Showing results by author "Karen Harper" in All Categories

Smitten with spring fever, Elizabeth Tudor escapes London for fantastical Nonsuch Palace in the sweet Surrey countryside. There she hopes to relax and pose for the official royal portrait for which she is holding a competition. But one of her artists is burned to death, and portraits of the queen are going up in flames. When she hears that her rival, the dangerous Mary, Queen of Scots, has been peering in mirrors and announcing, "I see the next queen of England!" Elizabeth summons her Privy Plot Council.

In late summer of 1562, within a bedchamber at Whitehall Palace, Elizabeth Tudor prays for the recovery of the delirious, fever-racked friend who has served her for twenty-six of her twenty-nine years. Ten days later, with loyal, handsome Lord Robert Dudley by her side, the queen leads her retinue to London’s Royal College of Physicians to enlist two learned doctors in the raging battle against disease and pestilence.

It is the crowning day of twenty-five-year-old Bess Tudor's life as she returns from exile to become England's queen. But even as her magnificent procession wends its way to Westminster Palace, a shot rings out, muffled by the jostling crowd. Within moments of becoming England's ruler, Elizabeth learns of the brutal murder of a highborn lady of the court, the sister of one of her dearest friends.

Alexandra Collister came to her estranged cousins' B and B in Falls Lake, Alaska, looking for a fresh start. The surrounding forest can be harsh and unforgiving - luckily, rugged wilderness tracker Quinn Mantell offers to be her guide. Still recovering from a toxic previous relationship, Alex is wary of getting too close, but when savagely deep claw marks appear outside her bedroom window, keeping her distance from Quinn is no longer an option.

It is May 1560. As sinister storm clouds gather overhead, 26-year-old Queen Elizabeth dispatches William Cecil, her most trusted adviser, to Scotland for crucial negotiations. Handsome, ambitious Lord Robert Dudley is at her side. But their leisurely midsummer idyll is cut short when the courts master lutenist plunges to his death from a parapet beneath the queen's window. The loyal retainers of Elizabeth's privy council do not accept the official verdict of accidental death. Their fears are borne out when another tragedy rocks the realm, and points the way to a conspiracy to bring down Elizabeth and seize the throne.

This summer, Queen Elizabeth I is in no mood for games. She and her court were expecting to spend the warmer months lounging in great manor houses, feasting in the fields, tempting forbidden romance, and perhaps engaging in sport. But someone in the Queen's entourage isn't playing by the rules…and soon Elizabeth is dodging crossbows, longbows, and - worst of all - the threats of her greatest rival, Mary Queen of Scots. As bodies and clues pile up, the mystery and dangers deepen like the surrounding forests.

Returning to Cold Creek, Ohio, is an act of courage for Tess Lockwood. Abducted and held captive as a young girl, she is unable to remember anything about the crime that destroyed her childhood and tore her family apart. Now a grown woman with a bright future, she feels that she has put the past behind her. But when she inherits the family home, Tess must confront the demons that still haunt her and the town of Cold Creek.

Now adults, the three Lockwood sisters are still recovering from the events that led to the destruction of their family when they were children. Determined to move forward, Tess and Kate are making fresh starts in their hometown of Cold Creek, ready to put bad - even deadly - memories to rest. And they're hoping that their older sister, Charlene, can do the same.

Despite a traumatic childhood in Cold Creek, Ohio, the Lockwood sisters have reunited there for the wedding of youngest sister Tess to the town's sheriff. Maid of honor Kate Lockwood is determined to break through best man Grant Mason's defenses.

It's been four months since forensic psychologist Claire Britten last crossed paths with danger. Finally feeling she can catch her breath, together with her partner, criminal lawyer Nick Markwood, Claire has settled into a new role, volunteering with a support group for children stressed by domestic violence. But a leisurely field trip to a wildlife sanctuary turns deadly, leaving Claire to question whether the death was an accident, suicide - or something far more sinister.

From New York Times best-selling author Karen Harper comes a novel based on the lives of two amazing sisters. One sailed the Titanic and started a fashion empire. The other overtook Hollywood and scandalized the world. Together, they were unstoppable. They rose from genteel poverty, two beautiful sisters, ambitious, witty, seductive. Elinor and Lucy Sutherland are at once each other's fiercest supporters and most vicious critics.

Hannah Esh fled the Home Valley Amish community with a broken heart, throwing herself into her worldly dreams of a singing career instead. But as much as she tries to run from her past, something keeps pulling her back. On a whim, she brings four worldly friends to the Amish graveyard near her family's home for a midnight party on Halloween. But when shots are fired and one of her friends is killed, Hannah is pulled back into the world of her past.

An old English Yule has never been merrier or more mysterious. A New Year's celebration has never looked more joyous but been so potentially deadly. Fearing the 12 Days of Christmas of 1564 may be the last for her ailing, elderly friend, Lady Kat Ashley, Queen Elizabeth decrees a nostalgic, old-fashioned holiday. Delicious dishes for the table, holly and ivy, caroling, wassailing, mumming, and a Lord of Misrule to oversee it all are in the recipe for the revels. But one of the queen's kitchen staff is found as dead as the ornate peacock he was preparing for the feast.

Spanning half a century of Elizabethan and Jacobean history and sweeping from the lowest reaches of society to the royal court, this richly textured novel tells the real story of Shakespeare in love.

When a small bush plane smashes through the ice at Falls Lake Lodge, it’s a chilling reminder of everything Megan Metzler has lost. Three years ago, Meg’s pilot husband died in a similar crash, a tragedy Meg and her young son, Chip, have struggled to move on from. Still, Meg does everything she can to assist when Commander Bryce Saylor arrives to investigate, even as working alongside the handsome pilot stirs up painful memories - and an attraction that catches them both off guard. But when vital evidence is destroyed, it soon becomes clear this downed plane was no accident.

Forensic psychologist Claire Markwood has experienced her share of disaster. But nothing could prepare her for her sister, Darcy, going missing. Claire rushes to the butterfly sanctuary where Darcy has been working, prepared to do what she does best - work the clues. But her sister, along with her car and some of the sanctuary’s rarest species of butterflies, has seemingly vanished without a trace.

When an old college roommate invites Claire Britten to join her on an archaeological dig at a Florida peat bog, it's an offer the renowned forensic psychologist can't refuse. Claire's husband, criminal lawyer Nick Markwood, is comforted to see Claire working on a prehistoric burial site instead of an open grave for once. But Claire's investigative instincts kick in when some of The Black Bog's perfectly preserved corpses show signs of a grisly fate. What really happened to these people?

Elizabeth "Gera" Fitz Gerald had a privileged life in her youth in Ireland, daughter of the FitzGerald Dynasty. Her privileged world is overturned when her father, the ninth earl of Kildare, is imprisoned in the Tower of London by King Henry VIII and her family is destroyed by corruption charges and scandal. Torn from her island home and the rest of her family spread out across Europe, Elizabeth has no choice but to accept a place in England's glittering court.