Showing results by narrator "Cris Dukehart" in All Categories

Young mother Chelsea Clark leaves the house for a girls’ night out...and vanishes. Her family knows she would never voluntarily leave her two small children. Her desperate husband - also the prime suspect - hires Morgan to find his wife and prove his innocence. As a single mother, Morgan sympathizes with Chelsea’s family and is determined to find her. She teams up with private investigator Lance Kruger.

Broke, almost homeless, and recently fired. Those are my official reasons for answering a wanted ad for a skeevy-looking bartender gig. It went downhill the moment they asked me to do a trial shift instead of an interview - to see if I'd mesh with their "special" clientele. I think that part went great. Their customers were complete dickheads, and I was an asshole right back. That's the definition of fitting in, right? I expected to get thrown out on my ass. Instead, they...offered me the job?

When I arrived at my uncle's house, I expected my relatives to be like me - outcast sorcerers who don't practice magic. I was right about the sorcery, but wrong about everything else. Rule two: Don't listen to the demon. My uncle chose a far deadlier power. He calls creatures of darkness into our world, binds them into service contracts, and sells them to the highest bidder. And I'm supposed to act like I don't know how illegal and dangerous it is. Rule three: Don't talk to the demon. All I had to do was keep my nose out of it.

Liz Danger is a ghostwriter, trapped in her old hometown for the summer. Good thing she has Vince Cooper, her recurring one-night stand living down by the river in his old diner car, making her feel happy and safe and normal until September when she’ll be leaving again, although she’s starting to wonder if she really wants to.

When I found myself facing down the scariest black-magic felon in the city, practically daring him to abduct me, I had to wonder exactly how I ended up here. It all started when I accidentally landed a job as a bartender - but not at a bar. At a guild, populated by mages, sorcerers, alchemists, witches, and psychics. Good thing this lame-o human is adaptable, right? Then my favorite guild members - three sexy, powerful, and intermittently charming mages - asked for my help. Did they want access to my encyclopedic knowledge of cocktails? Oh no.

This bundle includes the first three books in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society series. In the first book of the series, Nora Pennington forms the Secret, Book, and Scone Society. As they untangle a web of corruption, they discover their own courage, purpose, and a sisterhood that will carry them through every challenge—proving it’s never too late to turn the page and start over.

When true-crime writer Olivia Cruz disappears with no signs of foul play, her new boyfriend, Lincoln Sharp, suspects the worst. He knows she didn’t leave willingly and turns to attorney Morgan Dane and PI Lance Kruger to find her before it’s too late. As they dig through Olivia’s life, they are shocked to discover a connection between her current book research on two cold murder cases and the suicide of one of Morgan’s prospective clients.

Private investigator Lance Kruger was just a boy when his father vanished twenty-three years ago. Since then he's lived under the weight of that disappearance - until his father's car is finally dredged up from the bottom of Grey Lake. It should be a time for closure, except for the skeleton found in the trunk. A missing person case gone cold has become one of murder, and Lance and attorney Morgan Dane must face the deadly past that's risen to the surface.

Rose Malone’s landlord and employer, Ozzie Oswald, just died, and now she has no idea if she has a job or if she and her daughter, Poppy, have a place to live, and that’s on top of the arrest warrant that’s been out for her for nineteen years. Then a stranger shows up claiming to be Ozzie’s son and tries to throw her out, so she swings a reproduction of the Maltese Falcon at him, and just as she’s about to finish him off in a rage, somebody grabs him and throws him into the street.

A dragon, a fae, and a pixie walk into a bookstore… Sounds like a joke, right? For me, it's just an ordinary day on the job. At least, it has been ever since my aunt disappeared and left me with her store, her cat, and a whole lot of unanswered questions. My whole life, I've been told to stay hidden. Pretend I'm human. Sell books, drink tea, and never betray the truth of what I am. But it turns out my aunt had secrets, and a lot of those secrets seem to involve me ending up dead. To survive, I'm going to have to reckon with my past, even if it means placing my trust in a total stranger.

I promised to avenge my parents. But their killer is still on the loose, and he's stolen more than my parents' lives. Now, as he draws closer to his mysterious goals, he's poised to destroy what little I have left. I promised to translate an ancient grimoire. But it holds the secrets of my family - and the secret history of demon summoning. I fear its answers as much as I need them. Who was the foremother of Demonica...and who am I?

Haley Powell wakes up covered in blood, with no memory of the night before. When she sees a man lying in the backyard, stabbed to death, she has only one terrified thought: What have I done? Agreeing to take the case as a favor to her PI friend Lincoln Sharp, Morgan must scale a mountain of damning circumstantial and forensic evidence to prove her client innocent.

After the devastating loss of her husband in Iraq, Morgan Dane returns to Scarlet Falls, seeking the comfort of her hometown. Now, surrounded by family, she’s finally found peace and a promising career opportunity - until her babysitter is killed and her neighbor asks her to defend his son, Nick, who stands accused of the murder.

As a guild bartender, I can handle pretty much anything - mages, sorcerers, witches, the occasional demon. But show me anything family-related and I'd rather run for the hills. It doesn't even have to be my family. So I have no idea why I thought spending the holidays with Aaron's mom and pop was a good idea. Meeting his famous parents is already terrifying enough, but I've got a bigger problem. Students of his family's renowned mage academy are being attacked on the grounds - and somehow no one has seen a single assailant?

Lucas Fournier is only serious about one thing: hockey. The league's fun-loving charmer, Luc is always up for a good prank or a great lay, and he has no intention of settling down. But being traded to the Carolina Cold Fury - and to play alongside his big brother, Max - is no joke. With another title in sight, the last thing Luc wants is to let his new teammates down. To succeed, Luc will need to keep his head in the game and the most...er, demanding member of his anatomy in check. But when temptation hits, Luc hits back harder.

I thought I was a good judge of character, but recent events proved me very wrong. Now, in a brilliant demonstration of my newfound caution, I'm putting all my faith in a demon - a demon who's tried to kill me before. The squirmy feeling is making sense, right? Unfortunately, I don't have any other options. Ezra's time is almost up, which means I need answers and I need them fast. So it's time to toughen up, pack my gear, and find me one of the most illegal, reviled, and scarce mythics out there: a demon-mage summoner.

What makes stepmothering so hard? And why are we, as people and a culture, so hard on stepmothers? How can we make it easier? Stepmonster is a truly unique and groundbreaking book for women with stepchildren, men with kids who repartner, adult stepchildren, and anyone who cares about them. It is a comprehensive, cross-cultural, research-based reconsideration of stepfamily dynamics - from the perspective of the stepmother.

While fighting in Afghanistan, Major Grant Barrett receives devastating news: his brother and sister-in-law have been murdered in Scarlet Falls, the sleepy suburb of Grant's youth. Emotionally scarred from war, the career soldier returns home on emergency leave to temporarily care for his orphaned nephew and niece. But when someone tries to kidnap the kids and their teenage babysitter, Grant knows it's not a random act... and neither were the murders.

Once upon a time, I was your average spunky redhead with the lamest employment history ever, a shaky relationship with my only family member, and no idea what I was doing with my life. Now, I'm a pseudo mythic with the best bartending job in the world, the most amazing (and hot) best friends I never knew I needed, and a guild of misfit magic-users who've become my extended family. And I'm about to lose it all. In my desperation to save Ezra, I stumbled into a web of ruthless deception - and seriously pissed off a sleeping hydra.

Rose Malone is doing all right except that her daughter is struggling with PTSD, her lover is leaving her for the Appalachian Trail, and there’s a rumor that there’s a million bucks in the building she inherited which has inspired every money-hungry man in her weird little town to bring her cheap flowers and offer to search the place for her.