LAUREN JOHNSON

A laugh-out-loud midlife reinvention caper set in Paris for fans of Elle Cosimanos Finlay Donovan series and Deanna Raybourns Killers of a Certain Age.Its 2008 and Lizi just cant catch a break. On the heels of a nasty divorce and a paltry settlement agreementbarely enough to reload her Starbucks cardLizi is laid off from her job during the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Flat broke, Lizi takes a job at Whole Foods where she meets Frankie, a twenty-seven-year-old artist half her age whose overly simplistic worldview is exactly what Lizi needs to get on with her life. But after an unfortunate incident involving her ex-husband, his pregnant girlfriend, and a carton of cage-free eggs, Lizi finds herself, once again, out of a job. So what does a fifty-four-year-old woman with no money, no job, and no prospects do? She sells all her possessions and goes to Paris in search of her long-lost dream: to write her first novel. But when the airline loses her luggage and offers her a meal voucher for the famed Hotel Jolie, Lizi pounces on the opportunity while unwittingly setting off a chain of events which land her at the center of the notorious Harry Winston jewel heist. And when her young partner-in-crime joins her in Paris, the two must outrun the Serbian mafia while trying not to trip over the dead bodies left in their wake.

Survivor Rebel Conspirator Mother and grandmother of kings Margaret Beaufort was one of the most remarkable and influential women of the Middle Ages Born the daughter of the Duke of Somerset into a century of conflict and a descendant of Edward III she was married at twelve a mother orphan and widow at thirteen and rode the vicissitudes of the Wars of the Roses and two further marriages to see her only son Henry ascend the throne of England as the first monarch of the Tudor dynasty She helped to bring about the marriage of Henry VII to Elizabeth of York a union that helped heal the wounds of a bitterly divided nation During Henry s reign she exerted considerable influence at court and played a part in the upbringing of her grandson the future Henry VIII She was a lifelong artistic patron and supporter of academia In old age she founded a professorship of divinity and two colleges at Cambridge University By the time of her death in June 1509 she had outlived by two months the son whose birth fifty two years previously had so nearly killed her Lauren Johnson s life of Margaret Beaufort brings its subject vividly and memorably to life She delineates the decades of political upheaval that were the backdrop to her long and resilient career and highli