Marthe Jocelyn – författare

Aggie Morton lives in a small seaside town. Adventurous and imaginative but deeply shy, she hasn't had much to do since the death of her beloved father . . . until the fateful day when she crosses paths with twelve-year-old Belgian immigrant Hector Perot and discovers a dead body on the floor of the Mermaid Dance Room! As the number of suspects grows and the murder threatens to tear the town apart, Aggie and her new friend will need every tool to solve the case before Aggie's beloved dance instructor is charged with a crime Aggie is sure she didn't commit!

A twisty, charming Christmas middle-grade mystery series, inspired by the imagined life of Agatha Christie as a child. Ideal for fans of Murder Most Unladylike, The Swifts and The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries.Aspiring writer Aggie Morton is eager to spend the holidays at Owl Park, an enormous manor house in the country. Owl Park holds many delights, including a troupe of travelling actors, glamorous visitors from Ceylon, a secret passage and an emerald with a curse! Aggie refuses to believe there’s anything to the superstition, until she and her friends discover a body instead of presents on Christmas morning. Aggie and Hector must once again put their deductive skills and imaginations to work and find a murderer on the loose . . .'Pure delight-brimming with adventure, mystery and fun' Rebecca Stead'A remarkable, cool, and likable detective' Kirkus Reviews'Jocelyn offers an enjoyable entrée to the Queen of Crime and to the genre' Publishers Weekly

Annie''s mother has special powers.Annie''s mother is a master at drawing out secrets.Annie''s mother is the one and only, the irresistible Madam Caterina.Annie and her mother come to Peach Hill, the latest in a string of towns where Mama sets herself up as a spiritual adviser who can put people in contact with the "dearly departed." Fifteen-year-old Annie is Mama''s invisible secret weapon—she gathers important information about clients by pretending to be an idiot. After all, people will say anything in front of an idiot.But Annie isn''t invisible, she''s smart as a whip, and she longs to break out of this role and into a real life with friends and school. Annie may be under Mama''s spell—but not for long.From the Hardcover edition.

WOULD YOU RATHER know what’s going to happen or not know?A summer night. A Saturday. For Natalie’s amazing older sister, Claire, this summer is fantastic, because she’s zooming off to college in the fall. For Natalie, it’s a fun summer with her friends; nothing special. When Claire is hit by a car, the world changes in a heartbeat. Over the next four days, moment by moment, Natalie, her parents, and their friends wait to learn if Claire will ever recover.From the Hardcover edition.

Three fates intertwine in this moving and passionate love story set in Victorian London. Mary Finn: country girl, maid to a lord in LondonCaden Tucker: liar, scoundrel, and heart''s delightJames Nelligan: age six, tossed into a herd of boysWhen Mary Finn falls into the arms of handsome Caden Tucker, their frolic changes the course of her life. What possesses her? She''s been a girl of common sense until now. Mary''s tale alternates with that of young James Nelligan, a new boy in an enormous foundling home.In Folly, Marthe Jocelyn''s breathtaking command of language, detail, and character brings Victorian London to life on every page, while the deep emotions that illuminate this fascinating novel about life-changing moments are as current as today''s news.From the Hardcover edition.

An engrossing novel-in-stories that paints a tapestry of secrets and lies: why we keep them, why we tell them, and what happens next.  Americans Jenny and her brother, Tom, are off to England: Tom to university, to dodge the Vietnam draft, Jenny to be the new girl at a boarding school, Illington Hall. This is Jenny''s chance to finally stand out, so accidentally, on purpose, she tells a lie.  In the small world of Ill Hall, everyone has something to hide. Jenny pretends she has a boyfriend. Robbie and Luke both pretend they don''t. Brenda won''t tell what happened with the school doctor. Nico wants to keep his mother''s memoir a secret. Percy is hush-hush about his famous dad. Oona lies to everyone. Penelope lies only to herself. Deftly told from multiple points of view in various narrative styles, including letters and movie screenplays, What We Hide is provocative, honest, often funny, and always intriguing. “Poignant and often witty.” —Kirkus Reviews “An evocative representation of the tumultuous ’60s.” —Publishers Weekly “Juicy, fast-paced.” —SLJ 

From the Hardcover edition.

A smart and charming middle-grade mystery series starring young detective Aggie Morton and her friend Hector, inspired by the imagined life of Agatha Christie as a child and her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot. For fans of Lemony Snicket and The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.Aggie Morton lives in a small town on the coast of England in 1902. Adventurous and imaginative but deeply shy, Aggie hasn''t got much to do since the death of her beloved father . . . until the fateful day when she crosses paths with twelve-year-old Belgian immigrant Hector Perot and discovers a dead body on the floor of the Mermaid Dance Room! As the number of suspects grows and the murder threatens to tear the town apart, Aggie and her new friend will need every tool at their disposal -- including their insatiable curiosity, deductive skills and not a little help from their friends -- to solve the case before Aggie''s beloved dance instructor is charged with a crime Aggie is sure she didn''t commit.Filled with mystery, adventure, an unforgettable heroine and several helpings of tea and sweets, The Body Under the Piano is the clever debut of a new series for middle-grade readers and Christie and Poirot fans everywhere, from a Governor General''s Award--nominated author of historical fiction for children.

For young detective Aggie Morton and her friend Hector, Christmas becomes a lot more exciting when a dead body is found in this second book in the Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen series, inspired by the life of Agatha Christie as a child and her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot. For fans of The Wollstonecraft Detective Agency.Aspiring writer Aggie Morton is looking forward to Christmas. Having just solved a murder and survived her own brush with death in her small town of Torquay on the coast of England, Aggie can''t wait to spend the holidays with her sister Marjorie, the new Lady Greyson of Owl Park, an enormous manor house in the country; Grannie Jane and her fellow sleuth and partner in crime, Hector Perot. Owl Park holds many delights including Aggie''s almost cousin Lucy, exciting and glamorous visitors from Ceylon and disguises aplenty in the form of a group of travelling actors, not to mention a secret passageway AND an enormous, cursed emerald. Not even glowering old Lady Greyson (the Senior) can interfere with Aggie''s festive cheer. But when Aggie and her friends discover a body instead of presents on Christmas morning, things take a deadly serious turn. With the help of a certain nosy reporter, Aggie and Hector will once again have to put their deductive skills and imaginations to work to find the murderer on the loose. Filled with mystery, adventure, unforgettable characters and several helpings of tea and Christmas pudding, The Body on the Library Carpet is the second book in a new series for middle-grade readers and Christie and Poirot fans everywhere.

A summer night. A Saturday. For Claire, this summer feels fantastic because she’ll be zooming off to college in the fall. For her younger sister, Natalie, it’s an okay time with her friends: summer jobs, then hanging out. Fun mostly, but nothing special. A summer night. An accident. Life changes in a heartbeat.In Would You, Marthe Jocelyn tells a haunting story of tragedy and loss, of how one day can shape the next and at the same time emphasize the magnitude of life.From the Hardcover edition.

“First times” can be life-changing experiences. Marthe Jocelyn has selected fourteen unforgettable stories, written by several of the best authors in North America, which explore human nature and take the reader on a transforming journey. From innocent firsts, such as first blue jeans, first boyfriend, first job, first step into adulthood, to the more complex first disillusionment, first inappropriate love, first family breakup, first breach of trust, to the shocking first dead body and first night alone, the stories in First Times — in all their diversity — embrace and captivate with their power. Contributors include Martha Slaughter, Curtis Parkinson, Susan Juby, Alan Cumyn, Susan Adach, Ted Staunton, Richard Scrimger, Gillian Chan, Bill Habeeb, Nancy Hartry, Bill Richardson, Tim Wynne-Jones, Marthe Jocelyn, and Sarah Ellis.From the Trade Paperback edition.

In the late nineteenth century, in a dot of a town called Westley, lives the smallest girl in the world. Josephine stands only twenty-two inches high and her parents charge gawkers a penny a piece to see her – until they realize that the headmistress of MacLaren Academy for Girls will pay even more.At the Academy Josephine is treated like a slave and is tormented by the fine young ladies who attend, until she takes five gold dollars and runs away. She finds a new life with R. J. Walters’ Museum of Earthly Astonishments. Among the other human curiosities in the Coney Island freak show, Josephine finds the family she has never known…and dangers greater than any she’d ever dreamed.This riveting novel of adventure and injustice, new in paperback, has received many honors, including selection as a finalist for the Canadian Library book of the Year for Children Award, and as a shortlisted title for the Hackmatack Children’s Choice Book Award and the Red Cedar Book Award.From the Hardcover edition.

In 1855, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote to his publisher, complaining about the irritating fad of “scribbling women.” Whether they were written by professionals, by women who simply wanted to connect with others, or by those who wanted to leave a record of their lives, those “scribbles” are fascinating, informative, and instructive.Margaret Catchpole was a transported prisoner whose eleven letters provide the earliest record of white settlement in Australia. Writing hundreds of years later, Aboriginal writer Doris Pilkington-Garimara wrote a novel about another kind of exile in Australia. Young Isabella Beeton, one of twenty-one children and herself the mother of four, managed to write a groundbreaking cookbook before she died at the age of twenty-eight. World traveler and journalist Nelly Bly used her writing to expose terrible injustices. Sei Shonagan has left us poetry and journal entries that provide a vivid look at the pampered life and intrigues in Japan’s imperial court. Ada Blackjack, sole survivor of a disastrous scientific expedition in the Arctic, fought isolation and fear with her precious Eversharp pencil. Dr. Dang Thuy Tram’s diary, written in a field hospital in the steaming North Vietnamese jungle while American bombs fell, is a heartbreaking record of fear and hope.Many of the women in “Scribbling Women” had eventful lives. They became friends with cannibals, delivered babies, stole horses, and sailed on whaling ships. Others lived quietly, close to home. But each of them has illuminated the world through her words.A note from the author: OOPS! On page 197, the credit for the Portrait of Harriet Jacobs on page 43 should read: courtesy of Library of Congress, not Jean Fagan Yellin. On page 197, the credit for the portrait of Isabella Beeton on page 61 should read: National Portrait Gallery, London. On page 198, the credit for page 147 should be Dang Kim Tram, not Kim Tram Dang. We are very sorry about the mix-up in the Photo Credits, they will be updated on any new editions or reprints.From the Hardcover edition.