Ellen Herbert’s writing has won over ten awards including a PEN Fiction Prize. Her inspiration comes from those she loves. Her novel, The Last Government Girl, winner of a Best Novel Award from the Maryland Writers’ Association, borrows from her mother’s life as a young government worker during WWII. With a fiction grant from the state of Virginia, Ellen spent a glorious summer in London, where she began this novel inspired by her son as he struggled to come of age. Ultimately, she learned...

The latest installment in the Chesapeake Crimes mystery series focuses on working stiffs--literally! Included in this collection are new tales by: Shari Randall, C. Ellett Logan, Karen Cantwell, E. B. Davis, Jill Breslau, David Autry, Harriette Sackler, Barb Goffman, Ellen Herbert, Smita Harish Jain, Leone Ciporin, Cathy Wiley, Donna Andrews, Art Taylor. Foreword by Elaine Viets.

In the summer of 1944, Edwina, known as Eddie, a young high school teacher of English and German travels to Washington to work for the war effort unaware a killer is there, targeting government girls. And he's closer than she could ever imagine. Eddie finds Washington crowded and exciting, a city at war, where folks act as if each day is their last. She rushes at life, longing to live her own version of Casablanca, believing the only enemies are Over There, the Nazis, Hitler, Hirohito. And...

Meg Langslow was actually looking forward to renovating the old Victorian mansion she and her boyfriend Michael bought. But she wasn't thrilled by the lifetime of junk accumulated by the house's eccentric previous owner, Edwina Sprocket. The easiest solution: hold the end-all and be-all of gigantic yard sales. But when the event attracts the late Miss Sprocket's money-hungry heirs, the over-enthusiastic supporters of some endangered barn owls, and customers willing to go to any lengths to ...

It's time for more outrageous and feathered fun in the award-winning, laugh-out-loud Meg Langslow series.When her old friend Karen drops by with two-year-old son Timmy, Meg Langslow reluctantly agrees to babysit "just for a little while." But when nightfall comes, the toddler is still in residence and Karen isn't answering any phone calls. Meg decides she must find out what's happening, so the next morning, with Timmy in tow, she retraces her friend's footsteps---and begins to susp...

Seventh in the USA-Today and Kobo Top-5 bestselling Leigh Koslow Mystery Series!A hidden secret…A ghost to keep it that way.Leigh Koslow doesn’t care who claims to see the specter of a Civil War soldier skulking around her neighbor’s farm; she does NOT believe in ghosts. Never mind that the farm in question was settled by a veteran of the Battle of Gettysburg, and never mind that its occupants have complained of floating li...

Theda Krakow is in a funk. Her sometime boyfriend is gone, her beloved cat has died, and the career leap she's made from copy editor to freelance writer has left her finances—and her spirit—flat. She desperately needs a headline. One day, strolling in her Cambridge neighborhood, Theda spies an adorable stray kitten who leads her to an old woman holed up in a decrepit house full of cats. Could this be the story to catapult Theda out of the dumps? Or deeper into something more sinister?

A dastardly murder and the kidnapping of a prize chicken threaten to ruin Caerphilly's state fair—fortunately, Meg Langslow is on the case of The Hen of the BaskervillesThe newest mystery in Donna Andrews's gut-bustingly funny, award-winning, New York Times bestselling series is anything but elementary. Meg Langslow is helping Mayor Randall Shiffley organize the Virginia Un-Fair, Caerphilly's entry in the race to replace the old state fair (which ...

Meg's expecting twins---any minute!---in this next hilarious entry in the award-winning, New York Times bestselling series!Meg is eight and a half months pregnant with twins when Michael asks if she wouldn't mind another houseguest. One of his doctoral students is directing his new translation of a play by a minor Spanish playwright, and the playwright has agreed to come to town for the production.Senor Mendoza turns out to be a drinker, a smoker, and an inveterate...

LINE YOUR DUCKS UP IN A ROW…The hilly terrain next to the old Sprocket house that Meg Langslow and her fiancé, Michael, are refurbishing is the perfect location for an "extreme" croquet field—even the legs of cows and sheep are convenient extra wickets. A sport traditionally reserved for genteel society, croquet has become all the rage in Caerphilly…until it appears someone in town has taken the "rage" a bit too literally.AND KNOCK 'EM DEAD....

In We'll Always Have Parrots, Meg Langslow travels with her fiance Michael to a fan convention for Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle--a cheesy cult TV show on which Michael has a minor role. Michael hopes the weekend will give him a chance to talk Miss Wynncliffe-Jones, the show's temperamental leading lady and executive producer out of enforcing a certain provision in Michael's contract.Of course, Michael's not the only person whose career the dictatorial star has manipulated...

Hold on to your hats, everybody! Donna Andrews is taking us on another ride into the wonderful world of Meg Langslow, a world filled with laughter as well as the knotty problems Meg always seems to encounter and---somehow---solve.Okay, maybe there are people in Antarctica with penguins in their basements, but in Virginia? Only Meg's dad could manage that one. A body down there---well, that's somewhat more likely.It turns out that explaining the penguins' presence is easy---M...