The Twelve Jays of Christmas

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250760194
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Book Description
The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times bestselling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas. Meg and Michael’s annual holiday celebration is well underway, with a throng of out-of-town relatives staying at their house. Hosting these festivities is a little harder than usual—they have to relocate all the events normally held in their library, currently occupied by Roderick Castlemayne, the irascible wildlife artist who’s creating twelve paintings of birds to illustrate Meg’s grandfather’s latest nature book. Still, the celebrations continue—and the entire family rejoices to learn that Meg’s brother Rob and his longtime fiancée Delaney have finally decided to tie the knot. Unfortunately, they decide to do this in the middle of Meg and Michael’s annual New Year’s bash, dashing their mothers’ hopes of planning the wedding to end all weddings. Delaney’s mother sneaks into town so she and Meg’s mother can secretly plot a way to talk the happy couple into having a big bash. Hiding her only adds to Meg’s holiday stress—it’s almost a full-time job fending all the visitors who want to confront Castlemayne—reporters, bill collectors, process servers, and several ex-wives in search of unpaid alimony. Then someone murders Castlemayne in the middle of a blizzard and sets loose the birds he was painting. Can Meg help the police crack the case before the killer strikes again? Can she keep Christmas merry in spite of the body in the library? Can she negotiate a compromise between Rob and Delaney and their disappointed mothers? And can she recapture the twelve escaped jays before they begin nesting in the Christmas tree? This intrigue-filled Christmas mystery takes readers home to Caerphilly to join in Meg's family's holiday celebration—including, of course, another baffling mystery.

Murder With Peacocks

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1429901276
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Three Weddings...And a Murder So far Meg Langslow's summer is not going swimmingly. Down in her small Virginia hometown, she's maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones--each of whom has dumped the planning in her capable hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony, while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. Only help from the town's drop-dead gorgeous hunk, disappointingly rumored to be gay, keeps Meg afloat in a sea of dotty relatives and outrageous neighbors. And, in whirl of summer parties and picnics, Southern hospitality is strained to the limit by an offensive newcomer who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets. But it seems this lady has offended one too many when she's found dead in suspicious circumstances, followed by a string of accidents--some fatal. Soon, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer--before the next catered event is her own funeral...

A Meg Langslow Christmas

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250131340
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 807

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews combines murder and hilarity with a cast of eccentric oddballs in her Meg Langslow series. Here in a fabulous eBook bundle are three of her Christmas-themed mysteries in the series, perfect to cozy up with this holiday season. This collection starts with Six Geese A-Slaying, centered around the Caerphilly holiday parade. When the local curmudgeon playing Santa is murdered, it’s up to Meg and Chief Burke to tackle a two-fold mission: solving the murder and saving Christmas. Next in Duck the Halls, an unknown prankster is setting skunks and ducks loose in the New Life Baptist Church, seemingly to derail the Christmas concert. Before they can find the culprit, an elderly vestryman is found dead. Who would have murdered such a harmless old man? And will Meg ever be able to finish all of her shopping, wrapping, cooking, and decorating in time for Christmas Eve? And finally in The Nightingale Before Christmas, Mother volunteers to take part in a Christmas-themed decorator show house—each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated by a different decorator for the public to tour. Mother insists that Meg pitch in, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities who feel their professional reputations are at stake. When the rooms start to be sabotaged and a designer turns up dead, can Meg catch the real killer to clear Mother’s name?

Jay's Journal

Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1442480947
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 233

Book Description
Originally published: New York: Times Books, 1979.

Decoded

Author: Jay-Z
Publisher: One World
ISBN: 1588369595
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
Decoded is a book like no other: a collection of lyrics and their meanings that together tell the story of a culture, an art form, a moment in history, and one of the most provocative and successful artists of our time. Praise for Decoded “Compelling . . . provocative, evocative . . . Part autobiography, part lavishly illustrated commentary on the author’s own work, Decoded gives the reader a harrowing portrait of the rough worlds Jay-Z navigated in his youth, while at the same time deconstructing his lyrics.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times “One of a handful of books that just about any hip hop fan should own.”—The New Yorker “Elegantly designed, incisively written . . . an impressive leap by a man who has never been known for small steps.”—Los Angeles Times “A riveting exploration of Jay-Z’s journey . . . So thoroughly engrossing, it reads like a good piece of cultural journalism.”—The Boston Globe “Shawn Carter’s most honest airing of the experiences he drew on to create the mythic figure of Jay-Z . . . The scenes he recounts along the way are fascinating.”—Entertainment Weekly “Hip-hop’s renaissance man drops a classic. . . . Heartfelt, passionate and slick.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Go Ask Alice

Author: Anonymous
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0689832494
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 180

Book Description
A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24th After you’ve had it, there isn't even life without drugs… It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth—and ultimately her life. Read her diary. Enter her world. You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl’s harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful—and as timely—today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.

The Gift of the Magpie

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250760135
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 251

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews returns with another Meg Langslow mystery written "firmly in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie's Christmas books" (Toronto Globe and Mail). The 28th book and the seventh Christmas mystery in the Meg Langslow series, The Gift of the Magpie is yet another wonderfully merry and funny book from New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews. Meg’s running Caerphilly’s Helping Hands for the Holidays project, in which neighbors help each other with things they can’t do and can’t afford to have done. Her hopes for a relatively peaceful (if busy) Christmas vanish when someone murders Harvey the Hoarder, whose house the Helping Hands were decluttering. Was there any truth to the rumor that he had something valuable hidden beneath all his junk? Was one of his friends, neighbors, or relatives greedy enough to murder him for the rumored treasure? And what about the magpie that has been bringing her family bits of tinsel and costume jewelry—does the bird’s latest gift hold a clue to solving the crime? Full of intrigue, this Christmas mystery will take readers home to Caerphilly, where the suspense falls as thick as the snow.

Owl Be Home for Christmas

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250305330
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 245

Book Description
New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews returns with another Meg Langslow mystery written "firmly in the grand tradition of Agatha Christie's Christmas books" (Toronto Globe and Mail). The 26th book and the sixth Christmas mystery in the Meg Lansglow series, Owl Be Home for Christmas is yet another wonderfully merry and funny book from New York Times bestselling author Donna Andrews. It's a few days before Christmas, and Meg's grandfather is hosting a scientific conference on owls at the Caerphilly Inn. Most of the family are there, helping out in one capacity or another, including Meg's grandmother, Cordelia--invited by Grandfather in rare gesture of peace-making, to share her expertise on rehabilitating large birds, including owls. An unexpectedly severe snow storm traps the conference-goers in the hotel, and one of the visiting ornithologists is murdered. Even if Caerphilly is able to clear the roads in time, Chief Burke doesn't want the various suspects to scatter to half a dozen continents before he identifies the killer, so there's a very real possibility that none of them will make it home for Christmas . . . at least not unless Meg comes to the rescue. Full of intrigue and snow, this Christmas mystery will take readers home to Caerphilly for Christmas.

Six Geese A-Slaying

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1429939737
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

Book Description
In Six Geese A-Slaying, Donna Andrews fans delivers another zany Meg Langslow mystery---this one filled with outrageous Christmas spirit...and mayhem. Meg and Michael's house is serving as the marshaling point for the annual Caerphilly Christmas parade. The theme is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and it features twelve drummers from the school marching band, eleven bagpipers, ten leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college drama department, etc. There are also assorted Christmas-themed floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the Three Wise Men on Caerphilly zoo camels, and Santa Claus in a bright red horse-drawn sleigh (eight reindeer were beyond the zoo's scope). Meg has been volunteered to organize the parade, which is to proceed from her house to the local campus, where Santa will take up residence to hear the Christmas wishes of the town's children. Of course, getting all the camels, pipers, leapers, and drummers in order is proving every bit as difficult as Meg feared it would be. Then her nephew Eric, wide-eyed and ashen-faced, whispers, "Meg, something's wrong with Santa." The local curmudgeon, whose beard and belly made him a natural for the role, has been murdered. Now Meg and Chief Burke, who is playing one of the wise men, are faced with the two-fold mission of solving the murder and saving Christmas!

Murder Most Fowl

Author: Donna Andrews
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1250760178
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
A Shakespearean twist on the long-running Meg Langslow mystery series in this next installment from Donna Andrews, the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of The Falcon Always Wings Twice. In Murder Most Fowl, Meg Langslow’s in for a busy summer. Her husband is directing a production of Macbeth, and most of the cast and crew are occupying spare bedrooms in their house. She also has to keep an eye on Camp Birnam, where a group of medieval reenactors are commemorating the real-life Macbeth by setting up what they fondly believe is an authentic medieval Scottish military camp. And then there’s Damien Goodwin, a filmmaker who has been hanging around, trying to document the production. When Goodwin hosts a showing of some of the footage he’s taken, he manages to embarrass or offend just about everyone. The next morning Meg isn’t exactly surprised to find that someone has murdered him. But who? Some people’s motives were obvious from the footage: the couple whose affair was revealed . . . the bombastic leader of the reenactors, who could be facing years in prison if the evidence from the video helps convict him of sheep stealing . . . the actress who’s desperately trying to downplay a health issue that could cost her the role of her life. Other motives are only hinted at—did the filmmaker have other footage that would reveal why one of the actors is behaving so furtively? Unfortunately, whoever murdered Goodwin also destroyed all the electronic devices on which his video was stored. So Caerphilly’s chief of police—and Meg—must rediscover the same secrets the filmmaker did if they want to catch a killer.