Showing results by narrator "Margaret Strom" in All Categories

When Lawrence Lincoln wants to gift his life savings to help the sick granddaughter of Tricia Wellmore, a woman he met on a dating site, his friend and neighbor, Eloise, hires Kay to do a background check. Everything initially appears legitimate, but as Kay digs deeper, it's clear this internet match is far from perfect. Kay needs to use all her resources to find who the scammer is and bring them to justice before more lonely men lose their life savings to a heartless con.

Everyone is enchanted by Olive’s new puppy - even an initially wary Taco. Thinking she might want to add a furry friend to her own home, Daisy convinces Kay to go with her on a whirlwind tour of shelters, rescues, and breeders. But puppy loves comes to an abrupt end when the two women find well-known animal advocate Prucilla Downing dead in a pile of broken trophies and slashed fur coats.

When my scratch-n-sniff psychic gift acts up, and it sniffs out an actual murderous plot, our fun outing takes a totally deadly turn. My scent-o-rama is spazzing out to the max! The clues are in the past, and we're racing against the clock to turn back time. But with my nose for clues and a little luck, hopefully, we can find a killer before school's out for murder.

Donations are pouring in for the charity yard sale, but as Kay and her friends sort through the glassware and gently used appliances, they discover a real skull in a box of old Halloween decorations.

The desire for dignity is universal and powerful. It is a motivating force behind all human interaction - in families, in communities, in the business world, and in relationships at the international level. When dignity is violated, the response is likely to involve aggression, even violence, hatred, and vengeance. On the other hand, when people treat one another with dignity, they become more connected and are able to create more meaningful relationships.

A narrowly escaped tragedy has Suzette thinking about filling in the old pond at the rear of her property—or even selling off that section of land entirely. Kay’s friend and neighbor has tried to keep the remaining portion of the family farm as unchanged as possible, but pond restoration is an undertaking too expensive for her budget.

In the early 1960s, the head of a prominent New York City Child Development Center and a psychiatrist from Columbia University launched a study designed to track the development of twins and triplets given up for adoption and raised by different families. The controversial and disturbing catch? None of the adoptive parents had been told that they were raising a twin - the study's investigators insisted that the separation be kept secret.

Kay's first real case as a licensed investigator is to track down a suspected mistress and the possible hidden assets of an estranged husband. It all seems pretty routine, but when the financial trail leads Kay down a rabbit hole of laundered money and bank fraud, a boring divorce case gets interesting.

David Driver isn't the only one buried in his grave. Kay's friend Olive has a family feud on her hands over who should have inherited the only remaining plot in their family section of the cemetery. When a cousin finally gives in and agrees to relocate her son's casket, the cemetery staff discover there's an extra body in the plot.

The stroke of midnight brings murder. What could be more magical than a black-tie Christmas party where those attending will socialize and rub elbows with the most prominent lawyers and judges in the state? Kay is enjoying the food, the wine, the conversation - and a dance with Judge Beck to the music of an elegant string quartet. But when she finds a dead body in an upstairs bathroom, Kay’s fairy-tale evening hits a sour note. Is the murderer a jilted lover? A rival for a lucrative position? A disgruntled client?

Life at 60 isn't quite what Kay Carrera expected. She's working as a skip-tracer for a PI who is desperate to land his own reality TV show. She has a new roommate who arrived with more than the usual amount of baggage. And her attempts at knitting are less than stellar - way less than stellar. Worse, the cataract surgery that restored her sight has also delivered an unexpected and disturbing side-effect. Kay sees ghosts. And when the dead turn to her for help, she just can't say no.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Nora Black Midlife Psychic Mysteries and experience a compelling world of mystery!

After years of planning and hard work, Merry Wynter was finally ready to host the grand opening gala of the Wynter Woods Center for the Performing Arts. With musicians, entertainers, members of the media and even influencers on the guest list, the event went off without a hitch—until a particularly nasty journalist posted a criticism of the gala and everything Merry was trying to accomplish.

My name is Nora Black, local shop owner and part-time psychic consultant in the resort town of Garden Cove. When an anonymous letter in the local paper exposes my extrasensory secret, our normally idyllic town is plagued by a series of mysterious accidents, and I find myself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

Annie Hart, daughter of Bryan Hart—talent agent to the stars—spends her life getting roped into whatever new task her father needs her to do for his VIP clients. So when she inherits a yarn shop in the small Indiana town of Franklin, she is curious to see what it feels like to have something that is solely hers! But when her arrival is greeted by the local law enforcement, Annie senses things are not quite as they seem in this idyllic town . . . everyone knows everybody in Franklin yet when it comes to the death of the shop's previous owner, nobody seems sure of anything!

When a typically closed-off Peg attempts online dating at Rose's strong urging, the experience plays out like an embarrassing mistake. At least, until she matches with Nolan Abercrombie—intelligent, attractive, and a self-proclaimed dog lover. The two share an instant connection that has Peg cautiously excited to finally bring someone special into her busy world of Standard Poodles and conformation shows.

Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people from carceral facilities in the 20th century: the closure of disability institutions and psychiatric hospitals. Decarcerating Disability provides a much-needed corrective, combining a genealogy of deinstitutionalization with critiques of the current prison system.

Kay acquired a beautiful antique sideboard at an estate auction, but a ghost has unfortunately conveyed with the furniture. Her stately Victorian isn't big enough for this additional spirit, but Kay isn't sure who is haunting the sideboard or why. And finding out the identity and motivations of the ghost might not be enough to convince the spirit to move on.

Mr. Peter has lived across the street long before Kay moved into her house, and over the decades, the collection of old washing machines, lawn mowers, and refrigerators in his front and back yard has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to find the front door. The man is an eccentric recluse, but how can anyone dislike a kindly person who loves old pottery and dinnerware, and slips Taco, the cat, chicken sandwiches every chance he gets? Evidently someone disliked him - disliked him enough to kill him.

Gilly is engaged, and I have invited a couple of friends to help us celebrate her bachelorette vacation in wine country. We are leaving work behind for three days of good food, good friends, and good fun. Or so I thought. When the youngest of our group, Tippy Davenport, gets flirty with a local musician, his girlfriend is less than pleased. Some might even call her reaction homicidal. But when the woman turns up dead during a hiking tour, our vacation turns into an investigation.