Showing results by narrator "Emily Ellet" in All Categories

Learning her dear friend and valued customer Thelma Chadwick is dead is one thing, but when Denver dry cleaner Mandy Dyer discovers the sweet old woman left her a cryptic message and a bag of clothes that Mandy has never seen—nor cleaned—she is awash in suspicion. Thelma knew Mandy had a hand in solving mysteries in town—Was she asking Mandy to use her sleuthing skills to find her killer? And if so, were the unusual buttons that covered the dresses Thelma left in her care some kind of clue?

There’s nothing unusual about a young bride entrusting Mandy Dyer with her wedding dress. Mandy runs a dry cleaners—her customers bring in gowns all the time. But when Mandy realizes the bride-to-be is marrying her womanizing ex-husband, she sees red—especially when she discovers the bride stabbed to death in her bridal suite. With Larry as the prime suspect, Mandy is up to her neck in her ex’s dirty laundry once more. Only this time, the stink of it is even worse.

Mandy Dyer is happy to see her straitlaced customer Ardith Brewster suddenly bringing a fresh, fun new wardrobe into Mandy’s Denver dry cleaners. When Ardith confides she’s got a new man in her life—someone she met at Mandy’s open house, no less—Mandy is delighted for her . . . until Ardith turns up dead. Mandy is sifting through her customers, trying to find someone who matches Ardith’s mystery beau’s well-heeled description, when suddenly another customer is killed.

Lilla thought she knew the stakes of the Era War, but on the remote jungle world, she faces a new and unexpected challenge. When a skirmish goes wrong, Lilla discovers the existence of a society that has the power to tip the balance of the war.

Residents of the posh Upstate New York neighborhood of Deer Crossing enjoy all the amenities wealth provides. From drive-up dog-grooming to monthly botox parties, these lucky suburbanites have everything they could ever want. And one thing they don’t. Stalker Caroline Case, who wheels her infant along their streets each night with just one goal … to spy on anyone too careless or too foolish to close their window blinds.

Grieving her mother’s death, Mari Lennox travels to Kyoto, Japan to take photographs of Yanagi Inn for a client. As she explores the inn and its grounds, her camera captures striking images, uncovering layers of mystery shrouding the old resort—including an overgrown, secret garden on a forbidden island. But then eerie weeping no one else in the inn seems to hear starts keeping her awake at night.

A Christmas Anthology of several of the best Christmas Novellas you have never heard from authors who were prolific in their time. Including the author of the Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms series, the Little Bear children's series, Charles Dickens & Howard Hughes' award winning novelist/playwright brother.

Rachel Miller is a lawyer and mother of two who’s just as comfortable in a courtroom as she is on the sidelines of a soccer field. Sure, her marriage is on autopilot, her parents are overly involved, and the other suburban moms are just a little bit catty. But if you ask Rachel, life is good. That is until her world is upended when racy photos of her and her high-school boyfriend, the famous actor Jack Bellow—along with his love letters to her—are published in a tabloid, unexpectedly thrusting Rachel into the spotlight.

“Make room in your beach bag for this mesmerizing book” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author) about two estranged friends whose unexpected reconnection in the Hamptons forces them to finally confront the terrible event that drove them apart. When wealthy, impulsive Margot...

Moving to Hawthorne was something Tess and her mom never anticipated, but after Tess's mom loses her job, it's their only option. Tess's grandparents welcome them into their home, on the condition that Tess and her mom attend church, something Mom isn't too pleased about. But Tess enjoys the church community, finding a place in youth group and the church choir. Faith fills a void Tess didn't know she had. After a very personal decision goes public, Tess faces daily harassment and rejection by her former friends, and singing in the church choir is no longer an option.

Halfway to Better is a collection of short solarpunk stories, each exploring a near-future where were struggling to survive the climate crisis and build a better world. These hopeful climate-fiction stories take you from the bottom of the sea to the towers of a bot-filled city, from sparkling labs to flooded lighthouses, all imagining futures halfway to a better world. The Halfway to Better collection contains six short stories plus a bonus prose-poem, Rewilding Indiana, and its accompanying sky shanty.

SHORT STORY: A very short story about the cost of cutting down a tree. I Came Home From Saving the Rainforest is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

SHORT STORY: Humanity has left the cities to live in the "greenbelt," but a young woman's curiosity brings her back to the bot-patrolled streets where human beings used to live... until she gets caught. Tombs Without Bodies is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

SHORT STORY: A sister in the far future, when we no longer burn things for fuel, finds a forbidden thing that would make the perfect gift. The Day We Stopped Burning is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

SHORT STORY: A cute technician keeps breaking things in her too-shiny lab, then calling a fixer in for repairs. Zita's a certified member of the International Guild of Repair Workers, Local 772, and she's certain this hot girl is breaking her toys on purpose. But why? Something very sexy but very weird is going on...

SHORT STORY: At the bottom of the sea, a trawler crawls across an abyssal plain, carefully cleaning microplastics off the ancient mineral-rich nodules, when the crew finds something that shouldn't be possible. Slimy Things Did Crawl is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection.

SHORT STORY: Living in a flooded lighthouse is probably illegal, but no one has come to kick her out, so she keeps furtively tending the oyster beds and feeding the crows. But when a storm brings an unexpected, and unwelcome, visitor, her time in this final refuge might be at an end. Planting the Shell-Bones is one of six short solarpunk stories in the Halfway to Better collection. If you enjoyed the optimistic climate solutions in Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future or the cozy cooperative future in Becky Chambers' Monk and Robot series, you will enjoy Halfway to Better.

Glenna’s heart sinks just as her boots sink in the mud, when she sees how horrid planet Raghild is. But there is no turning back now. She must forge onward to meet the despised charlatans, aka, mages—the only ones able to help her get rid of the corruption that’s killing her. The sooner she finds the mages, the sooner she can rid herself of the deadly corruption, and of the pesky mage who somehow sneaked his way into her heart.

When Det. Stan Foster shows up at Mandy Dyer’s dry cleaning shop, Mandy hopes her one-time boyfriend has come back to win her heart. Instead, he soothes her ego by asking for her help with his homicide investigation. But if Stan thinks she’ll walk away from the case after answering his inquiry, he’s dead wrong. Because these days, Mandy is as famous for her amateur sleuthing skills as she is for her freshly pressed clothes. Mandy’s investigation puts her in touch with a colorful cast of characters, from Betty the Bag Lady to Harpo the Mime.

When Mandy Dyer inherits her uncle’s dry cleaners, she knows she’ll be dealing in some pretty grimy business. But when a homeless woman brings in a bloody suit, suddenly Mandy has a foul mess on her hands. Did the suit belong to a murderer—or his victim? Now Mandy is sharing clues with a hunky homicide detective—and trying to discover a little dirt on the killer herself. With one man dead and a potential witness missing, returning this suit to its rightful owner isn’t going to be easy—until Mandy figures out how to make the killer come clean.