As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house—each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake. Then the rooms start to be sabotaged, and an unfortunate designer turns up dead—making Mother a prime suspect. Can Meg catch the real killer in time to save Mother the indignity of arrest? The brilliantly funny and talented Donna Andrews delivers another winner in the acclaimed avian-themed series that mystery readers have come to love. Cozies make excellent stocking-stuffers, and The Nightingale Before Christmas is guaranteed to put the "ho ho hos" into the holidays for the legions of fans hungry for another Christmas book featuring Meg Langslow. Donna has won many awards for this very popular series, and continues to come up with new hilarious adventures for her endearing heroine. The novel is full of superb screwball comedy as well as Donna's trademark crisp plotting, not to mention bushels of holiday cheer--it wouldn't be the most wonderful time of the year without it.

Three very different girls sign up as student nurses in 1936, while England is still mourning the death of George V. Dora is a tough East Ender, driven by ambition, but also desperate to escape her squalid, overcrowded home and her abusive stepfather. Helen is the quiet one, a mystery to her fellow nurses, avoiding fun, gossip and the limelight. In fact she is in the formidable shadow of her overbearing mother, who dominates every aspect of her life. Can a nursing career free Helen at last? The third of our heroines is naughty, rebellious Millie an aristocrat on the run from her conventional upper class life. She is doomed to clash over and over again with terrifying Sister Hyde and to get into scrape after scrape especially where men are concerned. This utterly delightful novel brings a London pre-war hospital vividly to life.

By the bestselling author of Black Narcissus and The Battle of the Villa Fiorita 'This is an absolutely heart-warming read, which will make you laugh, cry and love it' GUARDIAN 'Her craftsmanship is always sure' NEW YORK TIMES 'Godden's expert narration, her beguiling setting and her heartening celebration of love and happy endings' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'Never forget, Charlotte, you were born to be a dancer . . . Never forget. Promise.' Before her ballet teacher died, Lottie promised Madame Holbein to be the dancer her mother never lived to become. Orphaned at birth, Lottie has been brought up by her aunt, and though she is loved, she is lonely. Then she finds Prince, a spaniel puppy, and discovers a love and loyalty that is boundless. When Lottie passes the tough audition for Queen's Chase, Her Majesty's Junior Ballet School, everybody is thrilled - except, surprisingly, Lottie. She will have to board at school, and what will happen to her beloved dog? To choose between the two is breaking her heart.

An unexpected bequest sends waves of violence through the placid groves of academe in Joanne Dobson's third mystery to feature Professor Karen Pelletier. Still untenured, and therefore on shaky academic ground, feisty young Enfield College professor Pelletier finds herself going head-to-head with the resident Edgar Allan Poe expert, Elliot Corbin, an academic windbag of monumental proportions who is lobbying to be appointed to the much-coveted and recently vacated Palaver Chair. So when Karen receives a serendipitous bonanza in the form of never-before-seen manuscripts and journals by the nineteenth-century poet Emmeline Foster, who is rumored to have killed herself for the love of Poe, Corbin is predictably put out. Subsequently, the corrosive Corbin is stabbed to death in his home on Thanksgiving Day. Karen has an airtight alibi, but other suspects abound--from the head of the women's studies program, who also pines for the Palaver Chair; to Visiting Poet Jane Birdwort, whose history with Corbin turns out to be far longer (and closer) than anyone had known; to the perpetually disgruntled department secretary; to a young female adjunct professor whose unbridled ambition will not be denied. Then Karen's office is ransacked, and a number of the Emmeline Foster journals and poems are stolen, so it looks more and more as if Corbin's death may be inextricably entwined with the muse of his life--poet of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. The undeniably attractive Lieutenant Piotrowski is called in, and, as in the past, he solicits Karen's help, involving her once more in the thankless task of investigating her not-always-so-collegial colleagues. As she did in her first two widely acclaimed novels, Joanne Dobson uses her savvy insider's knowledge of academic politics and her considerable talent for complex plotting to produce a witty and eminently satisfying entertainment.

Exciting and dramatic but tender and heartfelt; this is a novel that you will return to again and again. From the million copy and Sunday Times bestselling author Charlotte Bingham, for fans of Louise Douglas and Dinah Jefferies. 'A novel rich in dramatic surprises... will have you frantically turning the pages.' - DAILY MAIL 'One of Britain's most bankable novelists.' - THE DAILY EXPRESS 'I laughed and cried at this tale, could visualise the characters, scenery and the story' - ***** Reader Review 'Great book, grabs you on the first page' - ***** Reader Review ************************************************************************ A DARING DECISION COULD COST HER EVERYTHING... When Cassie Rosse becomes the first woman to train an English Derby winner with her horse, The Nightingale, she has every right to believe that success is hers at last. But life will never be simple for Cassie Rosse, not just because she is unable to move out from the long shadows cast by the early death of her husband, Tyrone, nor because she has an indomitable will to win in the man's world of racing, but because she has integrity. Against all advice, therefore, she decides to keep The Nightingale in training and race him as a four-year-old, a decision that triggers a set of circumstances which quickly turn her brilliant triumph into a nightmare...

Set in the mid-1990s, The Nightingale tells the story of Tony Braden, a man with a rare talent for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Assigned as an information management worker at the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Braden hires a Russian-language tutor, Nadya Kovalova, only to find himself falling in love with her. But it’s early times in post-Soviet Russia, and the embassy has not yet changed its policy against employees fraternizing with Russians.Tony is reported and sent back to Washington, where he kicks up a public fuss about the outdated policy, even taking time to write a novel, The Nightingale, “an exercise in anger management” in his words. When the contact policy is changed and the two lovers are free to be together, they make plans to meet for a summer holiday on Spain’s Costa Brava. Tony thinks his troubles are over; actually they’re just beginning. Part love story, part spy story and part satire on the slow, byzantine ways of bureaucracy, The Nightingale takes a look back at a time when the world was changing so rapidly that people –and governments – were having trouble keeping up.

An exhilarating Regency romance from the #1 New York Times bestselling author. The second novel in Catherine Coulter's acclaimed Legacy trilogy.

The beloved Sunday Times bestselling author is back with a new, long-awaited Nightingale novel. _________________________ It's 1957, and three young women are beginning their nursing training at the Florence Nightingale Hospital in London's East End... Winne desperately wants to win her mother's approval - but will following in her footsteps and becoming a nurse help? Tearaway Viv has never been one to follow the rules, though the Nightingale may help her mend her ways. Beth is following her late sister's dream by training as a nurse. Will it be the right path for her? There's a steep learning curve ahead. But with friendship on their side, the Nightingale Daughters are ready to rise to the challenge.

Presents the story of five top graduates of Annapolis who served heroically in Vietnam and rose to national prominence during the Reagan years.

Although Florence Nightingale is famous as a nurse, her lifetime’s writing on nursing is scarcely known in the profession. Nursing professors tend to “look to the future, not to the past,” and often ignore her or rely on faulty secondary sources. Nightingale’s work on nursing is now available to scholars and general readers alike through the publication of volumes 12 and 13 in the Collected Works of Florence Nightingale. Volume 12, The Nightingale School, relates the founding of her school at St Thomas’ Hospital and her guidance of its teaching for the rest of her life. Volume 13, Extending Nursing, relates the introduction of professional training and standards outside St Thomas’, beginning with London hospitals and others in Britain, followed by hospitals in Europe, America, Australia and Canada. As medical knowledge progressed, nursing practice changed and Nightingale with it. Her evolving views on nursing, and on germ theory (typically misrepresented in the literature), are revealed. In this volume, editor Lynn McDonald brings to light much unknown material on the early years of the school. The crisis of its near breakdown in the early 1870s is covered, followed by the measures Nightingale brought in to improve instruction, including her mentoring relationships with emerging nursing leaders. Nursing historians may be surprised to learn that Nightingale was keeping up on best operating theatre practices in 1898. Struggles with cost-conscious hospital administrators are part of the story, as is the challenge to keep nurses safe at a time when hospitals were dangerous places.