Showing results by narrator "Anthea Greco" in All Categories

What drives someone to keep reaching for all that glitters, no matter the price? It’s easy to believe that more is better: more acclaim, more control, more wealth. But when dreams are fueled by greed, they can quickly twist into nightmares. These six propulsive short stories explore what happens when the true cost of ambition comes due.

In the car on the way to her husband’s funeral, Honey Beckett still can hardly believe that Barney is actually dead. Granted, he was more than twice her age. But he was Barney Beckett, visionary tech genius, full of surprises—by turns romantic, inspirational, and controlling. Always in control. At the service, she impulsively goes to sit with the three ex-wives: practical Rita, fiery Svetlana, ambitious Meredith. Each broke up the other’s marriage in turn—and now, one final betrayal awaits.

When private investigator Reid is sent to look into a suspicious car crash, he finds himself in the one place he swore he'd never go back to—the town where he grew up. Returning to Manson brings back traumatic memories that Reid has spent a decade burying, and keeping his past separate from the investigation is futile. People remember what he did all those years ago. As rumours swirl about the couple involved in the crash, Reid's line of questioning is taken in a new direction when the Chief of Police's daughter goes missing. 

Celebrity chef Ian Curley is found dead in his walk-in freezer. The prime suspects are his three ex-wives, who meet up every Friday evening in their favorite corner booth of his restaurant. It’s a tradition for Anita, Mary-Jane, and Rosie to drink, dine, and commiserate. But commit murder? All aggrieved, each one has a motive and an alibi. And a brilliant detective has reservations. Who did it? The night will tell.

It’s 1880 in the North Island town of Otaki, where Aroha lives contentedly with her mother, Linda - until a fateful tragedy leaves Aroha traumatized and plagued by a cursed guilt. For the long recovery ahead, Aroha is sent to Rata Station, a thriving sheep farm that Aroha’s mother and grandmother once called home. Linda knows it’s the perfect place for her daughter to heal, find hope, and start a life she can call her own.

It’s 1863, nearly twenty years since Ida Lange came to New Zealand to change her life and realize a dream. With her best friend, Cat, she established a thriving sheep farm on the continental plains where their combined families settled - and succeeded. But the idyll of Rata Station could be reaching an end. The fires of change are coming again, and this time it’s Ida’s and Cat’s daughters - Mara, Carol, and Linda - who will get swept up in the ensuing chaos.

Motive. Means. Opportunity. Without proof of all three, the guilty can walk free. But even with an alibi, the innocent can still be condemned. For six award-winning, bestselling authors of psychological suspense, truth and lies weave together in a tangle of conflicting loyalties, hidden crimes, and dark secrets. Pull one thread, and there’s no telling what will unravel.

Rising star US Congresswoman Isabella Rhodes was supposed to be making history—not headlines. But when a devastating betrayal shatters her political career overnight, she flees to La Musa, a sleepy village in the heart of Umbria where the days are slow, the pasta is handmade, and no one knows her name.

When the sun goes down, the secrets come out... After her parents' deaths, Aria Jones is sent to live with her reclusive starlet aunt at the Chateau Marmont, the hotel on Hollywood Boulevard with a notorious reputation. Left alone to wander the hotel, Aria sees everything - all the ways people...

1987: It's late summer and a time of change when a 17-year-old girl leaves the local shopping center in the sleepy town of Lowbridge and is never seen again. Her unsolved disappearance is never far from the town's memory. There's those who grew up in the shadow of her loss whose own lives were altered forever, and those who know more than they're saying. It just takes an outsider to ask the right questions.

Tara’s quirky PI business is attracting some even quirkier customers. She’s not sure how Madame Vine’s Escort Agency got her number. And then there’s the eccentric motorcycle racing team owner, Bolo Ignatius. Both these clients want Tara to investigate suspicious circumstances that turn up dead bodies. That can only mean one thing in this town: John Viaspa. Tara goes in for round two with the local crime boss, while balancing the tight rope of her deliciously complicated love life. Tara Sharp’s life can only be described as furious fun.

Tara Sharp’s new case brings her to Brisbane, where she is placed in charge of Slim Sledge, a high-maintenance rock star. Tara’s a sucker for a backstage pass, and it’ll provide some much-needed distance between herself and her mother’s not-so-subtle hints about getting a “real” job, not to mention crime lord Johnny Viaspa, the only man on the planet who wants her dead. She expected the music industry to be cut-throat, but Tara soon uncovers more problems than just Slim Sledge’s demands and his rabid fans.

It’s a few days until her eighteenth birthday, and Cass is holding the fort at the Sharp detective agency. All is quiet in the office until a distraught girl runs in, seeking refuge from an rampaging boyfriend who is hell bent on destroying the place. Tara Sharp arrives home from a holiday to find her workplace in chaos. At the same time, she receives an urgent summons by the bikies to do a job for them. It seems they believe she still owes them a favor. As usual with Tara though, all roads lead back to John Viaspa, this time by way of a rival bike gang and John’s cousin Abramo.

Dead bodies, a complicated love life, a conflict between the local drug cartels, and a favor owed to the local bikies have Tara scrambling to stay ahead of the game.

Housewife Theresa wants to get fit; she also wants a few precious minutes to herself. So at sunrise each day she strikes out past the waves. From the same beach, the widowed Marie swims. With her husband gone, it is the one constant in her new life. Elaine takes to the sea having recently moved from England, while Leanne is 25 years old and has only herself to rely on.

The Golden Book of Life & The Plasma Soul Codes is an extraordinary self-help bible overflowing with life-changing spiritual information, healing guidance, cosmic wisdom, and unconditional love specifically designed to empower you to live your best life.

Twin sisters May and June couldn’t be more different. May is quiet, self-conscious, withdrawn; June is boisterous, beautiful, magnetic…and missing. It’s been a year since June disappeared, a year of May waiting for her to turn up with an explanation of where she’s been and why she left. But with the discovery of an old newspaper article comes a secret: their mother once vanished, too, on the same date when she was nineteen years old. Just like June.

Two years ago, Desi Priest made a horrific mistake and destroyed her family. Now, she is coming home to make amends: to her daughter, Maya, who’s nurturing her own dangerous plan; to her brother, Jackson, who blames himself; and to her close friend, Pete, who has spent years shielding her from a devastating truth. But as Desi returns to her beloved house by the ocean, there is a stranger waiting for her. Someone who needs her help. Someone whose arrival will reveal a chain of secrets hidden for over 20 years.

When Louisa Deasey receives a message from a Frenchwoman called Coralie, who has found a cache of letters in an attic, written about Louisa’s father, neither woman can imagine the events it will set in motion. The letters, dated 1949, detail a passionate affair between Louisa’s father, Denison, and Coralie’s grandmother, Michelle, in post-war London. They spark Louisa to find out more about her father, who died when she was six.

Jo Creighton's life was in tatters. All she had to show for the last 10 years was a failed marriage and trampled self-esteem. She'd been a naive fool who believed in fairy tales and true love.