Showing results by author "Denise Grover Swank" in All Categories

One night. Just one night. Or at least that’s what Maisie tells herself when she brings Jack Durand home. Because even though his arms are a thing of beauty and he can charm wild animals, she’s in no position to start anything with anyone. So she pretends she’s just scratching an itch. Jack is pretending, too. His little sister is moving to Asheville as his ward, and between getting her through her senior year of high school and working at the family brewery, he doesn’t have time for a girlfriend. Even a sexy, no-nonsense powerhouse like Maisie. 

Life in Drum, Tennessee has been quiet since corruption was uncovered in the sheriff’s department three months ago - too quiet. Still, Carly is shocked when she discovers one of her sweetest lunch customers at the tavern has committed murder in cold blood. Carly is certain the woman was fulfilling an infamous “favor” for the town patriarch, Bart Drummond, but now she has to prove it. In Drum, all things seedy lead back to two men - Bart Drummond and the local drug king, Todd Bingham.

Rose is called into action when Neely Kate's cousin goes missing and the police refuse to take it seriously. But while the authorities - Rose's ex-boyfriend, included - are certain the missing woman has run away, mounting evidence points to foul play. Rose agrees to help her friend, even if it means partaking in Neely Kate's shenanigans, including an impromptu trip to a strip club.

The sixth book in the Rose Gardner Investigations series. For months, Rose has suspected her ex-brother-in-law, has a foot in the criminal world, and she’s equally sure her deceased sister had the evidence to prove it - evidence stolen days just days after Violet’s death. Those suspicions turn concrete when a body shows up near one of Mike's construction sites, and the concrete cracks open wide when her niece and nephew go missing. Rose might be weeks away from delivering her own baby, but that doesn’t stop her and her best friend, Neely Kate, from looking for the kids.

When Magnolia Steele started digging into her father's disappearance, she had no idea she'd find so much dirt. The secrets she unearthed have changed the official story of what happened to him. Everyone other than her now believes that he embezzled from a client with the help of several accomplices, one of whom got greedy and killed the rest, but Magnolia's convinced there's more to it. She finds plenty of conflicting evidence, including startling links between several recent deaths and her father's past.

Darcie Weatherby has a full plate - a preteen and sixteen-year-old twins, a wayward grandmother, a nightmare boss, and a manipulative ex-husband. The last thing she needs are hot flashes. Especially ones that start fires. Burning her boss’s house down was a total accident. Honest. It doesn’t take long before Darcie realizes she’s running on borrowed time. Unless she figures out a way to get these hot flashes under control, there’s a very good chance she’ll spontaneously combust at the Founder’s Day Masquerade Ball and leave her children motherless.

For as long as Magnolia Steele can remember, the past has had its hooks in her. Her time as a Broadway actress in New York City was an escape that ended in public humiliation, but now that she's back home in Franklin, Tennessee, she's feeling the grip of the two incidents that stole her innocence. The first was the disappearance of her father when she was a teen, who left home for a meeting and never came back. The other incident...well, her memories have returned, but it's best left where it belongs - in the past.

Ten years ago, Summer Butler was television's most popular teenage sleuth. Since then, she's hit - what gossip sites just love to call - the gutter. Nearly bankrupt, betrayed, estranged from her greedy mother, and just about unemployable, she's coaxed into that desperate haven for has-beens: reality TV.

Rose Gardner feels responsible for the death of a woman she tried - and failed - to save with her visions, and though she intends to do the “right” thing and tell James Malcolm she can’t possibly accept his offer of a relationship, she hasn’t yet mustered the strength. Worst of all, her sister is terminally ill, and there isn’t a thing she can do to save her. When a new case falls into Rose’s lap, she eagerly shifts her attention to someone else’s problems - except it’s Henryetta, and every person, and problem, is somehow connected. 

Caroline Blakely is certain of two things: She was happy with her life as a first grade school teacher, and she can never, ever return to it. After discovering a shocking truth about her father, the wealthy businessman at the helm of Blakely Oil, she’s on the run - a difficult feat given her father’s endless resources and connections. With the help of friends, Carly is able to secure a new identity, but her attempts to keep a low profile are blown to bits when she gets stuck in Drum, Tennessee.

After learning his best friend and boss is selling the brewery they built together to a soulless corporation, River quits on the spot, only for Georgie Buchanan to offer him a job the very same night. Helping her turn Buchanan Brewery around is his dream job, the perfect homage to the man who taught him everything and helped give him roots. There’s one problem: His new boss is his dream woman, and she’s not the type to mix business and pleasure.  

Ten years ago, Magnolia Steele fled Franklin, Tennessee, after an incident that left her with hazy memories and a horror of the place where she had been born and bred. Though her abrupt departure destroyed most of her treasured relationships, she vowed never to return...until she has no choice. When Magnolia's breakout acting role in a Broadway musical ends in disgrace, there's only one place she can go. She finds herself on her momma's porch, suitcase in hand.

Rose Gardner is trying to build a new normal. One that leaves the Fenton County crime world - including James "Skeeter" Malcolm, the current king - behind. Her best friend and roommate is a big part of that effort, but Neely Kate is busy building her own life anew. She disappeared for a few days, scaring the spit out of Rose - which is why Rose finds it impossible to deny her when she suggests they look for a missing parrot. Only this time Neely Kate isn't interested in the reward money - she's set them up to work with a cranky private investigator.

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa, instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Life in Henryetta, Arkansas is turned upside down with the arrival of a televangelist, but it's the death of a little old lady on Rose's street that catches her attention. The Henryetta police deem her death natural causes, but Rose suspects foul play and so does an unlikely supporter - the president of the Busy Body Club, her eighty-two year old neighbor Mildred. But Rose is in the middle of opening her nursery with her sister Violet, who's separated from her husband Mike, as well as stalling her boyfriend Joe's family, rich socialites who are determined to meet her.

After months of living in the Smoky Mountains town of Drum, Tennessee, Carly knows firsthand the financial hardship the citizens face. Still, she can’t muster the same excitement as everyone else when town patriarch Bart Drummond breaks ground on his new resort that promises more jobs and money. But the project comes to a screeching halt when the construction crew unearths a grisly discovery — an unmarked grave. The discovery threatens Carly’s ex-boyfriend when the authorities learn the body belongs to his old girlfriend who had supposedly left town....

While Rose recovers from a broken heart, she finds herself at odds with her sister and business partner, Violet. Rose buries herself in her landscaping work but becomes worried when her employee and friend, Bruce Wayne Decker, goes missing. In the meantime Fenton County Assistant DA Mason Deveraux has been patiently waiting to begin a relationship with Rose, but she realizes she needs to confront the demons of her past before she can embrace a new future.

Stephanie Ketterman has been doing her level best to find a new normal since her beloved husband's tragic death two years ago, but it's been a real struggle. After nearly three decades of wedded bliss with Paul, filling the gaping hole he left behind seems impossible. How can she look forward to her future when her heart is firmly stuck in the past? But when she begins to find evidence of secret trysts and cryptic notes written shortly before his death, she's forced to reexamine everything. What if perfect wasn't so perfect after all?

Carly Moore is finally feeling settled in Drum, Tennessee. She likes her job waitressing at Max’s Tavern and her boyfriend...she should have known both were too good to be true. The previous waitress Lula unexpectedly returns, threatening Carly’s job and stability in Drum. But when Lula disappears, Carly is the only one who believes she didn’t leave of her own violation. Lula has a few secrets of her own, and one person is front and center on Carly’s suspect list - the town’s drug lord.

When Rose reports for Fenton County jury duty she figures she's lucky to get out of a morning working at the DMV. Instead, despite a disastrous encounter with the new assistant district attorney, Mason Deveraux, she's picked as a juror on a murder case. As the trial progresses, she realizes an ominous vision she had in the men's restroom proves the defendant is innocent. And there's not a cotton picking thing she can do about it. Or is there? As if things weren't bad enough, Rose's older sister Violet is going through a mid-life crisis.