The Suicide Bride

The Suicide Bride
Author: Tanya Bretherton
Publisher: Hachette Australia
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 9780733640988

Whenever society produces a depraved criminal, we wonder: is it nature or is it nurture? When the charlatan Alicks Sly murdered his wife, Ellie, and killed himself with a cut-throat razor in a house in Sydney's Newtown in early 1904, he set off a chain of events that could answer that question. He also left behind mysteries that might never be solved. Sociologist Dr Tanya Bretherton traces the brutal story of Ellie, one of many suicide brides in turn-of-the-century Sydney; of her husband, Alicks, and his family; and their three orphaned sons, adrift in the world. From the author of the acclaimed THE SUITCASE BABY - shortlisted for the 2018 Ned Kelly Award, Danger Prize and Waverley Library 'Nib' Award - comes another riveting true-crime case from Australia's dark past. THE SUICIDE BRIDE is a masterful exploration of criminality, insanity, violence and bloody family ties in bleak, post-Victorian Sydney.

The Darkling Bride

The Darkling Bride
Author: Laura Andersen
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2018-03-06
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0425286444

Three generations of Irish nobles face their family secrets in this spellbinding novel from the award-winning author of the Boleyn King trilogy. The Gallagher family has called Deeprath Castle home for seven hundred years. Nestled in the Wicklow Mountains of Ireland, the estate is now slated to become a public trust, and book lover and scholar Carragh Ryan is hired to take inventory of its historic library. But after meeting Aidan, the current Viscount Gallagher, and his enigmatic family, Carragh knows that her task will be more challenging than she’d thought. Two decades before, Aidan’s parents died violently at Deeprath. The case, which was never closed, has recently been taken up by a new detective determined to find the truth. The couple’s unusual deaths harken back a century, when twenty-three-year-old Lady Jenny Gallagher also died at Deeprath under mysterious circumstances, leaving behind an infant son and her husband, a renowned writer who never published again. These incidents only fueled fantastical theories about the Darkling Bride, a local legend of a sultry and dangerous woman from long ago whose wrath continues to haunt the castle. The past catches up to the present, and odd clues in the house soon have Carragh wondering if there are unseen forces stalking the Gallagher family. As secrets emerge from the shadows and Carragh gets closer to answers—and to Aidan—could she be the Darkling Bride’s next victim? Praise for The Darkling Bride “A gorgeous concoction of Victorian gothic, mystery, and romance, all with an unforgettable library, The Darkling Bride is the perfect book to curl up with in front of a roaring fire. Laura Andersen has created a masterpiece.”—Tasha Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of the Lady Emily Mysteries “Who can say no to an abandoned castle, a mysterious library, a renowned Victorian novelist, a brooding viscount, and a mystery that goes back several generations? Andersen captures the gothic tone perfectly, drawing you into the secrets of Deeprath Castle. . . . Perfect for reading on a rainy day with a strong cup of Irish tea!”—Lauren Willig, New York Times bestselling author of That Summer

The Bride Stripped Bare

The Bride Stripped Bare
Author: Nikki Gemmell
Publisher: Harper Collins
Total Pages: 402
Release: 2012-05-29
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0062191470

THE RUNAWAY INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER “The Bride Stripped Bare shows us the inside–out of marriage, infidelity, obsession and taxi drivers (I may never take a cab ride in London again). . . . Few books can be both dark and light. This one dances on the edge, and sometimes crosses it, with much satisfaction to be had on either side.”— Valerie Frankel, author of The Accidental Virgin An explosive novel of sex, secrecy, and escape. A woman disappears. Her car lies abandoned on a remote bluff; no body is found. Known by her family and friends as quiet and self-contained, she has left behind an incendiary diary chronicling a disturbing journey of sexual awakening. The diary opens on her honeymoon in Morocco: she believes herself to be happy—or happy enough, anyway. Swiftly, this security masquerading as love fractures in an act of massive betrayal, only to propel her into a world of desire and fantasy and recklessness. In need of guidance, she finds an unlikely heroine in the anonymous author of a dusty, rare manuscript. Written by a woman in the 1600s, it is a cry from the heart for women to live and love freely. Emboldened, she allows herself to discover the intoxicating power of knowing what she wants and how to get it. The question is, how long can her soul sustain a perilous double life? Coolly impassioned, Bride Stripped Bare tells shocking truths about love and sex. Couched in a deceptively simple style, its gorgeous, incantatory rhythms will make you question whether it is ever entirely possible to know another person.

Brides of Eden

Brides of Eden
Author: Linda Crew
Publisher: Turtleback
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2003-09-01
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 9780613684088

In this story based on true events, sixteen-year-old Eva and her female friends become obsessed with a charismatic young man who comes to Corvallis, Oregon, in 1904, claiming to be a Christian prophet.

The Murderer's Bride

The Murderer's Bride
Author: Tanya Bretherton
Publisher: Hachette UK
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2019-04-23
Genre: True Crime
ISBN: 0733640990

The charlatan Alicks Sly murdered his wife, Ellie, and killed himself with a cut-throat razor in a house in Sydney's Newtown in early 1904, leaving their children to a wretched fate. He wasn't the only man to murder his wife - or try - that year. Life in the big city could be harsh and brutal, and so could marriage. Sociologist Tanya Bretherton traces the brutal story of Ellie, one of several murderer's brides in turn-of-the-century Sydney; of her husband, Alicks, and his family; and their three orphaned sons, adrift in the world. From the author of the acclaimed THE SUITCASE BABY - shortlisted for the 2018 Ned Kelly Award, Danger Prize and Waverley Library 'Nib' Award - comes another riveting true-crime case from Australia's dark past. THE MURDERER'S BRIDE is a masterful exploration of criminality, insanity, violence and bloody family ties in bleak, post-Victorian Sydney. **Includes an extract from THE SUITCASE BABY and an extract from Tanya Bretherton's latest fascinating true-crime story, THE KILLING STREETS**

The Harvard Bride

The Harvard Bride
Author: Katherine Clark
Publisher: Univ of South Carolina Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2016-09-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1611177219

A newlywed woman’s return to Southern society begins an epic and hilarious journey of self-discovery in this satirical novel. Katherine Clark’s The Harvard Bride begins with the wedding of Daniel Dobbs and Caroline Elmore, college sweethearts introduced in Clark’s novel, All the Governor’s Men. In this wry comedy of manners, their new life—complete with freshly minted Ivy League educations—begins in the “Tiny Kingdom” of Mountain Brook, Alabama. Unwilling to join the Junior League, look for a house, contemplate motherhood, or even finish her thank-you notes, Caroline can’t seem to find her bearings—or even fulfill her calling as a writer. Meanwhile, Daniel’s law career is going so well she hardly sees him. The most exciting aspect of her life is her handsome next-door neighbor, who also happens to be a writer. The reappearance of an old school friend, a southern belle bombshell in hot pursuit of all eligible bachelors and potential real estate clients, only adds to Caroline’s problems. When she accepts a surprise job offer at the University of Alabama, she begins to put together an identity of her own—until it falls inexplicably apart. Also featuring the return of larger-than-life Brook-Haven headmaster Norman Laney, The Harvard Bride is at once a social satire and a richly nuanced love story.

The Bride Collector

The Bride Collector
Author: Ted Dekker
Publisher: Center Street
Total Pages: 280
Release: 2010-04-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1599953099

FBI Special agent Brad Raines is facing his toughest case yet. A Denver serial killer has killed four beautiful young women, leaving a bridal veil at each crime scene, and he's picking up his pace. Unable to crack the case, Raines appeals for help from a most unusual source: residents of the Center for Wellness and Intelligence, a private psychiatric institution for mentally ill individuals whose are extraordinarily gifted. It's there that he meets Paradise, a young woman who witnessed her father murder her family and barely escaped his hand. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paradise may also have an extrasensory gift: the ability to experience the final moments of a person's life when she touches the dead body. In a desperate attempt to find the killer, Raines enlists Paradise's help. In an effort to win her trust, he befriends this strange young woman and begins to see in her qualities that most 'sane people' sorely lack. Gradually, he starts to question whether sanity resides outside the hospital walls . . . or inside. As the Bride Collector picks up the pace-and volume-of his gruesome crucifixions, the case becomes even more personal to Raines when his friend and colleague, a beautiful young forensic psychologist, becomes the Bride Collector's next target. The FBI believes that the killer plans to murder seven women. Can Paradise help before it's too late?

The Robber Bride

The Robber Bride
Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Anchor
Total Pages: 550
Release: 2011-06-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 030779797X

From the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments—one of Margaret Atwood’s most unforgettable characters lurks at the center of this intricate novel like a spider in a web. The glamorous, irresistible, unscrupulous Zenia is nothing less than a fairy-tale villain in the memories of her former friends. Roz, Charis, and Tony—university classmates decades ago—were reunited at Zenia’s funeral and have met monthly for lunch ever since, obsessively retracing the destructive swath she once cut through their lives. A brilliantly inventive fabulist, Zenia had a talent for exploiting her friends’ weaknesses, wielding intimacy as a weapon and cheating them of money, time, sympathy, and men. But one day, five years after her funeral, they are shocked to catch sight of Zenia: even her death appears to have been yet another fiction. As the three women plot to confront their larger-than-life nemesis, Atwood proves herself a gleefully acute observer of the treacherous shoals of friendship, trust, desire, and power.

Bridge of Clay

Bridge of Clay
Author: Markus Zusak
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2018-10-09
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
ISBN: 0375896996

The unforgettable, New York Times bestselling family saga from Markus Zusak, the storyteller who gave us the extraordinary bestseller THE BOOK THIEF, lauded by the New York Times as "the kind of book that can be life-changing." NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY • THE WALL STREET JOURNAL "One of those monumental books that can draw you across space and time into another family’s experience in the most profound way." —The Washington Post "Mystical and loaded with heart, it's another gorgeous tearjerker from a rising master of them." —Entertainment Weekly “Devastating, demanding and deeply moving.” —Wall Street Journal The breathtaking story of five brothers who bring each other up in a world run by their own rules. As the Dunbar boys love and fight and learn to reckon with the adult world, they discover the moving secret behind their father’s disappearance. At the center of the Dunbar family is Clay, a boy who will build a bridge—for his family, for his past, for greatness, for his sins, for a miracle. The question is, how far is Clay willing to go? And how much can he overcome? Written in powerfully inventive language and bursting with heart, BRIDGE OF CLAY is signature Zusak.

The Wedding Photo

The Wedding Photo
Author: Dan A. Oren
Publisher: Rimmon Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2018-07-15
Genre: Germany
ISBN: 9780692139813

The author's story of a search for family genealogy yields a collection of mini-mysteries and opens the door to unknown and fascinating family histories.