* 4 Sample Chapters * Inquisitive heir, Charlie Fine's obsession with the truth makes him an excellent fraud investigator, but there's one mystery he's never been able to solve: the identity of the girl who gave him the greatest kiss of his life during a high school game of 7 Minutes In Heaven. Twenty years of experiments attempting to recreate the chemistry of that kiss have gotten him nowhere but frustrated and he's about to resign himself to a life without relationship fireworks when an invitation to his high school reunion steels his resolve to get answers once and for all. Accompanied by his binge-drinking best buddy, Martin, he heads home to grill his lovely suspects only to find his skills better put to use in solving the disappearance of an old friend's father and the sabotaging of a maple farm. Thwarted by a shady detective, distracted by a former classmate's troubled sister, will Charlie be able to find out who done it and who done it best? Will the same suspect hold the answers to both mysteries and will her identity be that of the dream girl he let get away? Who kissed Charlie Fine? You could skip to the end, but you'd miss more bear attacks, booby traps, pickled cabbage, flying cardboard, dry lightning, ghost parrots, creepy crawlers, maple syrup and tea cozies than in any cozy mystery about smooching you've ever read! Please know this story contains mild cursing and three F bombs - one of which is totally necessary. *Cover art uses "On-De-Fence" by Gil Elvgren which is to the best of my knowledge in the public domain. *No part of this story may be reproduced or used in any manner without express written permission by the author. © All Rights Reserved

Felix returns home in disguise after thirteen years away from home. He plans to catch a smuggler, then take up his viscountcy. He does not expect the smuggler to be Joselyn, his childhood sweetheart. (Short story) This story was written as a party prize. The winner could choose three things to include in the story (characters, animals, or objects), and a story trope --- a situation or plot line. I had great fun writing my tale of a lady smuggler, the man sent to bring her to justice, and a loud pet raven. The story trope was that the smuggling was to help the people in her neglected village. I hope you enjoy it. This story and three others are published in Hand-Turned Tales, which is available at most eretailers.

[Complete] After a plane crash, Megan is marooned with a group of survivors on an uninhabited island in the Pacific. They find a dead man's body, and the next day it's gone. And then someone of their group disappears, too. They realize that there's something with them. Something that might be lethal. ---- Not having much to head home for, Megan doesn't care when her plane takes off with a delay of several hours. She is bored, and the strange, dark man at her side isn't much of a talker--yet their conversation gets interesting once the plane's engines stop working. ---- #3 "Best Book Overall" in the New Beginnings Writer Awards 2019 A thriller/adventure story, with elements of mystery, and some surprises. ---- Cover by Narcisse Navarre @inksorcery

[Completed] Anne is a shy, sensible accountant and knows that getting involved with her rich and hot billionaire boss Thierry Thorne is playing with fire, but she is irresistibly drawn to him anyway. The powerful, devastatingly handsome playboy can have any woman he wants--and now he wants Anne, much to the disapproval of his society-girl sister Theresa, who treats Anne like she isn't worthy of licking her stiletto heels. But then Anne discovers incriminating evidence that suggests the Thornes' sparkling existence isn't as perfect as it might seem. A Thorne has been killed, another one is responsible, and one is on the run... but who can Anne trust? And who is out to hurt her? Soon, Anne is fighting for her life... and Thierry and Theresa are about to find out just what their ordinary little accountant is capable of. A fast-paced thriller with mystery, action, and romance, featuring a smart, witty protagonist, the billionaire jet set, a couple abused clichés, and some surprising plot-twists. #cliche-alert ------ Cover composed using photography by sruilk and CURAphotography under license from shutterstock.com

Daughter of an English father and a Spanish mother, Teri grew up in England, and returned to Spain only after the death of her husband. Her ability to speak English, and also French, comes in handy now that Napoleon and Wellington are fighting over the possession of Spain. Teri nurses wounded soldiers from both sides, as well as her village's guerilla band. But she doesn't expect to find herself nursing her husband, unaccountably alive even if unlikely to remain so. David had been ripped from his new bride just weeks after the wedding, and had returned home months later to find his wife gone, run off---they told him---with another man. When he couldn't find her, he'd enlisted, taking his anger and pain to war. He hadn't expected to wake up to find her nursing him.

Callie's childhood sweetheart returned from betrayal and shipwreck in time to rescue her from an unwanted marriage, and everything should have been perfect. But scarred without and within, Magnus is not the boy she lost. Months after their wedding, Callie despairs of bridging their differences. Can a lost kitten provide a Christmas miracle?

The setting is New Zealand in the 1860s, when gold miners poured into the fledgling settlement of Dunedin. Rose is unhappy in the household of her fanatical uncle, but Thomas, a young merchant from Canada, offers a glimpse of another possible life, if she is brave enough to reach for it. (Short story)

Bastian has never recovered from losing the woman he loved, and in such a way! Betrayed by her, by his own brother, and by a trusted servant, he has refused all contact. And now his brother is dead, his dying wish that Bastian offer protection to his former betrothed. Can he resist the urge to strangle the treacherous liar that he still loves, despite himself? Isadora dreams were shattered the night she was to be betrothed to the man she adored. Cast out without the opportunity to prove her innocence, she has nonetheless found a measure of happiness. Can she bear to trust her well-being to the only man she has ever loved; the man who hates her? The dangerous feelings between them are not as explosive as the feelings of the local villagers. Bastian and Isadora must work together to save their people. This is another story in the collection Lost in the Tale. It turned out to be a paranormal. I know. No one was more surprised than I. On 2 February 2018, I began rewriting it as a novel. It starts in the same place, but who knows where it might end? Certainly not I. Follow the novel on Wattpad and find out.

As the Duchess of Haverford's companion, Cedrica Grenford is not treated as a poor relation and is encouraged to mingle with Her Grace's guests. Perhaps among the gentlemen gathered for the duchess's house party, she will find a suitable husband? Marcel Fournier has only one ambition: to save enough from his fees serving as chef in the houses of the ton to become the proprietor of his own fine restaurant. An affair with the duchess's dependent would be dangerous. Anything else is impossible. Isn't it? This book was first published in the Bluestocking Belles' holiday collection Holly and Hopeful Hearts, and is also available as an ebook from most eretailers.

For nearly 300 years, the Normingtons and the Lorimers have feuded, since a love affair ended in a curse that doomed dead Lorimers to haunt their home, the Castle of Lorne. Now the last Marquis of Lorne, the last of the Lorimers, is one of those ghosts, and the Duke of Kendal, head of the House of Normington, holds the castle. Kendal doesn't care about the feud or the ghosts. He wants only to find the evidence that will legitimate the son his Lorimer bride bore him before her death, and to convince his stubborn housekeeper to marry him. But the time allotted to the curse is running out, and his happiness depends on finding the Lost Treasure of Lorne before the 300 years draws to a close.