NCW Libraries

Wilkie Collins was the first great detective novelist. His dark and complex mysteries influenced the work of other writers, such as Anthony Trollope and Charles Dickens, with whom he developed a close personal friendship. Swinburne found his work worthy of serious criticism, and T. S. Eliot credits him even more than Poe with the invention of the modern detective novel and the popular thriller. Before such works as The Woman in White, The Moonstone,...

"Oscar-winning actress Ardith Law is a Hollywood icon. Radiant at sixty-two, she is the epitome of glamour and a highly respected artist. But her success has come at a price: She has a strained relationship with her daughter, Morgan, who at thirty-eight still blames Ardith for putting her career before being a mother. Morgan is a successful plastic surgeon in New York City--and the distance from Ardith's Bel Air mansion is not lost on either of them....

It centers on Kate, a widow who lost her husband in the war in Afghanistan and is struggling to maintain her small-town farm with her daughter while also running the local volunteer fire department.

A popular radio host whose career was launched years earlier by an on-air rant about her unfaithful husband struggles with falling in love, an obsessed stalker, and her socially fearful teen daughter, who emerges from a riding accident with a high-risk new personality.

Stephanie Plum, Trenton's hardest working, most underappreciated bounty hunter, is offered a freelance assignment that seems simple enough. Local jeweler Martin Rabner wants her to locate his former security guard, Andy Manley (a.k.a. Nutsy), who he is convinced stole a fortune in diamonds out of his safe. Stephanie is also looking for another troubled man, Duncan Dugan, a fugitive from justice arrested for robbing the same jewelry store on the same...

A little girl who loves to draw but cannot knit, and her mother who loves to knit but cannot draw, collaborate on a special project neither of them could have done alone.

The adventures of a young woman living in Northern California for a year.

Karen and Val are family--yet they're anything but close. Karen has carried the burden of responsibility for her aging mother ever since her gorgeous sister left town years ago to pursue a career in theater. But Val had darker reasons for leaving town--as well as a secret to keep--and coming home has never been an option . . . until their mother suffers a stroke. Reunited in their hometown, Karen and Val must grapple with their past mistakes, their...

Two mother-daughter duos must contend with their grief and complicated feelings for each other when the person who ties them together dies.

Caretta Rutledge thought she'd left her Southern roots and troubled family far behind, but an unusual request from her mother has her headed back to the scenic Lowcountry of her childhood.