What secrets do the dark bones of Dundrennan Abbey hold? A year ago, she was happily married, bringing up her beloved son, running her successful beauty salon and living with her loving husband in her dream house. Now Ali McGovern's dreams are slipping away and all her old ghosts are coming back to haunt her. A job at Howell Hall, the private psychiatric facility near her rented cottage and the ruined abbey, seems too good to be true. But why has the couple who run the place employed her when she is clearly not qualified to do it? How can they afford to pay her so well? And what are they hiding? When a body is discovered in a shallow grave by the abbey on Ali's first day at work, it feels like one last horror. But it's just the beginning of her descent into a nightmare world she never imagined existed so close to home. 'An unnerving and suspenseful novel, THE WEIGHT OF ANGELS is McPherson's best yet' - Karin Slaughter, New York Times and International Bestselling author

"An unnerving and suspenseful novel, House. Tree. Person. is McPherson's best yet."—Karin Slaughter, New York Times and international bestselling author The body found in a muddy grave across the street is just the latest horror threatening to tear Ali McGovern's life apart seam by seam. She knows Angelo, her brooding teenage son, is keeping secrets. She fears he's in danger, too. But her new job at the psychiatric hospital, the job her husband pushed her into, is using up everything she's got every day. She can try to ignore the sounds that surely can't really be there. And she can try to trust the doctors, who can't be as dark as they seem. But can Ali hold herself, her life, and her family together without getting blood on her hands? Praise: "McPherson is a master of creating psychological tension and doubts about the motives of her characters...The clever way McPherson reveals each hint of the truth makes this a one-sitting read."—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "McPherson keeps the suspense level high."—Publishers Weekly "[An] intricate, deeply claustrophobic story."—Entertainment Weekly in an "A" review "A body unearthed by rains on the abbey grounds further pulls Ali's family into the dark mystery...and draws Ali to the brink of her own sanity. This is Scottish author McPherson's sixth stand-alone novel. She's been a finalist for both the Agatha Christie and Mary Higgins Clark award. No wonder."—Star Tribune

In Sissy Insurgencies Marlon B. Ross focuses on the figure of the sissy in order to rethink how Americans have imagined, articulated, and negotiated manhood and boyhood from the 1880s to the present. Rather than collapsing sissiness into homosexuality, Ross shows how sissiness constitutes a historically fluid range of gender practices that are expressed as a physical manifestation, discursive epithet, social identity, and political phenomenon. He reconsiders several black leaders, intellectuals, musicians, and athletes within the context of sissiness, from Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, and James Baldwin to Little Richard, Amiri Baraka, and Wilt Chamberlain. Whether examining Washington’s practice of cleaning as an iteration of sissiness, Baldwin’s self-fashioned sissy deportment, or sissiphobia in professional sports and black nationalism, Ross demonstrates that sissiness can be embraced and exploited to conform to American gender norms or disrupt racialized patriarchy. In this way, sissiness constitutes a central element in modern understandings of race and gender.

An instant New York Times bestseller From the bestselling author of The Cost of These Dreams The story of how Julian Van Winkle III, the caretaker of the most coveted cult Kentucky Bourbon whiskey in the world, fought to protect his family's heritage and preserve the taste of his forebears, in a world where authenticity, like his product, is in very short supply. As a journalist said of Pappy Van Winkle, "You could call it bourbon, or you could call it a $5,000 bottle of liquified, barrel-aged unobtanium." Julian Van Winkle, the third-generation head of his family's business, is now thought of as something like the Buddha of Bourbon - Booze Yoda, as Wright Thompson calls him. He is swarmed wherever he goes, and people stand in long lines to get him to sign their bottles of Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve, the whiskey he created to honor his grandfather, the founder of the family concern. A bottle of the 23-year-old Pappy starts at $3000 on the internet. As Julian is the first to say, things have gone completely nuts. Forty years ago, Julian would have laughed in astonishment if you'd told him what lay ahead. He'd just stepped in to try to save the business after his father had died, partly of heartbreak, having been forced to sell the old distillery in a brutal downturn in the market for whiskey. Julian's grandfather had presided over a magical kingdom of craft and connoisseurship, a genteel outfit whose family ethos generated good will throughout Kentucky and far beyond. There's always a certain amount of romance to the marketing of spirits, but Pappy's mission statement captured something real: "We make fine bourbon - at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon." But now the business had hit the wilderness years, and Julian could only hang on for dear life, stubbornly committed to preserving his namesake's legacy or going down with the ship. Then something like a miracle happened: it turned out that hundreds of very special barrels of whiskey from the Van Winkle family distillery had been saved by the multinational conglomerate that bought it. With no idea what they had, they offered to sell it to Julian, who scrambled to beg and borrow the funds. Now he could bottle a whiskey whose taste captured his family's legacy. The result would immediately be hailed as the greatest whiskey in the world - and would soon be the hardest to find. But now, those old barrels were used up, and Julian Van Winkle faced the challenge of his lifetime: how to preserve the taste of Pappy, the taste of his family's heritage, in a new age? The amazing Wright Thompson was invited to be his wingman as he set about to try. The result is an extraordinary testimony to the challenge of living up to your legacy and the rewards that come from knowing and honoring your people and your craft. Wright learned those lessons from Julian as they applied to the honest work of making a great bourbon whiskey in Kentucky, but he couldn't help applying them to his own craft, writing, and his upbringing in Mississippi, as he and his wife contemplated the birth of their first child. May we all be lucky enough to find some of ourselves, as Wright Thompson did, in Julian Van Winkle, and in Pappyland.

Returning to the Ozark Territories, freedom fighter David Valentine is shocked to find it overrun by vampiric Kurians under the command of the merciless Consul Solon. In a desperate gambit, Valentine leads a courageous group of soldiers on a mission to drive a spike into the gears of the Kurian Order. Valentine stakes life, honor, and the future of his home in a rebellion that sparks the greatest battle of his life.

Jim Heron, disgruntled fallen angel, thinks that he finally has a leg up against Devinia, a devil's minion, in their fight over seven souls to end the war against good and evil. This is because Jim knows exactly which earthly soul he needs to save: a distant single father of a 13-year-old son. Luckily, Jim thinks that he can leverage the power of love, because this man is in love with a careful woman previously burnt by lust. So instead, Jim focuses his attentions on Sissy, the young soul he saved from Devinia's clutches, who is now transitioning to her life as an angel. But things are more complicated than they seem, because someone else is in love with that careful woman - the twin of the man whose soul needs saving. And unfortunately, this twin is the better contender for romance - he's a good-hearted sensitive musician. Torn between gentle support and steamy passion, will this woman make the choice that brings a brooding, broken soul to redemption? Or will that soul be doomed to endure the most hellish possession?

Theodosia Browning investigates a Charleston steeped in tradition and treachery in the latest Tea Shop Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs. While viewing the harbor's Gaslights and Galleons Parade from the widow's walk of Timothy Neville's Charleston mansion, local banker Carson Lanier seemingly tumbles over a narrow railing, then plunges three stories to his death. But a tragic accident becomes something much more sinister when it's discovered that the victim was first shot with a bolt from a crossbow. At the request of the mansion owner, Theodosia investigates the tragedy and is soon neck deep in suspects. An almost ex-wife, a coworker, a real estate partner--all had motives for killing the luckless banker, but one resorted to murder to settle accounts. INCLUDES DELICIOUS RECIPES AND TEA TIME TIPS!

The Nun and the Gardener is a collection of short stories and essays, some humorous and some serious. Many of LaVernes short stories and essays start with a bit of truth, such as an experience in her life, and then go from there - sometimes into fantasyland. She likes to take that grain of truth and stretch it just a tad by using her very active imagination. She tries to find humor in every situation, and especially in her life. When that doesnt work, she writes serious stories and essays, but her imagination is still very much involved.

Finally . . . some respect! However, my name could’ve been a tad bit bigger on the cover. A “Queen” has the right to be choosy. Girlahhh . . . I’ve been gone for a minute and now I’m back to set it off! Unfortunately, though, not everyone was able to make it to the sequel for obvious reasons. But if you thought there was back biting, knife stabbing, low-down dirty drama up in Cut N’ Curl before, hunty, you ain’t ready for what’s about to go down! I would go ahead and spill you a little tea, but the way me and Rayven’s bank account is set up . . . well, you know the rest. Happy Reading. Smooches!