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Susan Boyce

Susan Boyce

  • America’s highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor, was awarded to 440 deserving members of the “Greatest Generation” that served in World War II. But in 1943, before the war was even over, Allied leaders realized they needed another kind of award to recognize a different kind of World War II hero—animal heroes.

    Founded in 1943, the prestigious PDSA Dickin Medal is the highest award an animal can achieve for gallantry and bravery in the field of military conflict. It was given to fifty-five animals who served valiantly alongside the members of the Greatest Generation. In War Animals, nationally bestselling author Robin Hutton (Sgt. Reckless: America’s War Horse) tells the incredible, inspiring true stories of the fifty-five animal recipients of the PDSA Dickin Medal during WWII and the lesser-known stories of other military animals whose acts of heroism have until now been largely forgotten. These animal heroes include

    • G. I. Joe, who flew twenty miles in twenty minutes and stopped the planes on the tarmac from bombing a town that had just been taken over by allied forces, saving the lives of over one hundred British soldiers;
    • Winkie, the first Dickin recipient, who saved members of a downed plane when she flew 129 miles with oil clogged wings with an SOS message that helped a rescue team find the crew;
    • Chips, who served as a sentry dog for the Roosevelt-Churchill conference; and
    • Ding, a paradog whose plane was hit by enemy fire on D-Day, ended up in a tree, and once on the ground still saved lives.

    A heartwarming and sometimes even hilarious history of hero birds, dogs, horses, and more, War Animals is a World War II story you’ve never read before.

  • New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers returns to charming Swift River Valley, where spring is the time for fresh starts and new beginnings.

    Kylie Shaw has found a home and a quiet place to work as an illustrator of children’s books in little Knights Bridge, Massachusetts. No one seems to know her here—and she likes it that way. She carefully guards her privacy in the refurbished nineteenth-century hat factory where she has a loft. And then California private investigator Russ Colton moves in.

    Russ is in Knights Bridge to keep his client and friend, eccentric Hollywood costume designer Daphne Stewart, out of trouble. Keeping tabs on Daphne while she considers starting a small children’s theater in town doesn’t seem like a tough job—until he runs into Kylie. Her opposition to converting part of the old hat factory into a theater is a challenge. But the bigger challenge is getting Kylie to let loose a little, like the adventurous characters she depicts in her work.

    Kylie and Russ have more in common than they or anyone else would ever expect. They’re both looking for a place to belong, and if they’re able to let go of past mistakes and learn to trust again, they might just find what they need—including each other.

  • New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers celebrates the joy and romance of Christmas in New England.

    Clare Morgan is ready for a fresh start when she moves to the small Massachusetts town of Knights Bridge with her young son, Owen. Widowed for six years, Clare settles into her job as the town’s new librarian. She appreciates the warm welcome she and Owen receive and truly enjoys getting the library ready for its role in the annual holiday open house.

    Clare expects to take it slow with her new life. Then she meets Logan Farrell, a Boston ER doctor in town to help his elderly grandmother settle into assisted living. “Slow” isn’t a word Logan seems to understand. Accustomed to his fast-paced city life, he doesn’t plan to stay in Knights Bridge for long. But Daisy Farrell has other ideas and enlists her grandson to decorate her house on the village green one last time. Logan looks to Clare for help. She can go through Daisy’s book collection and help him decorate while she’s at it.

    As Clare and Logan get his grandmother’s house ready for the holidays, what neither of them expects to find is an attraction to each other. Better than most, they know all the crazy things that can happen in life, but everything about Knights Bridge and this magical season invites them to open themselves to new possibilities … and new love.

  • Stuffology 101 is for those of us who want to get the clutter out of our lives without being featured on reality TV. We can still use our bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen, but we harbor secrets.

    1. Do you race around to pick up piles when someone's at the door?
    2. Do you close the door to hide your stuff in the spare room?
    3. Do you still have boxes to unpack from your last move a dozen years ago?
    4. Are you unable to focus because your mind is so frazzled?

    Stuffologists Brenda Avadian and Eric Riddle share four decades of experience dealing with stuff—or rather, clutter. Inside Stuffology 101, you'll find fun and flexible approaches to get your mind out of what you define as clutter. Funny, serious, and humbling stories are woven in with tips to help you clear the toxic clutter out of your life.

    At the end of your life, what will matter most—things or people? Are you ready to manage the stuff in your life?

  • This is the complete and captivating account of how a would-be Korean racehorse became one of the greatest Marine Corps wartime heroes.

    Amid an inferno of explosives on a deadly minefield in the Korean War, a four-legged marine proved to be a heroic force of nature. She moved headstrong up and down steep, smoky terrain that no man could travail confidently. In a single day, this small Mongolian mare made fifty-one round-trips carrying nearly five tons of explosives to various gun sites. Sergeant Reckless was her name, and she was the horse renowned for carrying wounded soldiers off the battlefield and making solo trips across combat zones to deliver supplies.

    A widely celebrated national hero, Reckless was first featured in 1954 in the Saturday Evening Post and in 1997 when Life magazine published an edition lauding history's one hundred all-time heroes. Equine enthusiast Robin Hutton learned about Sergeant Reckless and spearheaded the effort to commission a monument at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle, Virginia, near the Marine Corps Base Quantico. In July of 2013, the statue was unveiled. A second monument is planned for Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton in California, where Reckless lived out her days and is buried.

    Hutton has now written a fascinating full biography of Sergeant Reckless, who earned two Purple Hearts for her heroic efforts, among other military decorations. Hutton has spoken with the marines who fought alongside Reckless and tells the complete and captivating tale of how a would-be Korean racehorse became one of the greatest Marine Corps wartime heroes. Sgt. Reckless brings the legend back to life more than half a century later.

  • China Homecoming is the sequel to Jean Fritz's Newbery Honor book Homesick: My Own Story. As a grown woman, Jean returned to China where she was born and lived until she was thirteen.

    Speaking Chinese, Jean felt welcome when she revisited China. Memories of her childhood washed over her as she visited her old home and the British School she had attended. Both had changed just as history had changed her hometown of Wuhan, but listeners will be moved at what it meant to Jean when she was declared an honorary citizen.

  • A startling and revelatory examination of Nabokov's life and works—notably Pale Fire and Lolita—bringing new insight into one of the twentieth century's most enigmatic authors.

    Novelist Vladimir Nabokov witnessed the horrors of his century, escaping Revolutionary Russia then Germany under Hitler, and fleeing France with his Jewish wife and son just weeks before Paris fell to the Nazis. He repeatedly faced accusations of turning a blind eye to human suffering to write artful tales of depravity. But does one of the greatest writers in the English language really deserve the label of amoral aesthete bestowed on him by so many critics?

    Using information from newly-declassified intelligence files and recovered military history, journalist Andrea Pitzer argues that far from being a proponent of art for art's sake, Vladimir Nabokov managed to hide disturbing history in his fiction—history that has gone unnoticed for decades. Nabokov emerges as a kind of documentary conjurer, spending the most productive decades of his career recording a saga of forgotten concentration camps and searing bigotry, from World War I to the Gulag and the Holocaust. Lolita surrenders Humbert Humbert's secret identity, and reveals a Nabokov appalled by American anti-Semitism. The lunatic narrator of Pale Fire recalls Russian tragedies that once haunted the world. From Tsarist courts to Nazi film sets, from CIA front organizations to wartime Casablanca, the story of Nabokov's family is the story of his century—and both are woven inextricably into his fiction.

  • Librarian Phoebe O’Dunn deals in stories, but her passion for history has taught her that happy endings are rare. Her life in Knights Bridge, Massachusetts, is safe and uneventful—until she discovers the hidden room. Among its secrets is a cache of vintage clothing, including a spectacular gown, perfect for a gala masquerade in Boston. In the guise of a princess, Phoebe is captivated by a handsome swashbuckler who’s also adopted a more daring persona. Noah Kendrick’s wealth has made him wary, especially of women: everybody wants something.

    When Noah and Phoebe meet again in Knights Bridge, at first neither recognizes the other. And neither one is sure they can trust the magic of the night they shared—until an unexpected threat prompts them to unmask their truest selves. After all, it takes more than just the right costume to live out your personal fairy tale. It takes heart and the courage to be more than you ever dreamed possible.

  • In a riveting story of courage and hope, Peg Kehret writes about months spent in a hospital when she was twelve, first struggling to survive a severe case of polio, then slowly learning to walk again.

    Peg Kehret was stricken with polio when she was twelve years old. At first paralyzed and terrified, she fought her way to recovery, aided by doctors and therapists, a loving family, supportive roommates fighting their own battles with the disease, and plenty of grit and luck

    With the humor and suspense that are her trademarks, acclaimed author Peg Kehret vividly recreates the true story of her year of heartbreak and triumph.

  • Betsy Devonshire, full-time owner of the Crewel World needlework shop and part-time sleuth, has hooked more than a few crooks in the USA Today bestselling Needlecraft Mysteries. Now Betsy learns the hard way that a murder is still murder, any way you color it.

    Betsy is a natural-born yarnsmith—so it's only fitting that some of her favorite items to stock come from the dye-works of Hailey Brent. Hailey makes hand-dyed knitting wool, silk, soy, and corn yarns. She uses only natural vegetable dyes, creating soft and beautiful colors. Which means her yarns are expensive but well worth it.

    Unfortunately, someone thinks they're worth killing for.

    When Hailey's body is discovered shot dead in her workshop, Betsy discovers that there was a lot about Hailey she would have never guessed. Like her penchant for stealing other's property for her own use, her use of dangerous additives to create her so-called all-natural fibers—and a scheming mind that had made her more than one enemy.

    Now, Betsy must wring the truth from a bevy of colorful suspects because the truth just might mean the difference between living—and dyeing.

  • A fun collection of all-time favorite songs for everyone to enjoy ... and join in with! 

    The Wheels on the Bus includes the following songs:

    "The Wheels on the Bus"
    "Baa Baa Black Sheep"
    "If You're Happy and You Know It"
    "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"
    "Skip to My Lou"
    "Hickory Dickory Dock"
    "Itsy Bitsy Spider/Jack and Jill"
    "I'm a Little Teapot"
    "Mary Had a Little Lamb"
    "Bingo" 
    "Hush, Little Baby"
    "Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?"
    "Old MacDonald" 
    "The Muffin Man"
    "A Tiskit, A Tasket"
    "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"
    "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"
    "Oh, Susanna"
    "The Farmer in the Dell"
    "Knick Knack Paddy Whack"
    "ABC"
    "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes"

  • A fun collection of songs and rhymes for everyone to enjoy and join in with! More “The Wheels on the Bus” includes:

    1. The Wheels on the Bus
    2. Down at the Station
    3. One, Two, Buckle My Shoe
    4. The Big Ship Sails on the Alley Alley Oh
    5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Once I Caught a Fish Alive
    6. Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
    7. Pat-a-Cake
    8. Hey Diddle Diddle
    9. Miss Polly Had a Dolly
    10. Simple Simon
    11. The Bear Went over the Mountain
    12. Froggy Went A’ Courting
    13. Ten in the Bed
    14. Peter Hammers with One Hammer
    15. I Jump out of Bed
    16. Polly Put the Kettle On
    17. Little Bo Peep
    18. Wee Willie Winkie
    19. I Hear Thunder, I Hear Thunder
    20. If All the World Were Apple Pie

    Songs are performed by Mark Meadows, Deryn Edwards, Michelle Durler, Robin Fritz, Susan Sheridan, Jimmy Hibbert, Sophie Aldred, and Richard Mitchley. Additional vocals by Dee, Charlotte, and Emily Owen. Music by Bernard Graham Shaw, Steven D. Jones, Glyn M. Owen, and Roger Davis.

  • Heavens to Betsy Devonshire! She never intended to get so caught up in this year’s antique car race. But as sponsor of one of the entrants, she can’t help but keep a close eye on the outcome—and it’s not pretty. One of the drivers never makes it to the finish line. His car is found exploded in flames. Now Betsy and her crafty friends must determine if it was an accident or the work of a jealous competitor. The answer may be in a piece of needlework, but pinning down a suspect won’t be easy. 
  • They were fighting for Texas—fighting for the land they called home. For twelve long days, the men and women inside an old mission known as the Alamo defended it against the soldiers who surrounded them. But President Santa Anna was just as determined to keep Texas part of Mexico. He sent a message to the Texians behind the fortress walls—there would be no mercy for those inside. The Texians hung on as they waited for more men and supplies to come to their rescue. But no help came. Finally, in the predawn darkness of March 6, 1836, thousands of Mexican soldiers poured over the walls of the Alamo. The gruesome battle that followed would prove to be a turning point in American history. And “Remember the Alamo!” would become the battle cry of the fight of Texas independence. The gripping story of the Alamo is told here through the eyes of two real-life survivors of the siege and battle—eight-year-old Enrique Esparza and Susanna Dickinson, the mother of baby Angelina.

  • A wave of hope carries Olivia Frost back to her small New England hometown nestled in the beautiful Swift River Valley. She’s transforming a historic home into an idyllic getaway. Picturesque and perfect, if only the absentee owner will fix up the eyesore next door …

    Dylan McCaffrey’s ramshackle house in an inheritance he never counted on. It also holds the key to a generations-old lost treasure he can’t resist—any more than he can resist his new neighbor. Against this breathtaking landscape, Dylan and Olivia pursue love-buried secrets and discover a mystery wrapped in a love story—past and present.

  • When an elderly homeless woman is found dead on the shore of Lake Minnetonka, she’s wearing something that holds the key to her identity but also opens up a mystery. Embroidered on her blouse is her will, in which she bequeaths everything she owns to her niece—Emily Hame, a member of the Monday bunch at Betsy Devonshire’s Crewel World needlework shop! Emily’s aunt turns out to be the second homeless woman to be found dead under mysterious circumstances. It’s up to Betsy to discover the common thread between the deaths—and to determine if a murderer may strike again.

  • The art of needlecraft requires patience, discipline, and creativity. So too does the art of detection. Just ask Betsy Devonshire, who’s learning that life in a small-town needlecraft shop can reveal an unexpected knack for knitting—and a hidden talent for unraveling crime.

    Betsy Devonshire has settled into her new home in Excelsior, Minnesota, as owner of the town’s needlecraft shop. So why is she suffering from terrifying nightmares? She hasn’t a clue but thinks it might help to get away for a while. With her friend Jill in tow, she heads north for a “stitch-in” at a remote, rustic lodge. But her nightmares only get worse—especially after she finds a dead woman no one else had seen. And when the body disappears, she knows she won’t get any rest until she untangles the mysterious threads of the crime.

  • Creator of the modern female private eye story, Marcia Muller has been writing novels and short stories about Sharon McCone since 1977. In the process, McCone has gained a host of associates and formed her own detective agency. Some seven years ago, Marcia Muller decided to show readers different views of her sleuth by relating cases through the eyes of McCone's colleagues. McCone and Friends contains three stories told by McCone herself, as well as a novella and a short story narrated by the agency's investigator Rae Kelleher, a story from the viewpoint of its office manager Ted Smalley, an investigation conducted by McCone's nephew Mick Savage, and one by her long-term lover Hy Ripinsky. The settings range from small planes to a sweatshop which puts Asian women into virtual slavery, and the mysteries surround a 1950s jukebox in a rundown hotel and a sculpture welded together by a long-missing and now very-dead artist. In perhaps the most moving story of all, a teenage girl has vanished leaving as a clue only a collage on her wall. McCone and Friends shows why Marcia Muller is one of the greatest mystery writers of our generation.

  • It looked like a lost cause. Convicted of a brutal society murder in 1956, Lis Benedict had served a long sentence and just been released from jail. Then in a last desperate attempt to clear the Benedict name, her daughter Judy convinces All Souls Legal Cooperative to take her mother's case before the Historical Tribunal.

    Sharon McCone loves a challenge but has little affection for the cold and unlikable Lis. Then, suddenly, the woman in question is dead, a vicious threat is scrawled in red paint across the front of Sharon's house, and San Francisco's number one private investigator is following a fresh trail of death that leads back to a wild debutante, a prestigious think tank, and the power politics of the 1950s—all in search of a killer who has engineered a fatal cover-up and built a brilliant career on murder.

  • Marcia Muller is, as Sue Grafton pointed out, the creator of the modern female private eye story, and Sharon McCone is one of the finest and most sensitive of all current sleuths. Sharon came upon the scene in 1977 with Edwin of the Iron Shoes, the first of fifteen novels and fifteen short stories filled with cluing and caring. The McCone Files gathers all of Sharon’s short cases into a single volume covering her entire career as staff investigator at All Souls Legal Cooperative in San Francisco. 

    From the death of a clown in Diablo Valley to the disappearance of a young socialite on the Golden Gate Bridge, from the murder of a teenage gang leader in San Francisco to the drowning of an aged Japanese herb-gatherer, and from streets filled with juvenile runaways to the quietness of a mausoleum, Sharon investigates not only who committed the crimes but also what they say about the world toward the end of the twentieth century.

  • The cold, blustery Midwest winters don’t exactly agree with Betsy Devonshire, but since moving to Excelsior, Minnestoa, she sure has met a lot of warm, friendly people. So she isn’t too surprised when the town’s most talented needleworkers volunteer to restore a damaged tapestry that was found in the basement of a local church. Betsy even offers to donate materials for the project, thinking that the free publicity will boost sales at her financially troubled needlecraft shop. But soon Betsy is afraid of losing more than her business—because her good intentions have unleashed some deadly secrets.

  • When the historic Hopkins ferry was raised from the bottom of the lake, who would have thought they were literally raising the dead? But there it was—a skeleton—right before their eyes. Unfortunately, the evidence is slim and soggy: the boat sank in 1949, the victim on board was a woman, and near the body is a piece of unidentifiable lacelike fabric. Sounds like a job for Betsy Devonshire. Betsy knows there's more to this story than what's on the surface. And once she and patrons of her needlecraft shop start lending a hand, they are sure to stitch together the details of this unnerving mystery.

  • The art of needlecraft requires patience, discipline, and creativity. So too does the art of detection. Just ask Betsy Devonshire, who’s learning that life in a small-town needlecraft shop can reveal an unexpected knack for knitting—and a hidden talent for unraveling crime.

    When Betsy Devonshire arrived in Excelsior, Minnesota, all she wanted was to visit her sister Margot and get her life in order. She never dreamed her sister would give her a place to stay and a job at her needlecraft shop. In fact, things had never looked so good—until Margot was murdered.

    In a town this friendly, it’s hard to imagine who could have committed such a horrible act, but Betsy has a few ideas. There’s an ex-employee who wants to start her own needlework store. And there’s the landlord who wanted Margot out. Now Betsy’s putting together a list of motives and suspects to figure out this killer’s pattern of crime.

  • There's a witch running loose in the town of Excelsior, Minnesota, and her brew is … beer. Actually, Leona Cunningham, co-owner of the Barleywine, is a practitioner of Wicca, the nature-based religion that many mistakenly believe to be sorcery or black magic. But that doesn't bother the thirsty crowds—or the Halloween Committee members who have fallen under the spell of Leona's tasty ales.

    Then, after one too many pints, local alcohol aficionado Ryan McMurphy accuses Leona of being a real witch, blaming her for the series of accidents that have happened throughout town. When Ryan ends up dead, without a mark on his body, Leona is not only the target of a witch hunt but also the prime suspect. But with Betsy on the case, the murderer doesn't have a ghost of a chance of getting away with it.

  • Owner of the Crewel World needlework shop and part-time sleuth Betsy Devonshire heads for the Minnesota north woods to renovate an old cabin. But beneath the awful linoleum is something even uglier—the skeleton of a Nazi. Betsy's investigation yields the site of a former German POW camp, a mysterious crocheted rug, and an intricately designed pattern of clues to a decades-old crime. 

  • Almost everyone in Excelsior, Minnesota—craftsy and noncraftsy alike—has turned out for the art fair. So when an artisan is murdered there, the list of suspects is practically endless. Betsy Devonshire wants to help out in the police investigation. Her best friend, Officer Jill Cross, confides that they have a lead: a bloody footprint in the woodcarvers’ booth matches that of a local youth. But when Betsy can’t keep the news to herself, Jill gives Betsy the cold shoulder. Everyone’s on pins and needles—and when the family of the kid in question asks Betsy to prove his innocence, she must first regain Jill’s trust, then figure out who had designs on the dead designer.

  • Betsy is still new enough to Excelsior, Minnesota, to not know a scandal when she causes one. So when she hires Foster Johns to fix her roof, the resulting uproar has her needled. The whole town has pinned a five-year-old unsolved double murder on him. Betsy believes Johns when he says he isn't guilty. But she'll have to use every stitch of her sleuthing skills to tie up all the loose ends and prove his innocence once and for all.