Chester County Brunch and a Book

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers' Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2023) Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her
local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is
also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other
again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an
interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.Josie’s life appears to be strange
and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly
she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way
into Alix’s life—and into her home.But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has
left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life
and her family’s lives under mortal threat.Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?

Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that's before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother's enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?

Goodreads Choice Award Winner for Readers' Favorite Historical Fiction (2023), Winner for Readers' Favorite Debut Novel (2023) I am a Weyward, and wild inside. 2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom. 1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom. Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.