On the morning of her wedding, 24-year-old Beth Shaw drives down the peninsula to the Portsea Hotel. She is uneasy and confused because she has just learnt something devastating about her fiancé, Jordan, that completely changes her view of him.As Beth's old schoolmates and her relatives arrive for the big day at the bayside idyll, Beth contemplates her childhood in suburbia. She worshipped the school relay runners, one of whom was Jordan's high school sweetheart. Painful memories of earlier disloyalties and betrayals resurface. Her dreams and wedding threaten to spin out of control. Will the truth ever be known? And must she make a fateful decision about more than just her wedding?Award-winning author Sallie Muirden deftly evokes the contradictions of human behaviour, and growing up in the 70s and 80s. With its Austenesque feel, Wedding Puzzle is an astute, entertaining, and often tense comedy of manners, that considers our choice of partner and the decision to marry as the key...

A most unusual portrait of early America based on a rare family document, in which a young mother's years in captivity with the Shawnee prove to be the best years of her life.It's 1779 and a young white woman named Margaret Erskine is venturing west from Virginia, on horseback, with her baby daughter and the rest of her family. She has no experience of Indians, and has absorbed most of the prejudices of her time, but she is open-minded, hardy, and mentally strong, a trait common to most of her female descendants—Sallie Bingham's ancestors.Bingham had heard Margaret's story since she was a child but didn't see the fifteen pages Margaret had dictated to her nephew a generation after her captivity until they turned up in her mother's blue box after her death. Devoid of most details, this restrained account inspired Bingham to research and imagine and fill the gaps in her story and to consider the tough questions it raises. How did Margaret, our...

This rich and accomplished collection showcases the range of a writer at the height of her powers. From the complex stories of artistic influence and the exhilaration and fright of solitude, to the incendiary rage of a betrayed young wife who sacrifices everything for revenge, to the struggles for independence of the three women who surrounded Ezra Pound like subservient stars, these fictions seize the reader's attention while slashing stereotypes.This Sallie Bingham Reader captures the spirit of the author's illustrious writing career via short stories, a novella, and a play.

Out of the Darkness. Into the Fire . . .Haunted by the death of her mother, assistant district attorney Mary Crow is obsessed with finding the man who holds the key to this tragedy. When that same man kidnaps her infant goddaughter, Mary is certain: the nightmare is beginning again. Following clues left along the Cherokee Trail of Tears, Mary's only chance to save her goddaughter is to hunt the kidnapper in a lethal game of cat-and-mouse. As lives crack and crumble around her, Mary must face a violent mystery in her family's past . . . and a killer who could be mistaken for the very devil himself.Call the Devil By His Oldest Name is a tour de force of relentless suspense and heart-stopping menace that will leave you breathless.

There are no rules but one: Survive.Mary "Killer" Crow is going home to North Carolina. There the tough young Cherokee prosecutor and her two closest friends will hike a beautiful but demanding wilderness trail.They will be followed into the mountains by a man obsessed with revenge. And they will become the prey of another man, a ruthless predator, who thrills to the hunt.Soon they will be pushed to the limits of their endurance -- and beyond -- as they discover their own chilling capacity for loyalty and violence...From the Paperback edition.

We do not know when we will die. We may see it coming from far away, or all at once. But I will die and you will die. You believe that, don't you?You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Study the language, look at maps, pack your bags. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Think of this book as a travel guide: a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you.The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable-and she also explores its intimacies and joys. Tisdale looks at grief, what the last days and hours of life are like, and what happens to dead bodies. Advice for Future Corpses includes stories, exercises, practical advice, personal experience, and a little Buddhist philosophy.But this isn't a book of inspiration or spiritual advice - Advice for Future Corpses is about how...

Paula Sánchez is famous in Seville. Now she is sitting for The Penitent Magdalen, along with Father Rastro and the monk Victor Maria, and watched over by the young painter Diego Velázquez. But Seville in 1616 is a dangerous place, and the eyes of the Inquisition are everywhere. In the evenings, Paula escapes the cares of life by skipping from rooftop to rooftop with the mysterious ladder man, who visits the Sevillians’ balconies each evening at dusk. By day, she is encouraged by Father Rastro to be a mother to the Morisco boys, who are ?also seeking liberation. But does the painting hold a secret that can truly free Paula?Sallie Muirden’s powerful, poetic and ?moving novel is a testament to our capacity for wonder, for art and for love.Praise for Sallie Muirden’s WE TOO SHALL BE MOTHERS‘Original, intelligent and playful’ Katherine England, THE ADVERTISER ‘a tour de force in its elegant brevity’ Michael Sharkey, THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN

Most Anticipated, Too: The Great 2016 Nonfiction Book PreviewThe MillionsSallie Tisdale is the author of seven books on such varied subjects as medical technology, her pioneer ancestors and Buddhist women teachers. Her many essays have appeared in Harper's, Conjunctions, The New Yorker, Antioch Review, Threepenny Review and many other journals. This first collection of work spans thirty years, and includes an introduction and brief epilogues to each essay. Tisdale's questing curiosity pursues subjects from the biology of flies to the experience of working in an abortion clinic, why it is so difficult to play sports with men, and whether it's possible for writers to tell the truth. She restlessly returns to themes of the body, the family, and how we try to explain ourselves to each other. She is unwilling to settle for easy answers, and finds the ambiguity and wonder underneath ordinary events. The collection includes a recent...

When an iPad accidentally left on records an unfamiliar and eerie night-time sound, thirteen-year-old Barnaby decides to take things into his own hands by investigating these odd goings further. Eventually finding himself at the doors of 'The Bloody Cauldron,' a Gothic horror shop in town, owner Lottie Durant and her sister Aimée give Barnaby a diary. Telling of a deadly plague, linked to the appearance of two strangely hooded figures, there is also a paragraph that mentions a mysterious doll. Enlisting the help of Julian Claridge, a rather flamboyant antiques dealer, Barnaby and his sister Ruby slowly uncover the whereabouts of the doll, a mysterious 300 years old child’s toy named Lulu. Containing the stolen memories of those killed by the bitter cold London winter of 1664 when ‘The Great Plague’ swept London and taking with it 80000 lives, it becomes clear that they must find the doll at all cost… unfortunately they aren’t the only ones looking.

Fiddlesticks killed her with his razor. Slit her throat and then forgave her.Deep in the Appalachian woods stands the old Fiddlesticks cabin, the scene of a bloody double murder from decades past. Now the haunted cabin lures young thrill seekers who hope to hear the killer's ghostly fiddle music. When a group of college students comes to call, Lisa Wilson—the daughter of a former North Carolina governor—is tragically murdered, and her flesh is mutilated with disturbing symbols.Pisgah County sheriff Jerry Cochran is in hot water when the ball-busting politician shows up, threatening to tear the county apart in search of his daughter's killer. But Nick Stratton—the handsome raptor center specialist and Lisa's boss—is in even hotter water when evidence points to him as the prime suspect. As Nick turns to attorney Mary Crow for help, it's up to the Pisgah County native to discover the truth. Did Nick do it? Or is there a deranged mountain killer...

When her long-missing husband is killed on a dark street in a city half way down the coast, Suzan Pike sets out to discover who her husband really was and what lead to his murder, a journey that will draw her into a nightmare world of madness and death centered on a big ugly house in a bad part of town.

Recently appointed special prosecutor Mary Crow is sent to Campbell County, North Carolina, to investigate a possible anti-gay conspiracy between a recent murder and a homophobic preacher. But what starts as an effort to curb hate-crimes turns into a nightmare of abuse and abduction.As Mary delves deeper into Campbell County's history, she uncovers menacing information about the infamous Highway 74, where people have either disappeared or been found dead. When she uncovers how it's all connected, Mary is forced into a deadly world of stolen innocence. And she may become the next victim . . .

Whispers abound at the ancient Spanish Oak. To those who know how to listen, it tells secrets of vanquished conquistadors, Cherokee witches, and the long-unsolved murder of Teresa Ewing. Whispers also thrive in the town of Hartsville—rumors that Teresa's killer still walks free.While running for District Attorney, Mary Crow finds the whispers starting to swirl around her. Did one of her friends cover up that twenty-year-old murder? Does her campaign have blood on its hands? As new evidence is discovered, Mary realizes that the only way to save her reputation is to find the true killer and silence the vicious gossip that has trapped so many people in a web of rumors and lies.

Blackpool, England, 1959. The Singleton family is on holiday. For seven-year-old Beth, just out of the hospital, this means struggling to fill in her 'I-Spy' book and avoiding her mother Ruth's eagle-eyed supervision. Her sixteen-year-old sister Helen, meanwhile, has befriended a waitress whose fun-loving ways hint at a life beyond Ruth's strict rules.But times are changing. As foreman of the local cotton mill, Ruth's husband, Jack, is caught between unions and owners whose cost-cutting measures threaten an entire way of life. And his job isn't the only thing at risk. When a letter arrives from Crete, a secret re-emerges from the rubble of Jack's wartime past that could destroy his marriage.As Helen is tempted outside the safe confines of her mother's stern edicts with dramatic consequences, an unexpected encounter inspires Beth to forge her own path. Over the holiday week, all four Singletons must struggle to find their place in the shifting world of promenade am...

In Great Buddha Gym for All Mens and Womens, author Sallie Tisdale so richly evokes her pilgrimage to the four vital sites related to Buddha Shakyamuni's life and enlightenment that the reader feels as if she's tripping alongside Tisdale every crowded, colorful, and sensuous step of the way. The challenges of travel in modern India are daunting. The ancient sites are overrun with tourists and seekers. Merchants hawking spiritual goods are everywhere. And yet, miraculously, despite the chaos, the great teachings of the Buddha come shining through.Sallie Tisdale is the author of seven books, including Talk Dirty to Me and The Best Thing I Ever Tasted, a finalist for a James Beard Award. Her memoir Stepping Westward was one of the 100 Notable Books of the West.Tisdale's essays have appeared in such publications as Harper's, Threepenny Review, the New Yorker, and Esquire. She is the 2013 recipient of the Regional Arts and Culture Council Literary Fellowship. She has received...