Showing results by narrator "Jill Smith" in All Categories

Twenty-six-year-old Beatrice Hyde-Clare is far too shy to investigate the suspicious death of a fellow guest in the Lake District. A spinster who lives on the sufferance of her relatives, she would certainly not presume to search the rooms of her host's son and his friend looking for evidence. Reared in the twin virtues of deference and docility, she would absolutely never think to question the imperious Duke of Kesgrave about anything, let alone how he chose to represent the incident to the local constable. And yet that's exactly what she does.

The first time I was declared dead, I lost my past. The second time, I lost my humanity. Now I’m being hunted, and if I die again, my soul is up for forfeit. After enrolling in Peel Academy, an elite supernatural boarding school on the British Isles, the last of the sirens, Gabrielle Fiori, only wants to fit in. Instead, the elixir meant to awaken her supernatural abilities kills her. When Gabrielle wakes up in the morgue 12 hours later, something wicked is awakened in her, something even the supernatural community has never seen before.

As much as Beatrice Hyde-Clare relished the challenge of figuring out who murdered a fellow guest during a house party in the Lake District, she certainly does not consider herself an amateur investigator. So when a London dandy falls dead at her feet in the entryway of a London Daily Gazette, she feels no compulsion to investigate. It was a newspaper office, after all, and reporters are already on the case as are the authorities.

Newly minted professor Evangeline “Van” Thompson’s academic dreams have turned into nightmares. She can’t wait to escape the pressure cooker of the university to spend the summer at Camp Firefly Falls with her bestie, Nate. Unfortunately, Nate breaks his leg halfway through the season, and his little sister, Willa, fills in for him as resident tennis instructor. Van has fond memories of the blonde moppet, but when Willa shows up at camp, she’s not so little anymore. She’s grown into a bombshell and a menace on the tennis court.

Just when Robin thought things were settling down a bit in Spellford Cove, she finds herself mired in a murder investigation once more when a customer of hers is poisoned. Then just to make matters worse, a photo of Queen of Tarts cheesecake in front of the body is printed on the front page of the local paper. 

Twenty-four-year-old Catherine Fellingham keeps a low profile - in society and in her family. A practical young woman, she leaves the spotlight to her beautiful younger sister and prefers quiet pursuits such as reading. But all that changes the moment she learns of her mother’s very excellent scheme to keep the family out of debtors’ prison. The scatter-brained Lady Fellingham has been selling commissions in the king’s army, and Catherine must shake off her indifference in order to save her family from a potentially ruinous scandal.

Stormy Morgan thought coming home to Shadow Hills would break her. Instead, she’s found strength, and only part of it is because she’s discovered that she’s a witch. Now, with her great-grandmother coming to town, she’s finally in line for some answers. Now she just has to solve a pesky little murder before she’s free to cast and curse. Following their first date, a quiet outing for pizza and romance, Stormy and her boyfriend, Hunter Ryan, discover that owner Giovanni Rossi was gunned down in his parking lot sometime during the overnight hours.

Robin Carter's life is less than stellar. All she has going for her are a minimum-wage job she hates, an uncanny ability to attract the biggest losers on her dating app, and a raccoon sitting in her kitchen sink eating her chips. So, when she finds out she's inherited a bakery in a small Washington town, Robin thinks this might just be the fresh start she desperately needs. Upon her arrival, however, Robin finds out she's inherited more than just a small business: she's also got her mother's magical powers. 

Everyone adores Miss May, except the guilty. In a small town where neighbors know each other, lawn chairs come out in the spring; if you sit around chatting long enough, someone brings you pie; and there are still skeletons in every closet. Luckily for Pine Grove, Miss May has a nose for crime. The body was found face-down in the orchard. 

When Joel Shields dies, Robin Grover's only goal is to get her four best friends back to Five Island Cove to celebrate the life of Kristen's husband. She alone has stayed in the cove while everyone else couldn't wait to get away. Alice Keller comes instantly, because her mansion in the Hamptons and her husband's infidelity is smothering her. Not only that, but Kristen has always been like a mother to her, and she wants to support her.

Professor and Mrs. Moriarty have a few weeks to kill before their theater opens. Happily, two small cases drop in their respective laps. Moriarty has what looks like a scheme to swindle army veterans out of their discharge pay. Angelina must find a missing servant by winkling her way into a circle of officers’ wives. Neither case seems terribly challenging - just enough to provide an agreeable competition.

Stormy Morgan left her hometown of Shadow Hills, Michigan, with one goal: To write the great American novel and strike it rich. Now, without a book contract, she’s back at her family restaurant in a one-stoplight town...and she’s convinced things couldn’t possibly get worse. That feeling only lasts until her first shift, when on a trip to the storage building behind the restaurant, she literally trips over a body. Stormy is a woman - or maybe a witch - lost in a sea of magic and despair...but murder might just lead her out of it.

Finally, Flora Hyde-Clare has wrest the narrative from Beatrice by finding her own compelling murder mystery to solve. Well, it’s not entirely her own because the victim is her cousin’s former beau Mr. Theodore Davies, whose father cruelly separated the young lovers (though not so cruelly, for it left the door open for Bea to woo the duke of Kesgrave).

The former Beatrice Hyde-Clare is having a little trouble adjusting to her new situation. Now installed as the duchess of Kesgrave in elegant splendor in Berkeley Square, she is confounded by the stately residence’s seemingly endless array of rooms. And every time one of the maids addresses her as "your grace", she flinches.

Having inexplicably nabbed the duke of Kesgrave, 26-year-old spinster Beatrice Hyde-Clare is determined to marry him at once, and no amount of hand-wringing from anxious family members, worried friends, and well-meaning acquaintances will convince her to delay. Except, maybe, she is a little swayed by her uncle’s efforts to make amends for treating her with cold indifference during her childhood.

When a body shows up near Peel Academy, all signs indicate the killer is a vampire. Ravaged throat, body drained of blood. At least that’s all it appears to be when the Politia, the supernatural police force, assigns Gabrielle to the case. Now it’s Gabrielle’s job to figure out who did it. But after a second body turns up with the same lethal wounds, it’s clear that a serial killer is stalking the island.

The only witch in the world? It might feel like it to Stormy Morgan, but she knows better. Twenty minutes away, in a town called Hemlock Cove, witches have taken over. Sure, the bulk of the town is made up of frauds looking to shore up their tourism industry, but there are real witches, too. There’s a family with the last name of Winchester, and they’re notorious. Stormy wants to meet them, but she has a myriad of problems darkening her doorstep.

He was given another chance at life and from the infinite possibilities available, he chose to come back as a mechanical man, a Metalman, named Repair. Now he has to contend with a research lab full of gnomes who say he owes them for bringing him back from death, a strange city that is going through a magical industrial revolution, and adversaries that want to see him broken into pieces.

With chronic disorders among American children reaching epidemic levels, hundreds of thousands of parents are desperately seeking solutions to their children's declining health, often with little medical guidance from the experts. What's Making Our Children Sick? convincingly explains how agrochemical industrial production and genetic modification of foods is a culprit in this epidemic.

After spending months on an alien world for work, all John Espinoza just wants to do is get home to his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, the transport ship he chose is attacked by pirates and he ends up stranded on an unknown planet where the very air is toxic to him. Now John has to team up with the ship’s AI and the two have to survive on this hostile alien world and figure out some way to get off the planet or get a message out for help. Can they overcome their dwindling resources, alien life forms, and hostile space forces? Or will they die together, planet-bound?