Books in Thorndike Press Large Print Peer Picks series

Clara Kelley is not the experienced Irish maid hired to work in one of Pittsburgh's grandest households. She's a poor farmer's daughter with nothing in her pockets. But the other woman with the same name has vanished, so Clara is pretending to be her -- if she can keep up the ruse. Carnegie's Maid tells the story of a brilliant woman who may have spurred Andrew Carnegie toward philanthropy.

Galaxy �Alex� Stern is the most unlikely member of Yale�s freshman class. Alex dropped out of school early and into a world of shady drug-dealer boyfriends, dead-end jobs, and much, much worse. But Alex is offered a second chance: to attend one of the world�s most prestigious universities on a full ride. What�s the catch, and why her? Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale�s secret societies. But their occult activities are more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive. They tamper with forbidden magic. They raise the dead. And, sometimes, they prey on the living.

In the tradition of "Kitchen Confidential" and "Waiter Rant," a rollicking, eye-opening, fantastically indiscreet memoir of a life spent (and misspent) in the hotel industry. Jacob Tomsky never "intended" to go into the hotel business. As a new college graduate, armed only with a philosophy degree and a singular lack of career direction, he became a valet parker for a large luxury hotel in New Orleans. Yet, rising fast through the ranks, he ended up working in "hospitality" for more than a decade, doing everything from supervising the housekeeping department to manning the front desk at an upscale Manhattan hotel. He's checked you in, checked you out, separated your white panties from the white bed sheets, parked your car, tasted your room-service meals, cleaned your toilet, denied you a late checkout, given you a wake-up call, eaten M&Ms out of your minibar, laughed at your jokes, and taken your money. In "Heads in Beds" he pulls back the curtain to expose the crazy and compelling reality of a multi-billion-dollar industry we "think" we know. "Heads in Beds" is a funny, authentic, and irreverent chronicle of the highs and lows of hotel life, told by a keenly observant insider who's seen it all. Prepare to be amused, shocked, and amazed as he spills the unwritten code of the bellhops, the antics that go on in the valet parking garage, the housekeeping department's dirty little secrets--not to mention the shameless activities of the guests, who are rarely on their best behavior. Prepare to be moved, too, by his candor about what it's like to toil in a highly demanding service industry at the luxury level, where people expect to get what they pay for (and often a whole lot more). Employees are poorly paid and frequently abused by coworkers and guests alike, and maintaining a semblance of sanity is a daily challenge.Along his journey Tomsky also reveals the secrets of the industry, offering easy ways to get what you need from your hotel without any hassle. This book (and a timely proffered twenty-dollar bill) will help you score late checkouts and upgrades, get free stuff galore, and make that pay-per-view charge magically disappear. Thanks to him you'll know how to get the very best service from any business that makes its money from putting heads in beds. Or, at the very least, you will keep the bellmen from taking your luggage into the camera-free back office and bashing it against the wall repeatedly.

The multi-week USA TODAY BESTSELLER!"Memphis,Tennessee, 1936. The five Foss children find their lives changed forever when their parents leave them alone ... one stormy night. Rill Foss ... must protect her four younger siblings as they are wrenched from their home on the Mississippi and thrown into the care of the infamous Georgia Tann, director of the Tennessee Children's Home Society. South Carolina, present day. Avery Stafford has lived a charmed life. Loving daughter to her father, a U.S. senator, she has a promising career as an assistant D.A. in Baltimore and is engaged to her best friend. But when Avery comes home to help her father weather a health crisis and a political attack, a chance encounter with a stranger le her deeply shaken"--

Now in a mass-market paperback premium edition the instant #1 "New York Times" bestseller! Stephen King delivers an outstanding ("USA TODAY") collection of stories, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. " I ve made some things for you, Constant Reader. Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth. " Since "Nightshift," published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled an entire generation of readers with his genius as a prominent writer of short fiction. Now in his latest collection, he once again assembles a generous array of unforgettable, tantalizing tales including those that, until recently, have never been published in a book (such as the story Cookie Jar, which is exclusive to this edition). There are thrilling connections between these works themes of mortality, the afterlife, guilt, and what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. Magnificent, eerie, and utterly compelling, "The Bazaar of Bad Dreams" is one of Stephen King s finest gifts to readers everywhere a master storyteller at his very best."

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King's propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

A masterful, intensely suspenseful novel about a reader whose obsession with a reclusive writer goes far too far―a book about the power of storytelling, starring the same trio of unlikely and winning heroes King introduced in Mr. Mercedes.“Wake up, genius.” So begins King’s instantly riveting story about a vengeful reader. The genius is John Rothstein, an iconic author who created a famous character, Jimmy Gold, but who hasn’t published a book for decades. Morris Bellamy is livid, not just because Rothstein has stopped providing books, but because the nonconformist Jimmy Gold has sold out for a career in advertising. Morris kills Rothstein and empties his safe of cash, yes, but the real treasure is a trove of notebooks containing at least one more Gold novel.Morris hides the money and the notebooks, and then he is locked away for another crime. Decades later, a boy named Pete Saubers finds the treasure, and now it is Pete and his family that Bill Hodges, Holly Gibney, and Jerome Robinson must rescue from the ever-more deranged and vengeful Morris when he’s released from prison after thirty-five years.Not since Misery has King played with the notion of a reader whose obsession with a writer gets dangerous. Finders Keepers is spectacular, heart-pounding suspense, but it is also King writing about how literature shapes a life―for good, for bad, forever.