Showing results by narrator "Sarah Pesek" in All Categories

Val Fremden is a lot of things. Quirky. Jaded. Disaster-prone—to name a few. But more than anything, she’s afraid of commitment. So it's no wonder that when boyfriend Tom tells her he loves her, Val plays it cool. But when he accidently hauls her mom’s ashes to a junkyard, Val loses it like Chernobyl 2.0. On the warpath with Tom, Val turns to her wacko, low-rent friends to help track down her mom’s cremains. But three botched stakeouts and two disasters later, she still hasn't got peanuts.

All Val Fremden wanted was a quiet holiday away from her oddball family. But that just ain’t gonna happen. When Val and her boyfriend arrive at her mother’s “country estate” in Hicksville, Florida, the annual family fruitcake competition is well underway. And there’s more than a few fruits and nuts in the running.

All Harvey Beckett wants to do is help the residents of St. Marin's find the perfect book for that moment, snuggle with her hound dog Mayhem, and be ignored by her cat Aslan. But when the small waterside town's newest resident discovers the body of the community's persnickety reporter in her bookshop storeroom just before her grand opening, Harvey can't help trying to solve the crime, even when it might cost her business and her life. The more questions Harvey asks, the more secrets she uncovers.

When Bobbie and Grayson head back to Plant City to help out some old friends, they run into a “hole” new set of problems. While investigating a rash of missing persons, it’s not long before they get under each other’s skin. What’s making them all hot and bothered? Each other. In more ways than one. Bobbie’s down-to-earth explanations for the missing men irritate Grayson, while his otherworldly theories have her itching for a sane solution. But when new, conflicting evidence emerges in the case, they soon realize they’ve only scratched the surface of the mystery at hand.

In the perfect days of early May, bookshop owner Harvey Beckett is looking forward to evenings of walking Mayhem, reading in the before bed, and maybe even enjoying a snuggle with her favorite mechanic. But a meandering dog walk pushes pause on those plans when she and Mayhem stumble upon the body of the much-detested local bank manager. Harvey and her friends discover that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes in quiet St. Marin’s, a lot that people are hiding.

When Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest want to discreetly trade their best barely-worn threads for cash, they bring it to Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts - which is where Helen Hawthorne finds herself selling the most chic second-hand clothing in Florida. But the usual haggling turns homicidal when a particularly petty customer turns up dead - dangling by a darling Gucci scarf - and Helen's boss Vera is eyed as a suspect.

The Superior Club is where Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest - and snobbiest - come to play. But for Helen Hawthorne, it’s all work and no play. As a customer care clerk, it’s her job to cater to the clients’ every little whim and take care of their every little problem.

When Grayson and Bobbie head to the Florida Panhandle to witness a spectacle of nature, they take a wrong turn and quickly find themselves up to their armpits in arthropods. And that’s the good part of their vacation. Campers are disappearing without a trace from nearby Torreya State Park. Whatever’s stalking them soon sets its eyes on Bobbie and Grayson, too.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

What better place than the Sunshine State for dark souls to live out their golden years? After all, who would notice? Uh, Bobbie and Grayson, of course. As a rogue physicist turned conspiracy chaser, Grayson's motto is: Have sentience, will travel. As a broke, private-eye wannabe, Bobbie doesn't have much choice but to follow his sketchy command. But every road Grayson travels down leads to the bizarre, the unexplained, and taco-induced heartburn. Vampires. Zombiguanas. Ikigai smell. Its hard to decide which is scarier!

Harvey Beckett had heard tale of how the postmistress steams open people’s mail to feed her gossip-hungry customers, but when the postmistress is murdered, Harvey learns that the mail carrier might have been doing more than passing along juicy details. Soon, Harvey and her father find themselves embroiled in hunt to find a killer, a quest that might stop her dad’s heart.

When Harvey Beckett stumbles upon the body of the community's most reviled dairy farmer, she, her friends, and her parents are launched into an investigation that reveals a family secret that wasn't really that secret after all. Soon, Harvey's curiosity lands her and her mother in a heap of danger that may mark the end of her sleuthing

Chronic disease and pain doesn’t need to leave you stressed and depressed. Chronic illnesses come with unique types of stress. In Chronic Resilience, certified life coach and speaker Danea Horn, who suffers from chronic kidney disease, infertility, and other demanding health challenges due to a birth disorder called VACTERL Association, offers techniques and tools to help you rebound from the pressures of having a body that's doing things you wish you could control.

It's Autumn, bookstore owner Harvey Beckett’s favorite time of year, and she's most excited about two things–her bookshop's float in the annual Harvest Parade and pumpkin everything. But when her best friend Mart finds the body of her running coach and high school gym teacher behind the bleachers one fall morning, Harvey becomes enthralled in a mystery that uncovers their quaint town's darkest secrets.

When the local librarian is found dead among the stacks, the rumors about her reputation reach a fever pitch, but Harvey Beckett can’t let a fellow book-lover’s name be sullied. But when she drags her friends and her dogs into the investigation, she finds that it’s more than just rumors she has to contend with.

The streets of St. Marin’s are decorated for Christmas, and Harvey Beckett has decided that she’ll host Santa Claus at her bookstore, reviving a town’s long-standing tradition. But on the first day of the holiday season, a man stumbles into Santa’s lap and dies, threatening the holiday spirit . . . and bringing a slew of questions that Harvey can’t resist trying to answer.

Nail guns have always terrified Harvey Beckett, and now she knows why. Harvey loves sharing the parking lot of her bookstore with the hardware store across the way, but when an unruly customer is killed in the lot one night, she begins to wonder if the men who own the store are responsible. A few inquiries and a bit of spying later, and Harvey and her best friend find themselves with nowhere to run.

Harvey Beckett has just finished a quiet meal after shoveling the sidewalks around Main Street when the body of the new bartender in town is discovered behind the bar. When Harvey begins to look into the victim's pseudonym, she finds out far more than she bargained, enough to put her in real danger.

Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create? In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.

Newly married, Helen Hawthorne can’t wait to start her life anew - and start an investigation agency with her PI hubby, Phil. Her penchant for working dead-end jobs comes in handy when they’re hired to look into a fitness fanatic who may be cheating on his wife. Taking a receptionist job at their subject’s gym, Helen soon discovers that she has to start pumping her own iron if she wants to keep an eye on the weight-lifting lothario.