We've all dreamt of escaping to a house somewhere. In this collection of stories some of the finest names in contemporary travel writing reveal the perils and pleasures of exchanging the familiar for the foreign.

In this mystery by Agatha Christie’s favorite American author, an amateur sleuth discovers a locked room holds more than a dead woman’s fortune. The Clayborn clan has been waiting 25 years to divvy up Grandmama’s fortune, locked up by her will and in a small room in the Clayborn mansion. Tomorrow the Room is to be opened, and the Clayborns can’t wait to get their fingers on the old lady’s reportedly priceless button collection. Harriet Clayborn, who doesn’t quite trust her family, asks Henry Gamadge to witness the Opening of the Room, to make sure there's no funny business. Gamadge agrees, and it’s a good thing this masterful sleuth is on hand: the Room has been hiding something grislier than buttons. “An exciting novel and an excellent mystery.” —San Jose News

Some might call it a proposal. Violet Burton knows it's blackmail, and she refuses to give in. She won't marry the unscrupulous banker who holds the mortgage on her Virginia home. Instead, she'll find employment in New York City, earning enough to pay her debts before returning home. Virginia's where she belongs...even if reconnecting with childhood friend Michael Heaton makes her long to stay permanently at his mother's boardinghouse. The freckle-faced girl Michael knew is now a lovely woman. Helping Violet find her way is a simple act of friendship--at least at first. But soon he'll do anything to keep her safe, and hope she'll see that the home she seeks is one they can share together.

Charming bibliophile and occasional sleuth Henry Gamadge is asked to cope with some greedy Clayborn relatives awaiting an inheritance and to find a valuable button collection and becomes involved in a case of murder

School Library Journal called Stacey Schuett's stunning authorial debut "a book that is perfect for sparking an interest in geography, emphasizing the amazing concept that at the same moment we are getting ready to sleep, other people are starting a new day." And in a starred review, Publishers Weekly added, "Schuett proves as nimble with words as with a paintbrush." It's a good-night wish that circles the globe.

A compelling debut collection from the first Coptic American poet to be published in the United States.

VERONICA SPARKS IS hitting the road and she is going to shake the dust of her little town off her shoes and see the world! Well, someday. For now, she’s hitting the road in an RV with her cantankerous grandfather and her hyperactive little brother. Ronnie’s grandfather is a wind prospector, and they are heading across Kansas in search of a good stiff breeze. Okay, so it’s not the trip of her dreams. But with her newly affirmatized attitude, Ronnie figures that traveling somewhere is better than traveling nowhere. That is, until her little brother manages to disappear into thin air. On one weird, windy, wild ride across the prairie, Ronnie discovers that there are some things you just can’t plan for or seize control of—but that sometimes a little chaos is just what a girl needs.