Showing results by narrator "Sarah Pesek" in All Categories

Harvey Beckett had heard tale of how the postmistress steams open people’s mail to feed her gossip-hungry customers, but when the postmistress is murdered, Harvey learns that the mail carrier might have been doing more than passing along juicy details. Soon, Harvey and her father find themselves embroiled in hunt to find a killer, a quest that might stop her dad’s heart.

In the perfect days of early May, bookshop owner Harvey Beckett is looking forward to evenings of walking Mayhem, reading in the before bed, and maybe even enjoying a snuggle with her favorite mechanic. But a meandering dog walk pushes pause on those plans when she and Mayhem stumble upon the body of the much-detested local bank manager. Harvey and her friends discover that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes in quiet St. Marin’s, a lot that people are hiding.

Nail guns have always terrified Harvey Beckett, and now she knows why. Harvey loves sharing the parking lot of her bookstore with the hardware store across the way, but when an unruly customer is killed in the lot one night, she begins to wonder if the men who own the store are responsible. A few inquiries and a bit of spying later, and Harvey and her best friend find themselves with nowhere to run.

The streets of St. Marin’s are decorated for Christmas, and Harvey Beckett has decided that she’ll host Santa Claus at her bookstore, reviving a town’s long-standing tradition. But on the first day of the holiday season, a man stumbles into Santa’s lap and dies, threatening the holiday spirit . . . and bringing a slew of questions that Harvey can’t resist trying to answer.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

When unlikely sleuth Helen Hawthorne flees St. Louis, she fetches up in Fort Lauderdale, suddenly surrounded by the beautiful and the Botoxed. They all shop at the same place — Juliana’s, the overpriced boutique where Helen works. And they’re all looking for a wealthy wise guy to take to the cleaners.

Val Fremden is a lot of things. Quirky. Jaded. Disaster-prone—to name a few. But more than anything, she’s afraid of commitment. So it's no wonder that when boyfriend Tom tells her he loves her, Val plays it cool. But when he accidently hauls her mom’s ashes to a junkyard, Val loses it like Chernobyl 2.0. On the warpath with Tom, Val turns to her wacko, low-rent friends to help track down her mom’s cremains. But three botched stakeouts and two disasters later, she still hasn't got peanuts.

It's Autumn, bookstore owner Harvey Beckett’s favorite time of year, and she's most excited about two things–her bookshop's float in the annual Harvest Parade and pumpkin everything. But when her best friend Mart finds the body of her running coach and high school gym teacher behind the bleachers one fall morning, Harvey becomes enthralled in a mystery that uncovers their quaint town's darkest secrets.

Val’s always been unlucky at love—and a whole bunch of other things. But she’s never actually felt cursed. Until now. When Tom gives Val an engagement ring for her 50th birthday, she wants to fly the coop. But it’s Tom who skips out on the romantic getaway he planned. When he can’t make the trip, one of Val’s pals goes instead. On the first day, her friend entangles Val in a prank that ticks off the wrong tourist. On the second day, she gets Val charged with murder. Did I mention Val was unlucky?

When cryptid chasers Bobbie and Grayson head to a friend's prepper compound for a Halloween party, all bets are off about who the real freak is—even when the masks come off. Grayson is acting strangely out of character. Bobbie's on the hunt for family jewels. Garth and his friends put the Trailer Park Boys to shame. And Earl? He's just being Earl. And quite frankly, that's enough.

In a virus-fearing world, skin hunger can drive you crazy — and human petting zoos can return you to yourself. Ten years after the deadly virus nicknamed Henny Penny, the world has largely recovered — there’s an interim government as well as law and order, and life is returning to normal for the greatly reduced population. Lily has lived in fearful isolation for ten years, afraid to rejoin the world. But a return-to-work order and an invitation to go to a petting zoo — a highly illegal club where people go to touch and be touched — start to bring her back to life.

Chronic disease and pain doesn’t need to leave you stressed and depressed. Chronic illnesses come with unique types of stress. In Chronic Resilience, certified life coach and speaker Danea Horn, who suffers from chronic kidney disease, infertility, and other demanding health challenges due to a birth disorder called VACTERL Association, offers techniques and tools to help you rebound from the pressures of having a body that's doing things you wish you could control.

Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create? In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.

Planning for a rainy day has never been Val’s forte. But when a storm brews up right in her own backyard, Val’s forced to get off her lounge chair and spring into action. A shady, ham-fisted developer’s threatening to knock down Val’s favorite beach haunt, along with all the precious memories held within its shabby walls. With the owner’s signature on the bill of sale, the plan seems like a done deal. Or is it? Something fishy is going on at the beach, and it’s going to take all the wits Val can muster to put a pig-headed developer out to pasture.

Val knows she can’t solve all the world’s problems, so she’s settled on two: smashing every tacky figurine on the planet…and ridding the universe of her boyfriend’s hideous vinyl recliner.

When Val tries to revive her old writing career, story ideas prove as elusive as a moment alone without her boyfriend Tom breathing down her neck. Tom’s moved in, and Val’s itching to move out–at least temporarily. A last-minute getaway to the country seems like the perfect solution for dissolving her writer’s block. But a fateful fish fry ends up inspiring a whole different kind of dead end.

When Val’s forced to take up dog-sitting as a second career, she runs into one tiny snag. She’s afraid of dogs. In fact, the only thing she’s more afraid of is Tom moving in and wrecking her Sweatpants Saturdays. With neighbor Laverne facing the same impending doom, the two women decide sabotage is the perfect solution to change the plans of their cohabitation-minded boyfriends. But their scheme soon gets sidetracked when a swarthy guy with a shady past moves in next door and neighborhood dogs start disappearing.

All Val Fremden wanted was a quiet holiday away from her oddball family. But that just ain’t gonna happen. When Val and her boyfriend arrive at her mother’s “country estate” in Hicksville, Florida, the annual family fruitcake competition is well underway. And there’s more than a few fruits and nuts in the running.

When Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest want to discreetly trade their best barely-worn threads for cash, they bring it to Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts - which is where Helen Hawthorne finds herself selling the most chic second-hand clothing in Florida. But the usual haggling turns homicidal when a particularly petty customer turns up dead - dangling by a darling Gucci scarf - and Helen's boss Vera is eyed as a suspect.

Miguel Angel’s chic salon is where Fort Lauderdale’s high society hairdos get done. Even though Helen Hawthorne is just a gofer at the upscale salon, she has to admit the fabulous Miguel Angel is a master at the craft of coif. But with great heads of hair come great headaches. Especially when Miguel Angel and Helen try to prepare the pregnant fiancée of Kingman "King" Oden for her nuptials. King is a bloated, loudmouth bully with a gossip blog, a TV show, and a lousy attitude.