Showing results by narrator "Jill Smith" in All Categories

Why, yes, the former Beatrice Hyde-Clare is distracted. Having settled comfortably into marriage to the duke of Kesgrave, she is nevertheless surprised to find herself in an interesting condition. And it has to be that—the unsettling prospect of motherhood—that causes her to overlook the obvious clue that Roger Dugmore had indeed been killed in his sleep.

Ford Gamble is my dad’s best friend. He’s also the reclusive keeper of the Conception Ridge lighthouse. But I remember a time when he was around more—the perfect hotter-than-sin fodder for all my fantasies. Now there’s just enough silver in his shock of sexy hair and thick beard that he looks a little bit like a hot forty-something Santa, with six-pack abs. And that’s what has me heading to the lighthouse on a dark, stormy Christmas Eve when the retirement home where I work needs a fill-in Mr. Claus for their annual celebration.

To be clear: Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, does not think every dead person in London is the victim of a sinister plot. The city is large, after all, and some of its inhabitants had to have died from innocent causes. Like Peter Huzza, who was killed in a horrifying steam engine accident. It is shocking, yes, the way his body was torn apart by the explosion of his very own machine, but not entirely surprising. High-pressure steam is notoriously dangerous to harness. There is no reason to suspect foul play. Nope, none at all.

Professor James Moriarty has one desire left in his shattered life...revenge. All he wants is to shame the man who ruined him and stop the brute from harming anyone else. Then he meets amber-eyed Angelina Gould and his world turns upside down. An exploding steam engine kills a man at the International Exhibition. While Moriarty examines the wreckage, Sherlock Holmes appears, sent to investigate by Moriarty’s enemy. Holmes finds evidence that points at Moriarty, who realizes he must either solve the crime or swing it for it himself.

It’s autumn in Whiskey Springs, Vermont, and more than the leaves have changed color. Life has never been better for Fallon Foster. Her relationship with the town’s newest citizen, Riley Main, is progressing as Fallon had hoped. Fallon finally believes she may get the family she’s dreamed of. Her business is thriving, and her friendship with her former lover, Andi Maguire, is back on track. Meanwhile, Andi has been spending time with a local nurse named Billie Steele. The pair have become nearly inseparable, sharing dinners, cocktails, laughs, and long walks.

Welcome to Spellford Cove, where the baking is sweet and the witches are wild. Things are coming to a head with Antonio, but in case that wasn't enough for Robin to handle, another body has shown up in Spellford Cove, and this time, Emma is one of the prime suspects. Will Robin be able to juggle the issues with her father and save her cousin before it's too late? Or will she be one loaf of bread that doesn't rise to the occasion?

Doctor Drusilla James of Imperial House Vo went from being an insignificant human on Earth to one of the most influential women in the Alliance Empire. The goddess of home has granted to her this lofty position in exchange for her everlasting devotion to her and her continuing belief in the Lost People. However, Drusilla veered from the goddess’s path when she accepted Admiral Jei’s tempting offer to reanimate Commander Jane Johnson at the Capital City Hospital, and now she finds herself head-to-head with her adoptive mother for Imperial power.

Ellie watched her mother’s execution shortly after she arrived in the Alliance Empire. Now, she is the Ward to her deceased mother’s lover and murderer. This last year has gone by in a flurry of confusion and sadness. But things are changing in the Empire, humans are finding loopholes and essentially making the Empire work for them. Ellie, taken up with this Lost People Renaissance, is no exception. She wants to marry an Outcast, a man whose only crime is that his father is human.

Having solved the two murders that somehow fell in her path, Beatrice Hyde-Clare is on the lookout for a third. Through a absurd quirk of stupid fate, the shy spinster has fallen in love with the thoroughly unattainable Duke of Kesgrave and is desperate for something, anything, to occupy her mind. A dead body would do nicely.

Things are flowing smoothly for Robin in Spellford Cove. She’s got a support network she loves, business is going great - she’s even thinking of hiring another employee - and things with Hunter areheating up both literally and figuratively. But when strange things start happening in town, and a number of bodies start showing up, Robin thinks there’s more to it than meets the eye. She smells magic, and she knows that she’s going to have to get involved to get to the bottom of it.

I’m Ivy Lane, and if I never see another faerie again, it’ll be too soon. Twenty years after the faeries came and destroyed the world as we knew it, I use my specialist skills to keep rogue faeries in line and ensure humans and their magically gifted neighbours can coexist (relatively) peacefully. Nobody knows those skills came from the darkest corner of Faerie itself. When a human child disappears, replaced with a faerie changeling, I have to choose between taking the safe road or exposing my own history with the faeries to the seductively dangerous head of the Mage Lords.

James and Angelina Moriarty are settling into their new marriage and their fashionable new home - or trying to. But James has too little to occupy his mind, and Angelina has too many secrets pressing on her heart. They fear they’ll never learn to live together. Then, Sherlock Holmes comes to call with a challenging case.

From USA Today best-selling author Dakota Davies comes an all new small town suspense romance featuring a divorced flight attendant and the irritating single dad firefighter living next door.

Stormy Morgan has accepted her life as a witch and is even looking forward to the future. That means training with the most powerful witches in the Midwest. She’s determined to follow through on her destiny. Despite her best intentions though, not everything is going to be as easy as she hoped. When Stormy steps in and uses her magic following a bus accident, she’s almost killed in the process. Worse than that, it seems the child she risked her life to save might be an ongoing target.

Robin's beginning to think that everything has settled down in Spellford Cove after Antonio's death, and that she can finally start living a normal life. But little does she know, things aren't going to be nearly that easy. People in town are disappearing, and Robin thinks there might be something magical at work. And why does she have a bad feeling about the new woman who's arrived in town?

Something strange is going on in Spellford Cove. No one is acting quite as they should, and Robin is starting to think there might be some sort of dark magic involved. And with her new employee she knows to be working for her biological father, Robin puts a plan in place that will hopefully stop him from being able to find her. Will Robin be able to overcome the dark magic at work, or will she find herself a few layers short of a full cake?

Flora Hyde-Clare’s visit to her beau’s ancestral home was always going to be a disaster. Her mother’s nervous habit of rambling nonsensically, her father’s thinly veiled contempt, her own desperate desire to make a good impression on Sebastian Holcroft’s parents, and his seemingly endless parade of siblings all guaranteed that their stay in the country would be intolerably awkward at best. Yet for all her dire misgivings, Flora never imagined one of the household servants would wind up slain in his own bed. But that is precisely what happens to the handsome young land steward.

As eager as Beatrice, Duchess of Kesgrave, is to meet her husband’s newly discovered illegitimate half sister, she does not want it to happen like this: in the keeper's house at Newgate. Yes, that Newgate, the abject prison filled with squalor and misery to which Verity Lark has been consigned for murder. Found standing over the slain corpse of an old tormentor with a still-warm pistol in her hand, she is obviously guilty. It is an open-and-shut case with little for an unduly curious duchess to investigate. Except it all seems a little too simple and straightforward.

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 is a witch with too much attitude, an old love fueling new fires in her soul, and a talking cat who keeps threatening to give her an ulcer. She’s got a full plate. Things get even busier in her life when a body drops outside her boyfriend Hunter Ryan’s house...and the death looks like more than a standard murder. Even though her magic is growing at an exponential rate, Stormy is still a novice when it comes to wielding her new power. She’s determined to find answers, and prove herself invaluable to Hunter in the process, but each lead brings more questions.