Showing results by narrator "Carol Herman" in All Categories

Former diplomat Leona Robin wonders if she made a mistake moving to rural Texas. Her son loves it here, but in a place where it's normal for a prize bull to have his own pet pig and hay bales are raining from the sky, Leona wonders how she'll ever fit in. That is, until she's thrown right into local preacher Ralph Maybeath's arms. Is this love? Maybe, maybe not.

How can you run a successful annual writers' tea party when your guest author turns up murdered, and when your choice for a substitute speaker might be the prime suspect?

Welcome to six of the most amazing fantasy stories you'll ever hear. This volume includes five full-length fantasy stories plus an exclusive bonus short story.

Olive Sommers didn't set out to solve a murder. But there's no harm in Olive trying to help, is there? She's got her wits, her sister's brains, and especially her 100-pound dog Boo, who gets along with everyone in town - except when she scares smaller dogs, or knocks people down, or eats cheese. But when Boo Radley sniffs out another dead body, Olive learns that murder can happen anywhere, and that small-town quirks can lead to big-time danger.

It's Halloween 1970, and Erin Lewis can't draw anything scary enough to win the window painting contest at Glosser Bros. Department Store in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The 16-year-old has other things on her mind, like holding a séance at Glosser's to contact her brother, who died a year ago in Vietnam. Will he keep his promise and make contact from the other side? Or will Erin receive an equally shocking message from closer to home?

Wealthy Cassandra Lennon has pricked her finger on the spindle of personal tragedy 15 years earlier and isolated herself behind rose-covered walls. They call her the Sleeping Beauty. But this is modern-day Texas and her castle is a ranch. Ellison Stewart is so enticingly attractive to women their knees buckle on first sight, and he hates it. Is he the prince Cassie has been waiting for?

In the mid-1920s, Bessie Elliott and her husband Fletcher take in their six-year-old nephew John. They are determined to give him a warm and secure home on Stone Mountain, a place where he will feel loved and know he is always welcome. Having a child brings many changes to their daily life and even more for John, but it isn't long before he feels completely at home with his aunt and uncle.

Mama has died and is now with the Great Spirits. Her strong-willed, crotchety husband is dead set on having her ashes buried in the Historic Conundrum County Cemetery. Mama's dying wish to her beloved son Hackett, "Don't let him do it!" During her lifetime Mama was a great lover of animals and now after her death they aim to repay her in spades. Events are thus set in motion bringing together Hackett and a rag-tag team of animals in a hilarious effort to honor Mama's final wish.

Linda thought her parents had died when she was an infant, leaving her to be raised by her grandparents. She treasures the highchair she used as a child as a symbol of their unconditional love. But when a man shows up at the bank and claims to be her father, Linda searches the Internet and is stunned to learn of a long-buried family tragedy and an unspeakable crime.

I've always thought that Matlacha (say Mat-la-SHAY), the funky Pine Island Florida fishing village cum art colony, would be a perfect setting for a mystery when along comes Jessie Murphy, the perfect gal to sort out the riff from the raff of it all. You've got to love this lady - a Goodwill fashion queen who comes across as a ditzy airhead and whose best buddy is a gargoyle named Gar. Jessie's taken time off from her job, thrilled to be rekindling the flame of romance with her treasure-hunting guy, Will Rolins, who adores her.

Yes, seeing through the eyes of another can often bring greater clarity and understanding, especially if it is through the eyes of a young, inquisitive emperor penguin. Gaylord: A Penguin's Search for the True Meaning of Christmas takes the listener around the world, from the harsh, frozen land of Antarctica to the sanctity of the Holy Land and back. What Gaylord discovers along the way makes this a perfect holiday gift for the entire family.

They came in peace; unfortunately the good folks of Little Lump, Texas, didn't get the memo. They're really embarrassed, especially Gertie, who managed to shoot down several of the alien's space ships with her holy land-to-air rocket launcher. Little did she realize in doing so that she would be unknowingly creating a far bigger danger for Little Lump that could spell doom for them all.

In the second decade of the 20th century, major world events resonate even on secluded Stone Mountain where Bessie Elliott lives with her husband Fletcher. There's a great war, one that takes away many young men, including Bessie's kin, some never to return. Bessie's role of healer intensifies as she treats those suffering from the Spanish flu and tries to keep it from spreading further on her mountain. She defends a young woman who's in the middle of a controversy that threatens to tear her community apart.

Aging Georgia beauty queens - Leigh, Tara, and Victoria - are at it again! When they arrive at a restaurant for a meeting with a potential client (whom they've designated Pop Tart) for their budding private eye firm Tiara Investigations, they find the man dead - face down in a bowl of salsa. What's going on? The man was only concerned about his daughter's husband's fidelity, but this death has all the trappings of murder.

Who killed Polish Lou, the famous Prince of Polka Music? His daughter, musicologist Lottie Kachowski, comes home to the polka heartland of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, to find the answer. Lottie has an unbeatable talent for using music to solve crimes, and she does just that on the trail of her father's killer. But the stakes turn deadlier than ever when another polka legend comes to a tragic end. As the danger rises, Lottie recruits her father's wacky girlfriend, Polish Peg, to help her dig deeper into the wild world of small town polka.

In the dawning years of the 20th century, Bessie Daniels leaves her home town of Hot Springs and travels east over the mountains to live with her new husband Fletcher Elliott in the Broad River section of North Carolina. In 1906, they purchase 400 acres of the old Zachariah Solomon Plantation which includes a small house with a shack beside it, a branch of Cedar Creek and a row of dilapidated slave cabins... And ghosts.

Strange things are happening in Little Lump, Texas and the citizens of this small town think it might be Aliens. Unfortunately they might be right. Is this the end of life as they know it? Not if they have anything to say about it. It's time to praise the lord and pass the ammunition, because these people are determined not to go down without a fight.

In the waning years of the 19th century, Bessie Daniels grows up in the small town of Hot Springs in western North Carolina. Secure in the love of her father, resistant to her mother's desire that she be a proper Southern belle, Bessie is determined to forge her own way in life. Or, as her Cherokee great-grandmother Elisi puts it, to be a whistling woman. Life, however, has a few surprises in store for Bessie....

When her neighbor is shot and killed in his hunting blind, 66-year-old widow Gertie Johnson seizes the opportunity to move on with her life by investigating his death. Gertie is abetted (and hindered) by her grandson Little Donny, man-hungry best friend Cora Mae, and word-of-the-day challenger, Kitty. It doesn't help that Chester's death has been ruled an accident by the sheriff of this backwoods community in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Or that Sheriff Blaze Johnson happens to be Gertie's son.

Cookbook author Mattie Carrington, Pine County's one and only celebrity, narrowly escapes being burned to a crisp when her kitchen explodes. Then someone tries to poison her. Luckily, Sheriff Cas Larkin is on the case. But when Cas visits the secluded cabin Mattie rented to finish her next book, he finds her nearly dead. With no signs of foul play and just as many clues, Cas is getting more "help" than he needs from the eagle-eyed locals as he tracks an experienced killer with the patience and skill to watch... and wait.