The Case of the Imaginary Detective

A brilliantly comic and intelligent literary mystery from Karen Joy Fowler, the bestselling Man Booker shortlisted author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves 
 
Rima Lanisell has a habit of losing things - car keys, sunglasses, lovers, family members. Following the death of Rima's father, she goes to stay with her godmother Addison, a wildly successful, albeit eccentric, mystery writer. Addison's beach house seems the place to make sense of Rima's loss, yet she is soon caught up in a mystery of her own. Who stole a small and highly valuable object from Addison's kitchen? Why is Rima corresponding with an obsessive fan, using someone else's family name? Most importantly: what exactly was the relationship between Addison and Rima's father, and why did Addison name a murderer after him in one of her novels? 
 
Karen Joy Fowler is the author of Sister Noon, Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and the short story collection Black Glass. She is a PEN/Faulkner prize finalist, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 and lives in California.

Karen Joy Fowler is the author of Sister Noon, Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and the short story collection Black Glass. She is a PEN/Faulkner prize finalist, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 and lives in California.

Rima Lanisell has a habit of losing things - car keys, sunglasses, lovers, family members. Following the death of Rima's father, she goes to stay with her godmother Addison, a wildly successful, albeit eccentric, mystery writer. Addison's beach house seems the place to make sense of Rima's loss, yet she is soon caught up in a mystery of her own. Who stole a small and highly valuable object from Addison's kitchen? Why is Rima corresponding with an obsessive fan, using someone else's family name? Most importantly: what exactly was the relationship between Addison and Rima's father, and why did Addison name a murderer after him in one of her novels? 
 
A funny, sad and wise literary mystery from the author of The Jane Austen Book Club.

The Sweetheart Season

Reissued novel from the bestselling author of The Jane Austen Book Club and Man Booker prize-shortlisted writer

A funny and warm novel from the Man Booker shortlisted author of bestselling hit The Jane Austen Book Club 
 
'Polls have recently confirmed what has long been suspected; most men do not want brainy women. Stewardesses have turned out to be that occupation blessed most often with marriage. The key elements appear to be uniforms and travel.' 
 
It is 1947 and in the aftermath of World War II halcyon days have not returned to Magrit, Minnesota, where the veterans have failed to come home. The men haven't died; they've just moved onto greener pastures, rejecting the local women, who served the war effort in the Scientific Kitchen of Margaret Mill. The mill was founded by Henry Collins, the man responsible for Sweetwheats, the world's first puffed and sugar-coated cereal. As part of a publicity campaign, Henry creates the Sweetwheats Sweethearts all-girl baseball team, convincing the mill girls that this will help them find husbands. 
 
'A joy to read' - USA Today 
'A remarkable treasure - often wistful and hilarious at once ... Smart, wry, and just this side of insane' - Washington Post 'Full of sparkling wit ... In territory long ago staked out by Garrison Keillor, The Sweetheart Season reads like the best of Lake Wobegon and then some' - Philadelphia Inquirer

Karen Joy Fowler is the Man Booker shortlisted, bestselling author of Sister Noon (a PEN/Faulkner prize finalist), Sarah Canary, The Sweetheart Season, The Jane Austen Book Club, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves and the story collection Black Glass. She is a PEN/Faulkner Prize finalist and lives in Davis and Santa Cruz, California.

'Polls have recently confirmed what has long been suspected; most men do not want brainy women. Stewardesses have turned out to be that occupation blessed most often with marriage. The key elements appear to be uniforms and travel.' 
 
It is 1947 and in the aftermath of World War II halcyon days have not returned to Magrit, Minnesota, where the veterans have failed to come home. The men haven't died; they've just moved onto greener pastures, rejecting the local women, who served the war effort in the Scientific Kitchen of Margaret Mill. The mill was founded by Henry Collins, the man responsible for Sweetwheats, the world's first puffed and sugar-coated cereal. As part of a publicity campaign, Henry creates the Sweetwheats Sweethearts all-girl baseball team, convincing the mill girls that this will help them find husbands.

Karen Joy Fowler

Six people - five women and a man - meet once a month in California's Central Valley to discuss Jane Austen's novels. They are ordinary people, neither happy nor unhappy, but each of them is wounded in different ways, they are all mixed up about their lives and relationships. Over the six months they meet, marriages are tested, affairs begin, unsuitable arrangements become suitable - under the guiding eye of Jane Austen a couple of them even fall in love...

Karen Joy Fowler

Books by Karen Joy Fowler

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter