Showing results by narrator "Barbara McCulloh" in All Categories

Indigo Tea Shop owner Theodosia Browning is lured into attending the Heritage Society's Pirates and Plunder soiree. But it's an antique diamond skull ring that gets plundered by someone, and a history intern is murdered in the process. Theodosia knows she'll have to whet her investigative skills to find the killer among a raft of suspects....

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.

After accidentally destroying the intricately carved chalice her people have treasured for over a hundred years, Charlotte Durand sets out in search of a skilled artisan who can repair the damage. What she expected to be a two-day trek becomes much more daunting when a treacherous snowstorm sets in. Searching for solitude and respite from his troubling past, the last thing Damien Levette needs in the middle of a mountain blizzard is to tend to another person, but he can't leave behind the mysterious woman he finds half frozen at the edge of a mountain lake.

After years of solitude, teacher Tilda Muirhead is shocked when a man arrives at the Two Harts Ranch school claiming to be her brother. Rancher Josh Hart is suspicious of the newcomer's claims, especially with the ongoing hunt for treasure nearby. With danger ever closer, they come to discover that faith and love are greater than gold.

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.

This collection includes three charming and festive holiday novellas spiced with humor, frontier action, and sweet romance.

Debuting as a full-time reporter, Bubbles lands an interview with a woman accused of murdering a beloved high school principal. When the suspect keels over dead—in mid-revelation—Bubbles’s confidential notes become a life-threatening hot commodity among a romance-obsessed detective, a Polish Mafioso, and a foot fetishist on the lam.

After being widowed on her wedding day, Emma Johnson moves to Cheyenne with her sister-in-law to start over. When her deceased husband's brother travels with her to help her get established, she finds herself drawn to him. But is he only after his brother's inheritance, or does he truly care for her in return?

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.

Selah Hopewell seems to be the only woman in the Virginia colony who has no wish to wed. True, there are too many men and far too few women in James Towne. But Selah already has her hands full assisting her father in the family's shop. And now she is in charge of an incoming ship of tobacco brides who must be looked after as they sort through their many suitors.

When an explosion kills men and damages the CR Mining Company, the Bodens realize their troubles are not behind them as they thought. Shadowy forces are still working against them. Cole Boden finds himself caught between missing his time back East and all that New Mexico offers. Sure, he fights with his siblings now and then, but he does care for them. He enjoys running the mine and, when he's honest, he admits that Melanie Blake captures his interest in a way no other woman ever has.

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.

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.

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 Boden clan thought their problems had ended with the death of a dangerous enemy, but have they truly uncovered the real plot to take their New Mexico ranch? Rancher Justin Boden is now in charge. He is normally an unshakable and rugged man, but with his brother, Cole, shot and in mortal danger, even a tough man faces doubts. And it doesn't help that Angie DuPree, the assistant to the doctor trying to save Cole, is as distracting a woman as Justin ever laid eyes on.

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.

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.

All Clare Thornton wanted was a relaxing vacation in the mountains learning how to ski, but a snowstorm causes her to wreck her car and seek out shelter in a seemingly abandoned cabin. But when the famous movie star Logan Longcross walks through the door of the cabin Clare finds herself on trial by a man who fiercely guards his privacy and does not accept her innocent explanations of the car crash as her reason for showing up on his doorstep.

When Cimarron ranch patriarch Chance Boden is caught in an avalanche, the quick actions of hired hand Heath Kincaid save him. Badly injured, Chance demands that his will be read and its conditions be enforced immediately. Without anyone else to serve as a witness, Heath is pressed into reading the will. If Justin, Sadie, and Cole Boden don't live and work at home for the entire year, the ranch will go to their low-down cousin, Mike.

Reluctant debutante Keziah Montgomery lives beneath the weighty expectations of her staunch Confederate family, forced to keep her epilepsy secret for fear of a scandal. As the tensions of the Civil War arrive on their doorstep in Savannah, Keziah sees little cause for balls and courting. Despite her discomfort, she cannot imagine an escape from her familial confines - until her old schoolmate Micah shows her a life-changing truth that sets her feet on a new path...as a conductor in the Underground Railroad.