Showing results by narrator "Barbara McCulloh" in All Categories

It was a dark and stormy night, but that was the least of Theodosia Browning's troubles. As she approaches St. Philips Graveyard, Theodosia sees two figures locked in a strange embrace. Wiping rain from her eyes, Theodosia realizes she has just witnessed a brutal murder and sees a dark-hooded figure slip away into the fog. In the throes of alerting police, Theodosia recognizes the victim—it is the daughter of her friend, Lois, who owns the Antiquarian Bookshop next door to her own Indigo Tea Shop. 

A gifted trainer in a time women are not allowed to race, Nora Fenton prefers horses to men. They're easier to handle, they're more reliable, and they never tell her what to do. After her father's passing, Nora is determined to save her struggling horse farm, starting with entering her prize colt into the harness races at the 1905 Mississippi Fair. If she wins, she may have a chance at independence. But when a stranger arrives and starts asking disconcerting questions, she suspects he may have other motives than unseating her in the training job that is rightfully hers.

On the family’s Brazos River Ranch in Texas, Avery Elliott helps run her grandfather’s commercial construction business. Raised by Senator Elliott, Avery has never doubted her grandfather is the man of integrity and faith she’s always believed him to be . . . until the day she finds him standing with a gun over the body of a dead man. To make matters worse, Avery’s just discovered a billing discrepancy for materials supposedly purchased for construction of the Lago de Cobre Dam.  

Guilt has defined Luke Dempsey's life. But it was self-destructiveness that landed him in prison. When his friend and fellow inmate lay dying shortly before Luke's release, the older man revealed he left a string of clues for his daughter, Finley, that will lead her to the treasure he's hidden. 

 When a spurned suitor threatens her, heiress Alexandra Tarkington flees New York for Mesquite Springs in the Texas Hill Country, where her father is building a hotel. But the happy reunion she envisions is not to be as her father insists she return to New York.  

Recently widowed Susanna Jenkins has decided to follow her family to the booming town of San Marcial, New Mexico, for a fresh start and to aid in her family’s sudden change in fortune. They are tasked with managing her uncle’s new Grand Hotel, and it takes all her patience to try to help her parents see the good of their circumstances and relinquish their sense of entitlement.

This collection includes three charming and festive holiday novellas spiced with humor, frontier action, and sweet romance.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine-looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede. But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

Josephine Nordegren is one of three sisters who grew up nearly wild in southwestern Colorado. She has the archery skills of Robin Hood and the curiosity of the Little Mermaid, fascinated by but locked away from the forbidden outside world - a world she's been raised to believe killed her parents. When David Warden, a rancher, brings in a herd much too close to the girls' secret home, her older sister especially is frightened, but Jo is too interested to stay away.

Chase McKnight will do anything to secure his family's ranch - but marriage to a complete stranger? That's a hard pill to swallow. Yet the will is clear: Chase needs a wife by his side if he wants to keep his home, so he meets his veiled lady at the courthouse steps and reluctantly says, "I do." Too bad he married the wrong bride. Stuck in a secret compromise, Emily Fields has one year to learn the ways of the ranch and convince Chase's family they're happily married. But when the lie becomes true, the past catches up to them, and they must save the love they never expected...   

After fulfilling a pledge to a dying friend, Zacharias Hamilton is finally free. No family entanglements. No disappointing those around him. Just the quiet bachelor existence he's always craved. Until fate snatches his freedom away when the baker of his favorite breakfast bun is railroaded by the city council. Despite not wanting to get involved, he can't turn a blind eye to her predicament...or her adorable dimples.

It is Sunday afternoon, and Theodosia and Drayton are catering a formal tea at a hot-air-balloon rally. But as the sky turns gray and the clouds start to boil up, a strange object zooms out of nowhere. It is a drone, and it appears to be buzzing around the balloons, checking them out. As Theodosia and Drayton watch, the drone, hovering like some angry, mechanized insect, deliberately crashes into the balloon next to them. An enormous, fiery explosion erupts, and everyone watches in horror as the balloon plummets to the earth, killing all three of its passengers.  

The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures the mood of a singular time and place, winding through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations.

Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is lured into attending the Heritage Society's Pirates and Plunder soiree. But it's an antique diamond skull ring that gets plundered by someone, and a history intern is murdered in the process. Theodosia knows she'll have to whet her investigative skills to find the killer among a raft of suspects....

A Home in Drayton Valley is a tale of keeping the faith in the face of great uncertainty. In 1880, Tarsie Raines is traveling from New York to Kansas with the Brubachers: Joss, Mary, and their two children. Along the way, tragedy strikes, leaving Tarsie and Joss alone to face an unthinkable crisis - and only God’s love to guide them forward.

Set amidst the majestic Big Sky country of 1881 Montana, Tracie Peterson’s enthralling tale spotlights Lacy Gallatin, a tomboy who feels out of place with her married sisters. Riding off in snow-covered darkness to seek the counsel of the only mother figure she’s ever known, Lacy finds herself snowbound with a man who often exasperates her. And yet strange stirrings in her heart now confuse her.

Gwen, Beth, and Lacy Gallatin fashion a life for themselves in the Montana wilds, operating a roadhouse that is located at the crossroads of two major stage lines. When their father is accidentally killed, the oldest sister, Gwen, reasons that she's cursed. After all, death seems to haunt her: her mother, now her father...and she was married for a mere ten days before her husband died from a bout of measles.

Best-selling author Tracie Peterson sets A Love to Last Forever in the majestic Big Sky country of 1880s Montana. This inspiring romance follows the trials of Beth Gallatin as she longs to put down roots, marry a good man, and raise a family. But just as the flicker of true love unites two hearts, storm clouds from the past roll in to douse what once burned so pure and bright.

In this tale of 1886 Texas, a caring young woman can heal the physical and emotional wounds of others but can’t mend her own hurting heart. As Deborah Vandermark pursues medicine under the tutelage of her beau Dr. Christopher Clayton, she soon realizes her West Texas lumber town isn’t ready for a woman doctor. Yet she has reason to hope - until Christopher abruptly breaks off their blossoming relationship and rushes back home to his family. When truth emerges and Deborah’s dream fades, she fears she must turn back....

All Clare Thornton wanted was a relaxing vacation in the mountains learning how to ski, but a snowstorm causes her to wreck her car and seek out shelter in a seemingly abandoned cabin. But when the famous movie star Logan Longcross walks through the door of the cabin Clare finds herself on trial by a man who fiercely guards his privacy and does not accept her innocent explanations of the car crash as her reason for showing up on his doorstep.