In this irresistible and thrilling debut novel, a former antique hunter investigates a suspicious death at an isolated English manor, embroiling her back in the dangerous world of tracking stolen artifacts. What antique would you kill for? Freya Lockwood is shocked when she learns that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and her estranged mentor, has died under mysterious circumstances. She has spent the last twenty years avoiding her quaint English hometown, but when she receives a letter from Arthur asking her to investigate—sent just days before his death—Freya has no choice but to return to a life she had sworn to leave behind. Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Freya follows clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an advertised antiques enthusiast’s weekend. But not all is as it seems. It’s clear to Freya that the antiques are all just poor reproductions and her fellow guests are secretive and menacing. What is going on at this estate and how was Arthur involved? More importantly, can Freya and Carole discover the truth before the killer strikes again?

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again..." Ancient, beautiful Manderley, between the rose garden and the sea, is the county's showpiece. Rebecca made it so - even a year after her death, Rebecca's influence still rules there. How can Maxim de Winter's shy new bride ever fill her place or escape her vital shadow? A shadow that grows longer and darker as the brief summer fades, until, in a moment of climatic revelations, it threatens to eclipse Manderley and its inhabitants completely...

Throughout her life Sybil Van Antwerp has used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings around half past ten Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter. Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has. A mother, grandmother, wife, divorcée, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.

A fun, smart and surprising dive into the past, present and future of accents – and the enduring power of sounding differentAccents have long held our fascination; As far back as the 7th Century BCE, Egyptian pharaohs experimented with babies to test out theories about the “original” accent and the Old Testament relays how a small difference in the pronunciation of “s” became a fatal litmus test of tribal belonging. Still today, from dinner parties to job interviews, you’ll find people kicking up dust about things like where and how to pronounce a ‘t,’ as in, never in “often,” but with proper British poshness, as in “t(y)une.”  In Why We Talk Funny, linguist Valerie Fridland unlocks the secrets of what linguistic science, psychology and history can tell us about the evolution of human speech, why accents develop, and how they shape our professional and social lives. With a healthy dose of her signature humor and captivating anecdotes, Fridland explores how the twin forces of physiology and psychology along with the need to fit in changes the trajectory of speech over languages and lifetimes,diving deep into the history and social forces driving the way people talk. Along the way, she emphasizes that accents don’t always set us apart, they can also bring us together.  Whether it's the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we’ve been – even for those who might think they have no accent at all.The story of language is the story of humanity, and as Fridland reminds us, the funny sounds we make – whether from the mouths of ancient ancestors or the tongues of screenbound teens – all come from the same powerful desire to communicate and belong. Why We Talk Funny will change the way you think about your own accent – and transform the way you listen to the sounds of others.