel family, who live on the Nottinghamshire coalfields, are beset with conflict. Gertrude has become disillusioned with her inarticulate working-class husband and devotes her energies to her sons. Son Paul falls in love and seeks to escape his family ties.

The daughter of a distinguished soldier, Bess Crawford follows in his footsteps and signs up to go overseas as a nurse during the Great War, helping to deal with the many wounded. There, serving on a hospital ship, she makes a promise to a dying young lieutenant to take a message to his brother, Jonathan Graham: "Tell Jonathan that I lied. I did it for Mother's sake. But it has to be set right." Later, when her ship is sunk by a mine and she's sidelined...

Shirley, published in 1849, was Charlotte Brontë’s second novel after Jane Eyre. Published under her pseudonym of “Currer Bell,” it differs in several respects from that earlier work. It is written in the third person with an omniscient narrator, rather than the first-person of Jane Eyre, and incorporates the themes of industrial change and the plight of unemployed workers. It also features strong pleas for the

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