Showing results by author "Donna Mabry" in All Categories

In 1906 I was barely over 14 years old, and it was my wedding day. My older sister, Helen, came to my room, took me by the hand, and sat me down on the bed. She said, "You've always been a good girl, Maude, and done what I told you. Now you're going to be a married woman, and he will be the head of the house. When you go home tonight after your party, no matter what he wants to do to you, you have to let him do it. Do you understand?"

The stories shared with me about Lena, my husband’s mother, were extraordinary. I heard many of them over the years, tales told to me by her son and his father, accounts that were often shocking, sometimes heart-wrenching, and always fascinating.

Wealthy heiress Jessica McCarthy desperately wants to be married and have a family. A rogue and a scoundrel, Zachary Belk is the only one who has proposed. Even though her father warns her that Zachary won't make a good husband, she marries him. She soon discovers that her father was right. When the stock market crashes and both families are left penniless, Zachary seeks a new fortune on a property he owns in another Manhattan, in Kansas. They are only there a short time before he deserts her.

D’Arcy, 12, redheaded and freckled, curious and rebellious, wants to grow up and dominate her world. Suzanne, not yet 18, wants only to marry her handsome lieutenant from Fort Riley, Jonathan Taylor. The beginning of the Civil War and Suzanne’s one night of passion sends both girls' lives in an unexpected direction. A rash decision changes everything. Will D’Arcy and Suzanne be prepared for the consequences?

Kansas, 1852. Half-breed Everett Snipes discovers a newborn baby crying by the body of her mother. He recognizes the mother as the second wife of his cousin Wakiza, chief of the Village of Scouts located a few miles from the Army base. Everett rescues the infant and takes her to her family. The child’s people are being pushed out of their ancestral lands. In the East, rumblings of the coming war over slavery are already spreading across the nation, and Kansas, Bloody Kansas, will not escape the carnage.

Emma is nine on the day they meet. Akecheta is 12 and already the man of his house. He saves her life and tells her she belongs to him. As they grow up together on the frontier surrounding Manhattan, Kansas, he teaches her how to fish, hunt, and survive. She teaches him how to trust and how to share the burdens of his shameful past. When he graduates from high school, an aunt sends him to university in the other Manhattan, in New York. Emma continues her schooling at home.

Meaghan Curran Quinn has her life all planned out. Newly graduated from Manhattan high school, she expects to study law at Kansas State and then to marry Arthur Franklin, her childhood sweetheart. Fate takes the future in its own hands and sends Meaghan on more than one dangerous journey. Before the storms pass, both her faith and her physical strength will be tested.

On Nancy's 18th birthday, her father tells her she must marry her cousin, Abner, the town's blacksmith. He's already married to three other women, one of them her younger sister. Nancy runs away and gets lost in the woods. Hungry and cold, she finds a seemingly deserted cabin and takes shelter.

Las Vegas casino owner Alberto Minnelli has everything a man could want: wealth, power, family, friends, and a woman he loves. The only thing he needs that he can't buy is time. He finds there are still three people on his list: his nephew, Michael Bart, whom he raised as a son; his beautiful, talented young director of entertainment, Alexandra Merritt; and Dr. Zachary Peters. Before it's too late, Alberto wants to care for two of them, and he intends to kill the third.

The Civil War ended, but the turmoil of D’Arcy Curran’s life did not. Rather than give up the child she raised from birth, 16-year-old D’Arcy kidnaps her sister Suzanne’s son. The only safe place for her and little Danny is home…Manhattan, Kansas. Once there, D’Arcy learns that danger comes in many forms, and some of them are too close for comfort. Her father is murdered by marauding Jayhawkers. Her mother is lost in grief. D’Arcy faces the disapproval of many when she wears trousers, carries a gun, and takes over the responsibility for the farm.

On the Manhattan, Kansas, frontier of the 1870s, D’Arcy Curran, her adopted son, Dan, and her new husband, Royce Quinn, want nothing more than to raise a family and live in peace. Their plans are waylaid when the renegade Jayhawker who killed D’Arcy’s father returns from prison looking for revenge. Human treachery isn’t the only thing D’Arcy and Royce battle on their prairie home.

Eighth in The Manhattan Stories by Wall Street Journal top 10 best-selling author Donna Foley Mabry, Dan Curran Quinn | The Manhattan Stories: The Currans, Book Four continues the saga of the Curran Family. After a romance that started when he was still in high school, Dan Curran Quinn marries his longtime love, Kathleen O’Malley. They begin their lives together with a bright future, but a vengeful killer from Dan’s past has other plans.

When an unspeakable tragedy destroys Barbara Winters’ life, she retreats into emotional isolation. Over two years pass before she decides to take a vacation, alone to Hawk Lake, at the top of Michigan’s lower peninsula. When she comes across a run-down building that once housed a nightclub, she is both mystified and intrigued. In her search for answers, she comes across a man who will change her life.

When Roxanne Russell’s mother dies, her father is away on a business trip. The young military widow leaves dozens of messages for her father, but receives no response. Looking for a copy of her mother’s obituary, Roxie reads an article in the newspaper and discovers her entire life is a web of lies, secrets, and deceit.

President Tim Connors is slipping badly in the polls and doesn’t stand a chance of being re-elected. Chief of Staff Arthur Locke blames the First Lady, abrasive feminist Congresswoman Rachel Connors. Locke thinks he has the solution. Wouldn’t it be easier to re-elect a handsome, grieving widower? When his plan to assassinate the President’s wife goes terribly wrong, Locke sets in motion a chain of events that could allow him eventually to place himself in the presidency.

When newly divorced Ellen has trouble sleeping, her friend, Alexandra, tells her, "Get a dog." A visit to the local shelter brings Skip into her life. The injured Golden Retriever is soon running things, arranging her romances, and teaching her to laugh again. When she begins to date, he disapproves the dentist and the salesman, and even threatens to bite the bartender. Will the handsome Vegas firefighter make Skip wag his tail? Anyone who ever loved a dog will laugh along with Skip, a most unusual canine.

Gramma was a showgirl, and under her direction, child prodigy Kaleigh McKenna hones her many talents. She sings! She dances! She plays a half-dozen instruments! As a teenager, Gramma takes her to Hollywood. With the aid of Gramma’s old friends in the business, Kaleigh lands a contract at Warner Brothers Studios, where she works with stars like Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, and Olivia de Havilland.

When feisty redhead Alexandra Merritt inherits a Las Vegas casino, she finds she has her hands full. In addition to learning the ins and outs of running the Desert Flower, she must learn to deal with the famous and the infamous. Hot-shot athletes, movie stars, hookers, and stand-up comics come to her establishment, and when more than one of them winds up dead, Alex becomes embroiled in a mystery as hot as the Nevada desert. Alex isn't sure who wants her dead, but she better figure it out before the Desert Flower becomes Vegas's next morgue.

In this collection, Donna Foley Mabry brings us a novella, a selection of seven short stories, and reminiscences of growing up in Detroit. In "Killer Coffee", four retired women gather daily on their patios in the 55-plus community where nothing exciting ever happens. They pass the time plotting imaginary murders. An unforeseen tragedy turns their murders into the real thing and reveals the one woman among them who might be capable of actually committing the crime. In “The Trade”, an aging actress will do anything to look younger.

When Abigail Hightower’s father loses his bid for re-election as mayor of Skylark City, the young woman searches for a way to support her family. Her greatest asset is a lovely singing voice. All she has to do is find the right style. With her Aunt Winifred’s advice and the help of a handsome young musician, she’s soon working her way to a career.