Her Christmas at the Hermitage is about Rachel Jackson and her adventures with her husband and president Andrew Jackson. Excerpt: Rachel shut her lips tight, remembering. All for her, that hot-headed encounter. All for her the bullet Andrew Jackson still carried so dangerously near to his heart that it could not be removed.

To the Hermitage tells two stories. The first is of the narrator, a novelist, on a trip to Stockholm and Russia for an academic seminar called the Diderot Project. The second takes place two hundred years earlier and recreates the journey the French philosopher Denis Diderot made to Russia at the invitation of Catherine the Great, a woman whose influence could change the path of history . . . Malcolm Bradbury’s last novel is rich with his satirical wit, but it is also deeply personal and weaves a wonderfully wry self-portrait.

Delusional Harold Norton, ex-warden of the Pinecrest Reformatory, accuses Louise Dana of being escapee Nina Regan. Louise clears herself, only to find that Norton continues to stalk her every move. After Louise is attacked by Norton, she is lost in the woods and spends the night with a strange hermit. Upon Louise's return to Starhurst, she becomes intrigued with Nina's strange case. Nina was never proved guilty of her crime, so Louise wants to help her. The girls must discover Nina's whereabouts -- and prove her guilt of innocence!