Showing results by narrator "Barbara McCulloh" in All Categories

A gifted trainer in a time women are not allowed to race, Nora Fenton prefers horses to men. They're easier to handle, they're more reliable, and they never tell her what to do. After her father's passing, Nora is determined to save her struggling horse farm, starting with entering her prize colt into the harness races at the 1905 Mississippi Fair. If she wins, she may have a chance at independence. But when a stranger arrives and starts asking disconcerting questions, she suspects he may have other motives than unseating her in the training job that is rightfully hers.

Normally Theodosia wouldn't attend a black tie affair for all the tea in China. But she can hardly say no to her hunky, handsome boyfriend Max, who directs public relations for the Gibbes Museum in Charleston. Max has organized an amazing gala opening for an exhibit of a genuine 18th century Chinese teahouse, and the crème de la crème of Charleston society is invited.

When Cassandra Madden was 12 years old, she fell in love with Jefferson Ames, a young man she met at one of her mother's business conferences. When she grew up, she went to college and even met a man she thought she'd marry, but Jeff was still in her head. She broke off her near engagement and went to Williamsburg, Virginia, where she secretly got herself a job as a nanny to the widowed Jeff's young child.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier Drayton Conneley are guests at a bird hunt styled in the precise manner of an English shooting party. Which means elevenses (sloe gin fizzes), gun loaders, the drawing of pegs, fine-looking bird dogs, and shooting costumes of tweed, herringbone, and suede. But as gunshots explode like a riff of Black Cat firecrackers, another shot sounds too close for comfort to Theodosia and Drayton. Intrigued but worried, Theodosia wanders into the neighbor's lavender field where she discovers their host, Reginald Doyle, bleeding to death.

New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Laura Childs’ Tea Shop mysteries deliver delicious tales steeped in intrigue. In this 13th series entry, Theodosia Browning is happily catering the opening of Charleston’s Neptune Museum when she discovers the drowned body of ex-boyfriend Parker Scully. The police don’t buy her theory that Parker was murdered, forcing Theodosia to undertake her own investigation to discover the truth.

Theodosia's Honey Bee Tea was an elegant affair set in Charleston's new Petigru Park amid newly planted native grasses and a community beekeeping project. But when a phony beekeeper shows up and sprays toxic smoke at the guests, the party erupts in chaos. Worse yet, a shot rings out and Osgood Claxton III, candidate for state legislature, falls to the ground—dead.

Set amidst the majestic Big Sky country of 1881 Montana, Tracie Peterson’s enthralling tale spotlights Lacy Gallatin, a tomboy who feels out of place with her married sisters. Riding off in snow-covered darkness to seek the counsel of the only mother figure she’s ever known, Lacy finds herself snowbound with a man who often exasperates her. And yet strange stirrings in her heart now confuse her.

Pursued by a Texas bounty hunter, Matthew returns to Fountain Creek, Colorado, to apologize to his brother for insulting his wife Annabelle and to share his Idaho homestead. Learning that his brother has left already, he answers an ad for someone to guide a widow to Idaho. But he's shocked to see the widow is Annabelle, a woman whose sordid past repulses him.

A shared heart for justice pulls them together, but is their love strong enough to survive their trials? Dr. Carrie Vogel's heart is shattered when her groundbreaking medical research is stolen and falsely credited to her ex-fiancé. With years of diligent work lost, she grapples with the disastrous turn of her career and leans on her faith for strength.

It is Sunday afternoon, and Theodosia and Drayton are catering a formal tea at a hot-air-balloon rally. But as the sky turns gray and the clouds start to boil up, a strange object zooms out of nowhere. It is a drone, and it appears to be buzzing around the balloons, checking them out. As Theodosia and Drayton watch, the drone, hovering like some angry, mechanized insect, deliberately crashes into the balloon next to them. An enormous, fiery explosion erupts, and everyone watches in horror as the balloon plummets to the earth, killing all three of its passengers.

Guilt has defined Luke Dempsey's life. But it was self-destructiveness that landed him in prison. When his friend and fellow inmate lay dying shortly before Luke's release, the older man revealed he left a string of clues for his daughter, Finley, that will lead her to the treasure he's hidden.

It was a dark and stormy night, but that was the least of Theodosia Browning's troubles. As she approaches St. Philips Graveyard, Theodosia sees two figures locked in a strange embrace. Wiping rain from her eyes, Theodosia realizes she has just witnessed a brutal murder and sees a dark-hooded figure slip away into the fog. In the throes of alerting police, Theodosia recognizes the victim—it is the daughter of her friend, Lois, who owns the Antiquarian Bookshop next door to her own Indigo Tea Shop.

Chase McKnight will do anything to secure his family's ranch - but marriage to a complete stranger? That's a hard pill to swallow. Yet the will is clear: Chase needs a wife by his side if he wants to keep his home, so he meets his veiled lady at the courthouse steps and reluctantly says, "I do." Too bad he married the wrong bride. Stuck in a secret compromise, Emily Fields has one year to learn the ways of the ranch and convince Chase's family they're happily married. But when the lie becomes true, the past catches up to them, and they must save the love they never expected...

Morgan Spencer has had just about all he can take of life. Following the tragic death of his wife, Jill, he retreats to his brother's Rocky Mountain ranch to heal and focus on the care of his infant daughter, Olivia. Two years later, Morgan begins to make plans to return to his home in Santa Barbara to pick up the pieces of his life and career. Quinn Riley has been avoiding her past for four years. Standing up for the truth has forced her into a life of fear and isolation.

It is the week before Halloween and Theodosia Browning, proprietor of the Indigo Tea Shop, and her tea sommelier, Drayton, are ghosting through the dusk of a cool Charleston evening on their way to the old Bouchard Mansion. An author's body is suddenly tossed from a third-floor tower room and left to dangle at the end of a rope. Police come screaming in and tea maven Theodosia's boyfriend, Detective Pete Riley, is sent to the victim's apartment to investigate. But minutes later, he is shot and wounded by a shadowy intruder.

When Minerva Jane Jenkins was just 14 years old, she married a man who moved her to the mountains. He carried with him a small box, which he told her was filled with gold. And when he died 50 years later, he made her promise to keep his secret. She is to tell no one about the box or the treasure it contains. Now 94, Minerva is nearing the end of what has sometimes been a lonely life. But she's kept that secret. Even so, rumors of hidden gold have a way of spreading, and Minerva is visited by a reporter, Del Rankin, who wants to know more of her story.

On the family’s Brazos River Ranch in Texas, Avery Elliott helps run her grandfather’s commercial construction business. Raised by Senator Elliott, Avery has never doubted her grandfather is the man of integrity and faith she’s always believed him to be . . . until the day she finds him standing with a gun over the body of a dead man. To make matters worse, Avery’s just discovered a billing discrepancy for materials supposedly purchased for construction of the Lago de Cobre Dam.

The secrets of a group of childhood friends unravel in this haunting thriller by Edgar Award winner S. J. Rozan. Set in New York in the unforgettable aftermath of September 11, Absent Friends brilliantly captures the mood of a singular time and place, winding through the wounded streets of New York and Staten Island and into a maze of old crimes, damaged lives, and heartbreaking revelations.

Gwen, Beth, and Lacy Gallatin fashion a life for themselves in the Montana wilds, operating a roadhouse that is located at the crossroads of two major stage lines. When their father is accidentally killed, the oldest sister, Gwen, reasons that she's cursed. After all, death seems to haunt her: her mother, now her father...and she was married for a mere ten days before her husband died from a bout of measles.

Catering a high-class trunk show at Heart's Desire Jewelry is a shining achievement for Theodosia and the Indigo Tea Shop. After all, a slew of jewelers, museums, and private collectors will be there to showcase their wares and sip some of Theo's best blends. But just as Theo settles in to enjoy the fruits of her labor, the party is crashed by a gang of masked muggers who steal the precious gems and jewels on display.