Although in her 20s, Leah works as a teen dancer in vaudeville until the family act breaks up. With no other options, she takes a job from “Uncle Oliver” — who wants her to impersonate his long-lost niece Jessie, sole heir to millions of dollars (which means even more in 1924) and missing for almost seven years. It seems mostly harmless, a way to share the inheritance, although Oliver has secrets of his own and, Leah suspects, a mean streak. […]

Anne is the new girl at an exclusive Boston boarding school because she accidentally set her New York school on fire, and her parents have shipped her out of town to avoid bad influences. After only a week, her new roommate Isabella is found in the woods, murdered. Anne was quickly fitting in with the popular crowd, but she also had a real fondness for the geekier Isabella. In spite of the school authorities trying to close ranks against the […]

Techdirt sums up a recent request for courts to declare that Sherlock Holmes is now public domain. Of course, the estate of writer Arthur Conan Doyle wants to claim otherwise, because they’re still making licensing fees from the character. And that’s what drives restrictive intellectual property — there’s nothing easier than letting money roll in from other people’s creativity, over 120 years since the character was first created. What drove this particular challenge was an upcoming book by Leslie S. […]