Showing results by narrator "Carrington MacDuffie" in All Categories

Wild horses, wildhearts - and a diapered lamb under the Christmas tree…

Could life get any more hectic at the Lazy Windmill? With the holidays reminding Casie of every mistake she's ever made, and her assistant Emily struggling to be a single mom, it's anyone's guess what the New Year will bring. Then bad boy Colt Dickenson shows up with a ring. No one has ever gotten under her skin like he has, but Casie can't believe a rough stock cowboy will stick around for the long haul.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a shy 28-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness when she meets Ernest Hemingway and is captivated by his energy, intensity and burning ambition to write. After a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for France. But glamorous Jazz Age Paris, full of artists and writers, fuelled by alcohol and gossip, is no place for family life and fidelity.

Two never before published novellas from some of our very best crime writers, compiled and edited by Ed McBain.

Among the towering firs and windswept beaches of a Pacific Northwest island, a woman's long-ago first love unexpectedly returns, teaching her the damaging power of secrets and the liberating lessons of love. Widow Phoebe Allen has single-handedly raised a wonderful daughter and established a successful business supplying nets to fisherman, and now enjoys the amorous attentions of a longtime friend.

Spend time in the funny, oddball village of Arnold Falls, where larger-than-life characters deal with the smallest of problems. Somehow, it all comes out right in the end. Given the choice of go big or go home, nine times out of 10 the townspeople of Arnold Falls will go home, get back into their house slippers, and forget about the whole thing, whatever the whole thing was this time. Tempests great and small (mostly small) are always brewing in this tiny, upstate hamlet where half of the residents are fighting to preserve Arnold Falls as it was in its red-light-district heyday.

In this, the third tale of the Nedao people, Nisana the AEldra of the cat-kind narrates her experience among the beleaguered humans. She wishes that there were others left to speak of such a story, yet she is the only witness able to tell of it. Sharing both the agonies and the victories of her companion, the warrior queen Ylia, Nisana is determined to see things through to their conclusion.

A 30-something tax auditor who doesn't overlook a thing, Lucy Shoreman had been blind to her husband's philandering. Now, as he lies on his deathbed, she decides she's not going through it alone. She opens Artie's little black book and begins calling his sweethearts. And to her great surprise, one by one, they show up.

For Gwen Merchant, love has always been doled out in little packets - from her father, who buried himself in work after her mother's death, and from her husband, Peter, who's always been respectable and safe. But then an old college boyfriend, the irrepressible Elliot Hull, invites himself back into Gwen's life with a surprising proposition. Elliot, it turns out, is in need of a pretend wife, just for the weekend, in order to fulfill his dying mother's last wish.

Twelve short stories, 12 points of view, 12 neighborhoods of the same town, and finally, 12 pieces of the same puzzle. Paris Noir takes you on a ride through the old medieval center of town with its intertwined streets, its ghosts, and its secrets buried in history. You'll cruise Paris with its nightclubs full of mysterious beauties who seem to have a lot to hide.

Dr. Erica Bauer - an identical twin - studies twins at the university in Vancouver. Through the course of her research, she meets a set of preteen twins who are evidently fraternal, but who insist emphatically that they are identical. Their mother, Karen Oxley, is a West Van single mum whose life is on the wrong road - and who discovers an urgent need to put it back on the right one. As Erica sets out to help the twins, their family’s lives become increasingly intertwined with hers in unexpected ways.

Decades ago in Brooklyn, three girls demonstrated against the Vietnam War, and each followed a distinct path into adulthood. Helen became a violent revolutionary. Val wrote a controversial book, Bright Morning of Pain, which was essentially a novelization of Helen’s all-too-short but vibrant life. And Olive became an editor and writer, now comfortably settled with her husband, Griff, in modern-day New Haven. In Conscience, Alice Mattison paints the nuanced relationships between the palpable personalities of Olive, Griff, and Jean with her signature wit and precision.

Oh no, I'm turning into my mother! Every woman is familiar with the poignant, funny, baffling, or horrifying echoes that resonate at that moment when she first hears her own mother's voice coming out of her mouth. But this moment of recognition is more than ironic: It's at the root of how we see ourselves, and how we plot and follow the arc that goes from childhood to motherhood.

A Young Wife follows the unforgettable journey of Minke Van Aisma across three continents - from a life of opulence in Amsterdam during the 1900s, to rough living on the Argentine coast, to fighting poverty as an immigrant in New York City. She is forced to leave behind a kidnapped son in Argentina, but sets upon the arduous task of struggling to find the child and taking revenge on the people who orchestrated his abduction.

The setting is wealthy French society, in all its richness and style. The tension created by the young wife’s breaking of a taboo and her building fear of her villainous husband; the curiously magical power of the words of the heroine’s sister as she calls out in secret; the climax of the story with the rapid intercutting between characters—all make for a tale that begs to heard.

Welcome to the Lazy Windmill, where guests find that life is what you make it, love is priceless, and family is determined by far more than DNA. Casie Carmichael's accidental dude ranch is well on its way, but the residents of her Hope Springs haven are running wild. With an unwed mother-to-be, a turbulent teen romance, and a bronc-riding grandmother to contend with, the last thing Casie has time for is a romantic relationship. But convincing the recently returned Colt Dickenson that she's not interested in him - or the confusion he causes her - is easier said than done.

What would cause a cheese-loving, meat-eating lawyer to become a vegan? Her dog. Teresa Rhyme and Seamus the beagle both survived cancer once, so when Seamus develops yet another cancer, Teresa vows to fight again. Unsure of the best way to battle the unseen enemy, she embarks on some experiments to create a healthier life for her family. She finds better food for Seamus, and a plant-based diet becomes her own guide, but she realizes that's not enough for her-and it's not enough for the animals.

In the second installment of the Century Quartet, Italian author P. D. Baccalario continues the mystery that will take four cities and four extraordinary kids to solve. Four kids. A wooden top. And four postcards with secret instructions. New York City, March 15. Another mysterious artifact reunites Harvey from New York, Elettra from Rome, Mistral from Paris, and Sheng from Shanghai in their attempt to save the world. When they meet people who knew Alfred Van Der Berger, the murdered professor who sent them on their quest in Rome, they realize that the challenge is far from over.

Populating a small town in the Pacific Northwest, the characters in Lucia Perillo’s story collection all resist giving the world what it expects of them - and are surprised when the world comes roaring back. An addict trapped in a country house becomes obsessed with vacuum cleaners and the people who sell them door-to-door. An abandoned woman seeks consolation in tales of armed robbery told by one of her fellow housewives. Together, Happiness Is a Chemical in the Brain is a sharp-edged, witty testament to the ambivalence of emotions.

Caroline de Maigret and Sophie Mas are back to amuse you, saying what you don’t expect to hear, just the way you want to hear it. But this time they reveal how they are modifying their favourite bad girl habits and mischievous mind-sets now they are more ‘madame’ than 'mademoiselle’. These iconoclastic, bohemian Parisiennes advise on love, seduction, fashion and dating as well as family, work, living alone and accepting imperfections.

Former police chief Katherine Sullivan has been called brilliant, brave, compassionate, and quirky, but after decades of crime fighting, this resilient grandmother with an artist's soul is discovering that retirement can be just as deadly as being on the job. When Katherine returned to her hometown, her only thought was to comfort her recently divorced daughter. That was before a young woman was found murdered on the estate of the town's richest family.