Showing results by narrator "Sandra Murphy" in All Categories

When Courtney's friend Wanda gets into a ponytail-pulling wrestling match in public with a nasty local art critic, Courtney stops the fight with the help of a garden hose. But Lana Lamar has a talent for escalating things and creating tension, which she succeeds in doing by threatening a lawsuit, getting into yet another scuffle - in the midst of an elegant fundraiser, no less - and lobbing insults around like pickleballs.

The Neon Octopus Overlord has been challenged. Their galaxy will never be the same. Kirian, the mythological warrior agent known as the Destroyer of Planets, wants out of her contract. That's a problem since she's currently in the Neon Octopus Overlord's elite, secret Celestial Force against her will. In a desperate attempt to regain her freedom, Kirian defies her tentacled boss and secretly saves Ari, the human she is sent to kill.

As the weather turns crisp, Jayne O'Shea and the other villagers prepare for the last big tourist draw of the season: the autumn equinox festival. It's a time to enjoy a bounty of food, the company of others, and the ever-popular cooking competition. Events in the baking division, however, turn from friendly to fatal when one of the contestants, a beloved nationally known chef, is found dead in the woods.

Zany families, eccentric friends, and ne'er-do-well neighbors inhabit the labyrinthine lives of three women friends as they grapple with real-world events in one "Golden Year". An unwelcome visit from local law enforcement, a younger friend's romantic chaos, and the death of a parent combine with daily mundanities - laundry, scones, and senior sex - to create a walloping, raucous listen.

When her tinsmith father and brothers head West, Polish immigrant Marie Kotlarczyk has no choice but to go along. Family, after all, is family. The Dakota Territories are anything but welcoming to the Kotlarczyks, and as the months trip by, Marie must pick up the hammers she’s secretly desired but also feared. When she faces the skeptical people of Flats Town, the demands of the local Army commander, and her public failures, her inner voice grows destructively, forcing Marie to decide exactly who she is and what it means to be a woman smith.

Courtney has thrown a few fairy garden parties—for kids. But if a local socialite is willing to dip into her trust fund for an old sorority sister’s fortieth birthday bash, Courtney will be there with bells on. To make the job even more appealing, a famous actress, Farrah Lawson, is flying in for the occasion, and there’s nothing like a celebrity cameo to raise a business’s profile.

Would you like to simplify your life, downsize, and become debt free? Then this book is definitely for you! Most of the things we own, we don't even pay attention to in our day to day lives. You must keep finding things around your home you see only once a year, and yet you keep finding them every spring cleaning. You clean them up, meditate a bit on the memories they bring back, and put them back in their secret place. Then you forget about them for at least a few months. And it's not just about the things we don't use daily. It's about the attitude, the desire to own so many things. It's a vicious circle we draw ourselves, and we keep following the line like our lives depend on it.

Abigail’s dream of owning a tearoom in her California beach town is about to come true. She’s got the lease, the start-up funds, and the scone recipes. But she’s out of a tearoom and into hot water when her realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead. Not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion. Convinced his tarot room is in the cards, he’s not letting go of the building without a fight.

When reporter Jo Walker is assigned to investigate the murder of a young Latina girl, she plunges into Denver’s immigration mess and connects with women who have been cheated of their lives. As Jo untangles the web behind the girl’s murder, she discovers corruption at the highest political levels. Henchmen take off their gloves and play for keeps. Jo draws on every ounce of courage and tenacity she possesses to stay alive as she fights for justice in a war where bad guys often win.

Proper Boston widow Jane Weber moves to the Dakota Territories under layers of lies to save her reputation. Stirring up controversy, Jane rooms with the last Blackfoot Sioux in town while navigating a mercurial friendship with the fiercely independent town grocer. In Flats Junction, though, everyone has an untold story. Battling her shortcomings, falsehoods, and swallowing her inherent curiosity, Jane must choose how she will truly reinvent herself, and where she belongs.

Audrey Eames is happy living the wanderer's life. After a near-death experience in her teens, Audrey can see people's past lives whenever her skin touches theirs, and afraid of being labeled delusional, she's never stayed in one place too long or made any deep connections. So, when Audrey's estranged aunt dies and leaves her the historic Soberly Inn and Public House on the scenic Oregon coast, Audrey wants nothing to do with it.

After a beautiful woman with ties to a local matchmaking service falls to her death on Valentine's Day, Franklin County demands answers. So when Captain Joe Davenport assigns the investigation to Detective Skylar Reid and Harvey Baker, it’s only a matter of time before trouble ensues. And when Harvey discovers the unscrupulous Callum Jackson may be behind it, nothing will stop him until he proves it, even if his witch hunt could cost him his marriage, his sanity, and his badge.

Did men truly conquer the frontier, or was it the women who quietly traded hopes and dreams in a gamble to build something even bigger for themselves and their families? In Flats Junction, sacrifices grow ever starker as the town begins to realize it faces an existential crisis on multiple fronts. Enigmatic storekeeper Kate has ambitions to become more powerful than her father, but to do so requires making deals with many devils to bring electricity and a hospital, perhaps to Flats Junction's detriment.

With a theater foundation tea and an art show planned at Violet Vickers’s estate, Courtney is hired to create charming fairy gardens for the event. It’s not so charming, however, when her best friend Meaghan’s ex-boyfriend turns out to be Violet’s latest artistic protégé. Even worse, not long after Meaghan locks horns with him, his body is found in her yard, bludgeoned with an objet d’murder.

Courtney is delighted when her tiny friend Fiona returns from the fairy realm, appearing at the base of a Cypress tree. When her Ragdoll cat, Pixie, emerges from her own portal—aka the cat door—the three set off for a busy day. Busier than usual, since Courtney has rented a small plot of land at the Flower Farm, where she hopes to grow her own supplies for her fairy-garden business. Plus, the annual Summer Blooms Festival is coming up, and Courtney has booked a booth . . . But the murder of Courtney’s friend, Genevieve, casts a pall over the festival.

Abigail Beanblossom is finally getting into the groove of her new Tea and Tarot room. And in Abigail’s mind, when things are going right, that’s exactly when they’re about to go wrong. But she never could have guessed the mother who abandoned her as a child would suddenly return, looking for tea and sympathy. Now, all Abigail wants is to escape. So, when her grandfather’s quirky friend, Archer, asks Abigail and her partner Hyperion to investigate the murder of his neighbor, the two amateur sleuths leap at the opportunity.

When Los Angeles news photographer Lucy Vega's uncle, a formidable Hispanic businessman, is killed in a car accident in Malibu during a violent storm, Lucy and reporter-colleague Beatrice Middleton are out to prove murder. Lucy discovers secret underworld involvement by Mexican cartel members, and bent on finding answers, she travels to Mexico, where she meets a handsome, but burned out, CNN war correspondent. Trailing the cartel deep into their own territory, they soon find that corruption and brutality are rampant, and Lucy must risk all to find the truth behind her uncle's murder.

Dr. Patrick Kinney is no ordinary man, not least for his tenuous position as the only medical professional in Flats Junction. He's met his match in the widow Jane, in more ways than one, but together they struggle against disease, injuries and the stubborn resistance of frontier folk to medicine and healthcare.

Their new romance was going great, when all of a sudden, a simple trip to the grocery store turned into a wrestling match between two scorned women. Piquing her interest for a juicy story, Anna’s snooping to find out more about the seemingly "innocent" love triangle catapulted her into the middle of a murder investigation. The murder weapon of choice? A red stiletto…While the detectives are convinced the husband is the ‘killer’, it seems Anna’s faith in his innocence may be in vain, as additional bodies, and mistresses, keep piling up.

Nobody believed Pastor Matt raped her. The tight-knit religious community punished her when she spoke out and expected 15-year-old Mercy to repent for making false allegations. Instead, she ran. And somebody - her father? - beat Pastor Matt into a coma and left his wife for dead. Twenty-three years later, Iris has put a life together, transformed herself from runaway teen Mercy Asher to sought-after jewelry designer Iris Dashwood. But now that Pastor Matt's awake, she's sliding back, losing ground to the painful memories she's barely kept at bay.