Twelve Drummers Drumming

Introducing a series utterly perfect for cozy fans of Alan Bradley, Alexander McCall Smith, and Louise Penny. The Reverend Tom "Father" Christmas, the newest vicar of Thornford Regis, an idyllic rural town in England, turns detective when one of his parishioners turns up dead in a drum, and everyone in town seems to have something to confess. Tom Christmas came to picturesque Thornford Regis with his young daughter to escape the terrible experience of losing his wife in the city. Her murder sent him packing to the bucolic and charming town, where violent crime isn't supposed to happen and the greatest sin is supposed to be nothing a member of the clergy can't handle. Then, at the town fair, a woman is found murdered. Tom soon learnsthat everyone in Thornford Regis has a secret to hide--infidelity, theft, even past murders. Twelve Drummers Drumming showcases a lovely place to live and/or die, and marks the debut of a planned twelve-book mystery series featuring the brilliant Father Christmas.

Casey Collins, a U.S. Foreign Service officer, is agonized when she learns that a bomb on a New York-bound flight from England has exploded after take-off--a flight on which she strongly suspects her lover, Stefan, was a passenger. Desperate to learn the truth, she flies to Europe to find out if Stefan, a Polish operative for Danish Defense Intelligence, has indeed been killed. Her investigation embroils her in unforeseen complications which paint her as a terrorist conspirator and a suspect in the bombing. Pursued by the agencies she had planned to rely on--the State Department, FBI, and Interpol--she becomes a fugitive. Her only allies are a motley assortment of renegade agents. Sent on a mission by these people whom she neither knows nor trusts, Casey hopes to unravel the web of deception she's wandered into--before she's completely ensnared.

Now as well as singing the song, you can knit the characters. The Twelve Knits of Christmas brings together 12 charming knitting patterns for making all of the objects, birds, and people mentioned in the song and a beautifully illustrated book containing the words for each verse.

The annual Burns dinner at Thornford Regis is an occasion for bagpipes, haggis and scotch. It ends up an occasion for tragedy when Will Moir, one of the pipers, is found alone, in a tower, dead of an apparent heart attack. Father Tom Christmas, the vicar of the town, is privy to all of the secrets of its inhabitants, and is one of the first to find out that Will Moir was poisoned. The town's suspicions go in many directions, and Christmas soon learns secrets that have been kept for generations--illicit trysts, even murders--the ramifications of which may have fallen onto poor Will Moir. Brimming with wit, laced with genuine surprise and featuring one of the most memorable (and unlikely) detectives in the cozy genre today, Eleven Pipers Piping mines the rich history of a small town to solve its most stunning crime.

Celebrate Christmas with the classic holiday song everyone loves to sing, now in a beautifully illustrated gift-ready picture book! On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me . . . Alison Jay's signature crackle-glaze technique makes this illustrated version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" luminous and magical: animals dart across the pages, ladies dance, lords leap, and wintery landscapes sparkle against warm, cozy scenes.With hidden surprises on every page, this is a book for the whole family to treasure-and sing along to!-year after year.

Naturalist Stephen Moss digs beneath the surface of some of our most popular Christmas carols in an ornithological celebration of the Festive Season. Using the structure of the carol as a jumping off point, he explores the place of twelve fascinating British birds in our history, culture and landscape. Some of the birds are obvious, there's the swan and of course the partridge. Other chapters are loose interpretations of a verse: for drummers drumming he delves into the woodpecker's distinctive drumming tap. Woodpeckers, he explains, have special padded skulls to mitigate against using its head like hammer drills. They carefully select dead trees for the most hollow, sonorous sound. With brilliant anecdotes and insights, Stephen Moss weaves history, culture, bird behaviour and folklore into a compelling narrative for each species, tracing its fortunes over the past two centuries. 'A superb naturalist and writer' Chris Packham 'Moss has carved out an enviable niche as a chronicler of the natural world' Daily Mail

Anna Wright has rapidly developed a following across the UK for her print, collage work and paintings, following in the footsteps of Emma Bridgewater, Tricia Guild and Liberty as she takes her designs across stationery and homeware. She is now embarking on her third picture book for children. Anna brings humour, beauty and sophistication to this perennially popular Christmas hymn, with her signature style. Exquisitely rendered in pen, ink, watercolour and collage, The twelve days of Christmas are beautifully and playfully reimagined for today's readership - and have never looked so sumptuous.