Showing results by narrator "Margaret Strom" in All Categories

Alice Green's lost and recently found eyewitness accounts of her childhood, her own war, the Golden Years of Radio, and the postwar housing shortage, are told from the light-hearted viewpoint of the shy, youngest child, who learns she can make even the stormy and outrageous characters in her own family laugh. With a little help from her son, who (just barely) lived to finish it, her story stands for unsung American women in war and survives as Alice's triumph.

When the perennially cloudy skies of Cadbury unleash a torrential downpour, yarn retreat host Casey Feldstein watches in dismay as the streets surrounding Vista Del Mar become flooded and she and her retreat guests are trapped there. But the storm is the least of their worries when a man is found dead in his room, and the guests begin to speculate that he may have been murdered. With the police unable to reach them, Casey is forced to fill their soggy shoes and investigate.

Donations are pouring in for the charity yard sale, but as Kay and her friends sort through the glassware and gently used appliances, they discover a real skull in a box of old Halloween decorations.

Everyone is enchanted by Olive’s new puppy - even an initially wary Taco. Thinking she might want to add a furry friend to her own home, Daisy convinces Kay to go with her on a whirlwind tour of shelters, rescues, and breeders. But puppy loves comes to an abrupt end when the two women find well-known animal advocate Prucilla Downing dead in a pile of broken trophies and slashed fur coats.

On a wintery vacation with the kids, Kay and the judge stumble across a barn fire. What appeared to be an accidental blaze turns out to be arson, with the charred timbers hiding a dead body. Adding sleuthing to her holiday itinerary, Kay finds herself investigating and ghost-hunting the murder with two new kindred spirits.

The stroke of midnight brings murder. What could be more magical than a black-tie Christmas party where those attending will socialize and rub elbows with the most prominent lawyers and judges in the state? Kay is enjoying the food, the wine, the conversation - and a dance with Judge Beck to the music of an elegant string quartet. But when she finds a dead body in an upstairs bathroom, Kay’s fairy-tale evening hits a sour note. Is the murderer a jilted lover? A rival for a lucrative position? A disgruntled client?

When abrasive trophy-wife Stacy Mellomaker winds up dead on the floor of a bingo fundraiser few of the townsfolk are shedding tears. The doctors believe she died from an accidental overdose of painkillers, but Stacy’s ghost, as well as her sister, insist it was foul play.

Mr. Peter has lived across the street long before Kay moved into her house, and over the decades, the collection of old washing machines, lawn mowers, and refrigerators in his front and back yard has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to find the front door. The man is an eccentric recluse, but how can anyone dislike a kindly person who loves old pottery and dinnerware, and slips Taco, the cat, chicken sandwiches every chance he gets? Evidently someone disliked him - disliked him enough to kill him.

Life at 60 isn't quite what Kay Carrera expected. She's working as a skip-tracer for a PI who is desperate to land his own reality TV show. She has a new roommate who arrived with more than the usual amount of baggage. And her attempts at knitting are less than stellar - way less than stellar. Worse, the cataract surgery that restored her sight has also delivered an unexpected and disturbing side-effect. Kay sees ghosts. And when the dead turn to her for help, she just can't say no. 

A new disease is emerging as the leading killer of North Americans. Scientists are predicting that within eight years, brain disease will kill or disable more people than cancer and heart disease combined. Given this shocking new research, we urgently need to know how to protect and improve our brain health. In Boost Your Brain Power in 60 Seconds, Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook aims to turn this prediction around with her prescriptive - and proven - plan.

These are the dog days of August, but you won't catch the Tarzana Hookers crochet club napping. While Molly Pink knits together an idea for a new project, Miami Wilson busily converts a house she inherited into a rental property. But Miami is left shorthanded when Sloan Renner, the woman helping her clean out the house ends up dead under a pile of smelly seafood.

When a charismatic life coach and his devoted followers descend on Vista Del Mar, Casey Feldstein and the yarn retreat group she's hosting literally get pushed aside, out of sight and out of mind of the struggling participants seeking enlightenment. But Casey can't help overhearing the rancorous argument between two members of the guru's staff, and when one of them turns up dead after ingesting poisonous mushrooms, Casey finds herself tangled up in a murder investigation while the self-help group looks on helplessly.

There's never a dull moment for amateur sleuth Molly Pink. Without warning, her infant granddaughter has been dumped in her lap for babysitting duties, her son has reluctantly enlisted her help investigating a potential investor in his business, and now she has to manage a high-profile bookstore event for a former Hollywood columnist who's dishing the dirt in a juicy tell-all.

Kay's first real case as a licensed investigator is to track down a suspected mistress and the possible hidden assets of an estranged husband. It all seems pretty routine, but when the financial trail leads Kay down a rabbit hole of laundered money and bank fraud, a boring divorce case gets interesting.

Kay acquired a beautiful antique sideboard at an estate auction, but a ghost has unfortunately conveyed with the furniture. Her stately Victorian isn't big enough for this additional spirit, but Kay isn't sure who is haunting the sideboard or why. And finding out the identity and motivations of the ghost might not be enough to convince the spirit to move on. 

After reconnecting with some old college friends on social media, part-time dessert chef and muffin-maker Casey Feldstein has gotten herself roped into hosting a knitting retreat for the group. Tangled up in worries over how they'll judge her unconventional life and the rustic atmosphere at Vista Del Mar, she watches in dismay as the women arrive and their old personalities - and old grudges - come trickling to the surface. But Casey discovers these are the least of her problems when one of the women is found dead.

My name is Nora Black, local shop owner and part-time psychic consultant in the resort town of Garden Cove. When an anonymous letter in the local paper exposes my extrasensory secret, our normally idyllic town is plagued by a series of mysterious accidents, and I find myself drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse.

My name is Nora Black. I'm fifty-six years old, and I'm having the midlife adventure of my life. I'm all set for the ultimate winter escape: an adults-only cruise with my sweetheart Ezra, and my best friends Gilly and Pippa, along with their husbands. We are ready to hit the high seas for sun, fun, and definitely no crime-solving. The plan is simple . . . cocktails, sunsets, and endless laughter. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans . . .

When Lawrence Lincoln wants to gift his life savings to help the sick granddaughter of Tricia Wellmore, a woman he met on a dating site, his friend and neighbor, Eloise, hires Kay to do a background check. Everything initially appears legitimate, but as Kay digs deeper, it's clear this internet match is far from perfect. Kay needs to use all her resources to find who the scammer is and bring them to justice before more lonely men lose their life savings to a heartless con.

At the urging of Vista Del Mar's owner, Casey Feldstein takes on the job of combining a murder mystery game with her next weekend yarn retreat. Enlisting the help of the hotel's staff to play the roles of victim and suspects, she lays out a plot and plants some red herrings. And as her intrigued guests watch the murder play out and the clues unfold, Casey is certain she's pulled off the perfect make-believe murder—until a real murder intrudes and everyone at the hotel is named as a suspect.