Showing results by narrator "Andrea Bates" in All Categories

Two things are weighing on Samantha Sweet's mind this summer - organizing the Sweet Somethings chocolate festival and tracking down information on the mystical carved wooden box that came into her life nearly two years ago, changing her forever. At last she believes she has located the person who can give the answers.

Revenge is often a cold dish, but in the tiny northern New Mexico town of Sembramos emotions are running decidedly hot. When two men convicted of murdering a local girl are released from prison after serving only a few years, their convictions overturned, the town's old pain rises to the surface and tempers flare. Samantha Sweet has her hands full with Easter at Sweet's Sweets, while her husband, Taos County Sheriff Beau Cardwell, is charged with keeping order among the two hundred residents of Sembramos.

It's a freezing January day when Samantha Sweet finds herself facing the unpleasant task of going back to her old job of breaking into houses. Meanwhile, a customer who's just a little bit too nice seems to be worming her way into Jen's confidence. Sheriff Beau, on the other hand, is dealing with a car-crash-turned-murder, and somehow it all seems to tie together in a great big sticky situation.

When a woman walks into Samantha Sweet’s pastry shop, claiming to have amnesia, it’s a puzzle that seems to have nothing to do with Sam’s new commission for a fantastic one-of-a-kind order of chocolates, although "Jane Doe" seems to know a lot about that. Sam calls Sheriff Beau to solve the mystery of who this stranger is and where she belongs. But Beau’s attention is occupied by other things: nearly his entire force is out sick with some kind of flu bug, and now a murder far from Taos requires his full attention. “Jane’s” forgotten memories become vitally important....

Samantha Sweet learns that an Irish great-uncle left her an inheritance, so she and Beau change their honeymoon plans and go to the Emerald Isle. Will the gift be something lavish and wonderful? Or is there no pot of gold waiting for Sam? Meanwhile, before Sam fully has the answers to her questions, a new mystery presents itself when a local charter boat is found adrift near the rocky Irish coast, its occupants missing. The family of the captain wants answers and when it looks like a group of Americans might be implicated, the Galway homicide detective in charge of the case enlists Beau’s help.

After Godiva's son Torch buys a condo in Las Vegas, his grandmother Flossie and great uncle Sterling decide to pay him a visit. When the old vaudeville magicians drag him to the Pageant of Peacocks starring sexy Mara the Magnificent, it's love at first sight. The romance blossoms, but when Torch returns from a meeting in LA, Mara seems cold and distant. Torch turns to his mother, the advice columnist, for a helping hand.

Samantha Sweet's life is a little crazy right now, beginning with her daughter's wedding, which coincides with Sam's receiving a huge new contract for her chocolate factory. The day after the wedding, someone takes a shot at Sam, and she discovers the bad guys are back.

The Bone Man is Vicki's fourth novel in the Tally Whyte homicide counselor series. A tale of suspense and mystery, The Bone Man takes Homicide Counselor Tally Whyte from Boston and Martha's Vineyard to New Mexico and Chaco Canyon in search of a dead friend's murderer and a carving known as The Blood Fetish.

Professor Lexie Driscoll is conducting the first meeting of the Golden Age of Mystery book club in her best friend’s swanky mansion when another friend is murdered. More members are knocked off as Lexie unravels secret after secret, leading her to believe she’s living in Christie’s novel, And Then There Were None. Using Miss Marple’s knowledge of human nature and Hercule Poirot’s cunning, Lexie reveals the murderer.

It's Halloween, one of the busiest seasons of the year for Samantha Sweet and the crew at her pastry shop, Sweet's Sweets. After baking a zillion pumpkin cookies, ghostly cupcakes, and an all-black cake for a young witch's wedding, the gang is looking forward to a gala costume party at the neighborhood bookshop. But when one of the guests is murdered and a rare book vanishes—practically in front of their eyes—the evening takes a whole different turn and Sam finds herself in the midst of another mystery.

Samantha Sweet is back at Sweet's Sweets, turning out her amazing cakes and pastries for the busy holiday season, when Emily Plankhurst, the new young librarian in town, stops in. Emily tells Sam a strange story involving a hidden niche in the library revealed to her in a vision, supposedly, by her dead grandmother. It turns out the hidden space contains a rare painting, The Ghost of Christmas, which was believed to have been destroyed in a fire twenty-five years ago at the luxury home of a hedge fund billionaire.

This adventure novel begins in an old underground mine in the North Cascades of Washington, next to the Canadian border. Danger, romance, and intrigue follow Sara and Brad through the Idaho Primitive Area and the treacherous canyon of the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. They sometimes stray from their work plans to search for a lost gold mine or prospect for gemstones in the rugged Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.

For John Carver, a simple Celtic woodworker, life is a struggle to feed his family. Then one summer day, as he walks past a near-dead alder tree, lightning strikes. With the shattered tree lying all around him, Carver pulls himself up and decides to make the best of it - he takes the usable pieces to his workshop. From the shards of that dead tree John creates three boxes. Then the unexplained happens - shortly after handling one of them, John's touch brings his young son back from the brink of death.

When a normally meek Bay Area insurance agent suddenly turns into a voracious, homicidal maniac with an uncontrollable appetite, doctors quickly determine that the cause must be a brain parasite that can only be extra-terrestrial. Now, San Francisco Police detectives Karen Hall and Yuri Markov are on a mission to end this wave of violence before more citizens become infected.

After young Richard's mother dies, he overhears the wealthy family friends, Ashton and Iris Burke, saying that they could not take him into their home. He is later adopted by the Johnsons, but hates the working class life that he endures throughout his childhood. After serving in the military, Richard goes to college where he studies architecture, the same profession as Ashton Burke.

Goldie and Godiva are twins who live in very different worlds. Goldie Silver, an aging flower child, runs the Silver Spoon Antique Shoppe in Juneau, Alaska. Rich, manipulative Godiva Olivia Dubois authors her syndicated advice column, "Ask G.O.D.", from her Beverly Hills mansion. When Goldie finally receives a lost shipment of antique Russian tea urns, she realizes they are not the ones she ordered. The samovars sell quickly, but murder and mayhem follow each of the new owners.

As swimsuit model Claudia Jordan awaits her camera call on a Maui beach, she catches her first glimpse of the handsome man who will eventually change her life forever. As Claudia poses, David Keanu paints Black Rock and discreetly adds Claudia into his artwork, and the two soon begin a passionate love affair. But then she discovers David's drug addiction....

Five people, two plans, but only one bank. Fate drops an ex-con into a dusty western burg where he meets a conniving bank teller plotting to relieve her business of assets. Whoa, not so fast! A brace of discarded, but dangerous, renegade agents have also blown into Fallout. Problem is, the quirky drifters are on point for a different prize.

How much physical and mental pain can a sixteen-year-old girl stand? Jeanette Connor is about to find out. It's Chicago, 1955, and she is on the brink of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: a contract with the New York City Ballet. However, since she’s a minor, her mother must co-sign and she has different ideas. Jeanette's dream is smashed and instead she soon finds herself in a high-class brothel, being offered up as a little-girl-virgin type.

Blues-singer Maxx Maxwell is smart, talented, and gorgeous–at least since she had her nose fixed, went blonde, and bought a push-up bra. So what if she’s living in a scruffy apartment in Hackensack, New Jersey, and the waitress job she’s taken to make ends meet is driving her crazy? Her band, Maxximum Blues, is really taking off, thanks to the talents of guitarist Jimmy Nashville, a heartbreakingly handsome guy whose life is complicated by an assortment of girlfriends.