Showing results by author "Sheila Connolly" in All Categories

Abby Kimball has just moved to New England with her boyfriend and is trying to settle in, but the experience is proving to be quite unsettling, to say the least. While on a tour of local historic homes, Abby witnesses a family scene that leaves her gasping for breath - because the family has been dead for nearly a century. Another haunting episode follows, and another, until it seems to Abby that everything she touches is drawing her in, calling to her from the past.

Boston expat Maura Donovan has been getting accustomed to Irish living, complete with an inherited house and a pub named Sullivan’s. But now, her mother has returned - and she’s brought Maura’s half-sister in tow. To make matters more confusing, a handful of Cork University students are knocking on Maura’s door, asking about a mystical fairy fort that happens to be located on Maura’s piece of land. Then one of the students disappears after a day of scoping out the fort, and Maura uncovers a decades-old corpse.

After 15 years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland, full time. And she definitely didn't expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town's 19th-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. Then a dead body turns up in the town library - mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves.

Winter still has a firm stranglehold on the small town of Granford, and newly married orchard owner Meg Chapin is restless to begin her spring pruning and planting, while Seth busies himself with a new project of his own. But their relative peace is shattered when a gunshot breaks the winter silence, and they discover the body of a dead woman on their land. What's just as troubling is that the state police have hushed up the murder and are warning Meg not to investigate.

Still undecided about a return to her teaching career, Abby Kimball has thrown herself into restoring the grand Victorian she shares with her boyfriend, Ned. She's happy to put thoughts of her strange ability to see the dead on the back burner for a while, but she realizes that won't be so easy when she's faced with two new compelling encounters. First, a plumber she's hired has a shocking experience with an old tool they find buried in the house's walls, and then the interior life of an autistic boy streams through her mind as if he were speaking.

When the entire collection of the Fireman's Museum ironically goes up in flames, Nell Pratt discovers one of the charred pictures isn't the one that was originally exhibited. But getting to the bottom of the mystery is bound to get Nell burned....

The new exhibit at the Philadelphia children's museum, Let's Play, isn't meant to be shocking - but when one of the installers is zapped with a fatal electrical charge, it's up to Nell to put her detective skills on display.

At The Society for the Preservation of Pennsylvania Antiques, fundraiser Eleanor "Nell" Pratt solicits donations - and sometimes solves crimes. When a collection of George Washington's letters is lost on the same day that an archivist is found dead, it seems strange that the Society president isn't pushing for an investigation. Nell goes digging herself, and soon uncovers a long, rich history of crime.

As president of the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society in Philadelphia, Nell Pratt relies on the generosity of philanthropists. But when someone starts killing benefactors, it's Nell's turn to come to their aid.... When Nell reads the obituary of a former board member, Adeline Harrison, she makes a mental note to send flowers and doesn't think twice about it - until FBI agent James Morrison shares his suspicions about the nature of Adeline's death.

Katherine Hamilton's goal in high school was to escape from her dead-end hometown of Asheboro, Maryland. Fifteen years later she's got a degree in hospitality management and a great job at a high-end boutique hotel in Baltimore. Until, that is, the hotel is acquired by a chain, and she's laid off. When Kate's high school best friend calls with a mysterious invitation to come talk with the town leaders of Asheboro, she agrees to make the trip, curious about where this new opportunity might lead.

While orchard owner Meg Corey dreads the labor of manual irrigation to stave off a drought, her boyfriend, Seth, couldn't be more excited about doing historic renovation on one of Granford's oldest houses. Tagging along as he picks up supplies is supposed to give Meg a much-needed break, but the trip turns rotten when she almost trips over a dead body at an old sawmill's forest reserve. But the body isn't the only frightening discovery she makes.

Apple orchard owner Meg Corey is finally feeling settled into her new life in Granford - she's made friends, and her relationship with Seth Chapin is heating up - when her old Boston coworker Lauren Converse comes barreling into town, running the Congressional campaign for a former hometown football hero. But Meg doesn't have time to worry about why Seth seems reluctant to back Lauren's campaign when her neighbor, local dairy farmer Joyce Truesdell, is found dead from an apparent kick to the head from one of her cows.

Now that Meg Corey's apples have been harvested and sold, she's enjoying some free time. But when the small but annoying mishaps plaguing her start turning sinister, Meg begins to worry that her first harvest may be her last.

After an English professor - and old friend of her mother - is found dead in a cider house, orchard owner Meg Corey starts to wonder: Could her own mother have committed murder?

Meg Corey has come to the quaint New England town of Granford, Massachusetts, to sell her mother's old colonial home and apple orchard. Instead, she becomes embroiled in development plans that include her land - and her former flame from Boston. When he's found dead in the new septic tank on her property, the police immediately suspect Meg, whose only ally in town is the plumber Seth Chapin. Together, they'll have to peel back the layers of secrecy that surround the deal in order to find the real murderer.

In this latest Orchard mystery, amateur sleuth Meg Corey takes a bite out of crime.... Some baby-faced chefs, fresh out of cooking school, are looking to open a restaurant in Granford. They plan on using local foods - great news for city girl banker-turned orchard owner Meg Corey. Yet when one of the chefs is found dead, face-down in a farmer's pig wallow, plans come to a screeching halt. And Meg soon discovers they may have a locally grown killer on their hands.

Spring has come to Meg Corey's apple orchard—and it's quickly becoming a killer season. Just as she's getting the hang of managing the two-hundred-year-old orchard she's inherited, the dead body of a local organic farming activist is found in her springhouse. And the only thing that's sprung is a murder accusation - against her...

Pub owner Maura Donovan hasn't seen her mother for over 20 years, so when she suddenly shows up in Maura's pub, Maura's not sure what to expect. Her mother is trying to find a life for herself back home and has taken up a position working with the new owners of the Crann Mor hotel just outside Skibbereen. That is until her new boss is found dead in the gardens, dumped down the hillside behind the hotel.

Still looking for answers to explain her uncanny ability to see her dead ancestors, Abby shifts her focus to spiritualists, seers, and psychics of all kinds. Meeting them with an open mind - and a healthy dose of skepticism - she wants to know if any of them genuinely share her strange experiences or if they're simply conning gullible people. When she ventures into a series of "readings" given by area psychics, she makes a startling connection that defies even her wildest expectations.

Snow is a rarity in Maura Donovan's small village in County Cork, Ireland, so she wasn't sure what to expect when a major snowstorm rolled in around Sullivan's pub. But now she's stranded in a bar full of patrons - and a suspected killer in a long-ago murder. Maura's been in Ireland less than a year and hasn't heard about the decades-old unsolved crime that took place nearby, let alone the infamous suspect, Diane Caldwell.