Showing results by author "C.j" in All Categories

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager.

In book three of the series, dark deeds, intended to remain hidden beneath the cold waters bordering the island, have surfaced, shocking the small community and casting a dark shadow over its residents. Confronted with a blood-speckled rowboat and a waterlogged corpse, Sheriff Lane is desperate for answers, some of which can only be found on the mainland. Faced with limited resources and her lone deputy following another lead, Lane turns to Park Ranger, Philip Russell, who is more than eager to help investigate the mysterious homicide.

Stories with depth, strong protagonists, high tension, all told while pulling at your heartstrings, or making you smile with understanding. In this anthology, you'll find fifteen stories, including many novelettes. Go on adventures with heroes old and young, a couple of war pigs, and visit many new fantasy worlds. Watch out for the dragons! Deep Magic: Volume 3 has stories that will satisfy your hunger to escape.

A charming seaside mystery with heart, humour and a determined female sleuth. Ordinarily, there’s not too much crime to speak of in Port Erin, a sleepy seaside village on the Isle of Man. So when Quinn Flitcroft, working as an insurance fraud investigator in England, hears about a gruesome murder in her hometown, she is understandably horrified. Quinn is fairly confident that her former Isle of Man Constabulary colleagues will wrap this case up in no time.

Libby Tebbit had absolutely had her fill of big-city life. So, when presented with the opportunity to take over her gran’s shop, The Bookshop by the Beach, she’d have been crazy to turn it down, right? Idyllic notions of lazy days by the ocean shore, shooing away the surplus eligible bachelors circling around her like squawking gulls, filled her head. These things were certain to await her, she felt confident, in this next glorious chapter of her life - this wonderful seaside adventure on the Isle of Man.

Dark raven hair and piercing green eyes, sweet and naive Eleanor Romero would make a beautiful bride. Ten million dollars and a forced signature later and she was mine. Like a thief I came in the dead of night and stole her away from her protected castle and placed her in a gilded cage made of gold. The deal had been made. She would become my wife. She would bear my children. She would bend to my will. But most importantly, she would help me destroy the man she loved most, the man who took everything from me: her father.

There are three rules in Black River Falls: Don’t break curfew unless you want the monsters to find you. Don’t ask questions, no matter what. And when someone goes missing, don’t go looking. Joey Barnes obeyed those rules, until the day her mother vanished without a trace. She’s spent two years secretly hunting for clues, and she’s discovered plenty of things that don’t make sense, even for Black River Falls.

Philip Russell, a US Park Ranger for a small island in the Pacific Northwest, has stumbled across a dead body in the forest. Unsure if the dead woman is a local or someone from the mainland, the new female sheriff has come to Rockfish Island to find out if the community has anything still to fear. Eager to help solve the mystery, both instantly find themselves at odds with each other. Philip, defending the people he's known his whole life, and Sheriff Lane, giving no one the benefit of the doubt...not even Philip.

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her–an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill.

The Crafternoon Sewcial Club’s going from strength to strength, although Charlotte Newman is far from resting on her laurels. When a chance encounter highlights the sorry plight of parents unable to afford school uniforms, Charlotte is itching to develop a solution. And before too long, she’s initiated a clothing exchange program christened ReCyCool. Unfortunately, news of her fledgling enterprise is painfully slow to travel around the Isle of Man. If it has any chance of succeeding, Charlotte will have to arrange something spectacular to get the word out.

Orphaned as a child by a blood feud and sold as a slave to an exiled chieftain in Ireland, the boy Hasting had little hope of surviving to adulthood. The gods had other plans. A ship arrived at his master's longphort carrying a man who would alter the course of his destiny and take him under his wing to teach him the ways of the Vikings. His is a story of a boy who was a slave, who became a warlord, and who helped topple an empire.

The medical profession’s faith in electric shock therapies for treating female nervous conditions is shaken after a patient dies while connected to one such device. Harry Armitage is hired by the doctor arrested for her murder, and he invites Cleo to help him uncover the truth. After all, the doctor is the same one who tried—and failed—to treat Cleo’s aunt. As they dig deeper, it becomes apparent the doctor has failed other patients too, and those patients’ loved ones want revenge.

The weekend was supposed to be an enjoyable time with her family at the neo-Gothic manor of Lord and Lady Kershaw, but when the gamekeeper is murdered, Cleo can’t rest until the killer is caught. As a witness herself, she’s frustrated with the incompetence of the local police who lay the blame on a man who conveniently disappeared. When she realizes their ineptitude is a result of Lord Kershaw’s influence, she focuses her investigation on the earl and his family, against the wishes of her uncle.

A well-kept secret from the average tourist, Rockfish Island is the chosen destination for an all-inclusive corporate getaway with a fun-filled weekend of glamping and horseback riding planned, each guest expecting a good time despite mounting tensions and ladder-climbing aspirations. When a shot rings out in the early morning, the celebratory atmosphere dissolves, and Sheriff Lane, with Ranger Philip Russell in tow, must discern if the corresponding death is an accident, a matter of opportunity, or a murder for hire.

A wealthy businessman with a reputation for taking risks rose from the slums to the height of success. But success comes at a price, especially when it’s achieved at the expense of others.

When Gavin travels to Edinburgh with his good friend Oscar Barratt, he’s eager to acquire a centuries-old book on witchcraft for the soon-to-open Glass Library. Even with ruthless railroad magnate John J. Defoe in the bidding, the victory comes easily. Perhaps too easily. Hours later, the book is stolen. A single clue links the theft to the recent abduction of two women, both magicians.

Cleo’s holiday with her family to the seaside resort town of Brighton is everything she hoped it would be…until she receives a blackmail note. The blackmailer demands Cleo help her or a story revealing Cleo’s investigating will appear in the newspaper. With her uncle warning her to keep her detecting activities private, Cleo agrees to meet the blackmailer when they return to London. But when the woman is seen getting on the train but not off, Cleo grows concerned.

Until quite recently, Ben Parker was considered, by many, one of the finest bakers on the Isle of Man. Indeed, his wife was once the first to concur with that accolade, directly attributing his culinary skills to her expanding waistline, in fact. So it was ironic, Ben couldn’t help but consider, that she ran off with the dietician he’d hired at her behest.

Cleo is hired by the housekeeper at a Mayfair residence after the police rule the sudden death of the butler was the result of natural causes. Not convinced by the verdict, she wants Cleo to prove foul play was involved. Considering he was acting mysteriously around some of the guests, and they were equally mysterious when they saw him, murder is a possibility. When the investigation leads Cleo to another decades-old murder and the sudden disappearance of the primary suspect, she’s even more determined to uncover the truth.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager. With the New Year’s Eve ball approaching fast and the hotel’s reputation hanging by a thread, Cleo must find the killer before the ball, and the hotel itself, are ruined.