Showing results by narrator "Hollis McCarthy" in All Categories

Just when Pepper Dunn starts accepting her ability to communicate with animals, she’s thrown for a loop - an egg containing a baby dragon winds up on her doorstep. Convinced the creature will grow up to become a destructive force of nature, Pepper gives the dragon to the first person interested in buying - a traveling magician named Mysterio, who claims he can communicate with the dead.

Every baker has their weak spot. For Poppy, it’s bread. So, when The Great British Baking Contest hits bread week, she’s as fragile as an overbaked croissant. Just when she needs to keep all her focus on flour, water, yeast, and salt, another ingredient enters the mix. Death. Someone is not who they appear to be, and secrets from the past are bringing deadly consequences to the present.

When Lexy Baker temporarily fills in for the pastry chef at a lakeside resort, it seems like a great way to combine business and pleasure...until the head chef ends up with a knife through his chest and Lexy is found bending over the body. Suddenly, she finds herself in a race against time and battling a quirky dessert-devouring detective to find the real killer in a long line of suspects. Was it the extravagant spouse? The suspiciously acting sous-chef? The mysterious motorcycle gang?

When a retired mobster ends up murdered and one of her grandmother’s best friends is the last one to see him alive, Lexy Baker can kiss her plans to spend an uneventful summer dreaming about her upcoming wedding to detective Jack Perillo good-bye. Lexy agrees to help her grandmother's octogenarian Ladies' Detective Club solve the murder. But while Lexy is busy juggling her bakery, her grandmother, and the hunky FBI agent sent to investigate the murder, Jack seems to be spending a lot of time with his shapely, blonde ex-girlfriend who suddenly arrives in town.

Stealing a code book from an enemy spy should be easy for someone like Frederica Vale. As the plain-looking older sister, she's practically invisible at social events. Never mind that she has no experience as a spy or that the codebook rests in the possession of one of the most powerful men in England. Freddie has no choice - she's desperate to save her young sister from the lecherous intentions of their guardian and recovering the book is her only option.

Kristen Woodward has moved back home to run her family Christmas tree farm. Everything is great...except her mother and brother seem to be keeping a secret from her. Not only that, but the new guy across the street, Mason, owns a store that sells artificial trees. Will artificial trees cut into her farm’s Christmas tree sales? Even worse, she has to compete with Mason to win the coveted job of decorating the skating pond.

At 30, Ginger Sanders has already been married and divorced. Busy making sure all her friends find love, she's completely thrown off guard when she falls at the feet of a ski god - literally. Cam Nash is the ski god in question - a man of near physical perfection. Cam took a job at Last Frontier Lodge in the wilds of Alaska to escape the painful memories of his brother's death. Skiing has always helped clear his mind, so he's hoping he can ski enough to forget. The last thing on his mind is a relationship of any kind. Until Ginger takes a tumble in the snow and lands at his feet.

My name is Nadia, and I’m an errand girl. Except my boss is the High Queen of the Elves. And my errands for her involve spying on people. Or stealing things. Or hunting down monsters. Or, on occasion, killing people. But this time she wants me to solve a murder. And unless I find the killer, I’m going to be his next target...because dragons never forgive a murder.

Prince Alessandro Barrali is known for his wild ways. After he's compelled to stand in for his staid identical twin, all Alessandro wants is to escape the fishbowl of palace life and indulge himself. When he awakens aboard the royal yacht awash in hedonism, yet bored out of his mind, he decides a new quest is in order.

After dumping her rich, lying louse of a fiancé, designer Kelly Chase opts to take her honeymoon solo. What better chance to nurse her wounds in solitude than two weeks of pre-paid beachfront bliss on the breathtaking Mediterranean island of Sarcaccia? Yet when she meets gorgeous local beach bum Massimo, solitude is suddenly less important than enjoying the company of an honest man...a man whose eyes reveal a private anguish.

Gage Hamilton is a smoldering Navy SEAL and a man on a mission. He's returning to Diamond Creek, Alaska, to resurrect his dream of reopening Last Frontier Lodge. Marley Adams moves back home hoping to find a sense of security and safety after it was stolen from her.

Some friendships are meant to last forever. Nicknamed the four musketeers since they met freshman year of college, Anna, Kat, Erin and Barbara's friendship spans over fifteen years. Known as the tough one, Anna's only dream was to escape her mother's kitchen by setting the fashion world on fire. An ambitious executive for one of New York's oldest department stores and engaged to an up-and-coming politician from an affluent old school family, her life's dream seems to be coming true until Barbara and her husband are in a car crash sending Anna's world into a tailspin.

Araminta Moorecliff and her mystery solving siamese cats, Arun and Sasha, are at it again when the Moorecliff Manor annual charity cat show turns deadly.

A Grip of Time (prison slang for a very long sentence behind bars) takes listeners into a world most know little about - a maximum-security prison - and into the minds and hearts of the men who live there. These men, who are serving out life sentences for aggravated murder, join a fledgling Lifers' Writing Group started by award-winning author Lauren Kessler. Over the course of three years, meeting twice a month, the men reveal more and more about themselves, their pasts, and the alternating drama and tedium of their incarcerated lives.

All Pepper Dunn wants is a quiet life in the witchy town of Magnolia Cove, Alabama. But when the Cotton and Cobwebs Festival arrives, her dream goes up in smoke. This year, grandmother Betty is determined to win the award for best magical creature against Melbalean Mayes, the contest matron. To win, Betty needs Pepper’s help. But when Melbalean winds up dead and Betty is accused of the murder, Pepper is thrust into one role she never expected. She must ensure the safety of her town, try to clear Betty’s name, and ensure no one else winds up a victim of the Magnolia Cove murderer.

A single mom - and her twin babies! - are snowbound with the boss. Can they melt his frozen heart? When Tessa Randall sues CEO Dragan Markovic's company for unfair termination, he insists on hearing her side of the story. But the billionaire known as The Dragon gets more than he bargained for when he's stranded at his snowy Alaskan lodge with Tessa and her twin toddlers. Now the flame-haired beauty wants to uncover his story.

It is 1556 and the queen's astrologer, the prophet Nostradamus has uncovered a secret that could destroy the kingdom of France. The queen, Catherine de Medicis, a dabbler in black magic, has decided to get rid of the king's mistress by seeking out the legendary Undying Head of Menander the Magus, known as the Master of All Desires. But she does not know that evil befalls all those who wish upon this accursed object. And the head, in its coffer, has fallen into the possession of a charming, wryly perceptive but stubborn young woman: Sybille Artaud de la Roche.

The Barrali family has seen its share of scandals. But what of those who work for the famous royals? This collection of three romantic holiday tales takes you to the Barrali Winery, to an elegant royal yacht, and through the palace's secret garden to experience the passions of those who serve.

It's the holiday season in the town of Ivory Beach. Rory Hawthorn and her new magical family are preparing for the festivities. But when a group of strange werewolves materializes in the library, it kicks off a series of bizarre events which appear to be lifted directly from her aunt's best-selling novels.

The fun of an English baking contest set in the beautiful English countryside complete with witches, recipes, and murder. Join Poppy and her friends as she puzzles out another complex murder that might have ties to her!