Showing results by narrator "Sarah Pesek" in All Categories

We’ve all dreamed of ditching everything and running off to another country—but almost no one actually ever does. Well, Val feels like she's almost no one. Invisible to her husband and dissatisfied with her life, deep in her soul Val yearns to be someone else. Someone sexy. Someone happy. So she buys a ticket and takes off to Italy, with only her favorite romance novel to guide her.

When Bobbie and Grayson head back to Plant City to help out some old friends, they run into a “hole” new set of problems. While investigating a rash of missing persons, it’s not long before they get under each other’s skin. What’s making them all hot and bothered? Each other. In more ways than one. Bobbie’s down-to-earth explanations for the missing men irritate Grayson, while his otherworldly theories have her itching for a sane solution. But when new, conflicting evidence emerges in the case, they soon realize they’ve only scratched the surface of the mystery at hand.

Growing up in backwoods Florida, Bobbie Drex has seen it all – from two-headed turtles to two-timing boyfriends. Her life of hard knocks has left her short on cash, but she’s still packing enough snark to give any whack-job a run for his money. Or so she thinks. But when a mysterious stranger arrives at her mechanic shop seeking repairs to his rundown RV, suddenly it’s Bobbie who’s in for a complete overhaul... Norman Bates in a turban. Gonadal twins. Mothman pooper-scoopers.

Doreen Diller wants to be a movie star. But after 15 years of failed auditions, she’s yet to garner a single callback from a Hollywood producer. Determined to hit the big time before she turns 40, she pins her hopes on a job assisting soap opera heartthrob Tad Longmire. He could be the answer to her dreams—or the beginning of her nightmares. While filming a new TV series starring Tad, a stabbing death rocks the set. Unfortunately for Doreen, the role of murder suspect is finally one she appears ideally suited to play.

When unlikely sleuth Helen Hawthorne flees St. Louis, she fetches up in Fort Lauderdale, suddenly surrounded by the beautiful and the Botoxed. They all shop at the same place — Juliana’s, the overpriced boutique where Helen works. And they’re all looking for a wealthy wise guy to take to the cleaners.

All Harvey Beckett wants to do is help the residents of St. Marin's find the perfect book for that moment, snuggle with her hound dog Mayhem, and be ignored by her cat Aslan. But when the small waterside town's newest resident discovers the body of the community's persnickety reporter in her bookshop storeroom just before her grand opening, Harvey can't help trying to solve the crime, even when it might cost her business and her life. The more questions Harvey asks, the more secrets she uncovers.

After being duped out of her life savings in Germany, Val Fremden retreats home to Florida with more than just her pride in tatters. Broke, jobless, divorced, and 45, she knows starting over won’t be easy. But when her only friend suddenly turns up dead, Val begins to wonder if the world is out to get her.

When Val tries to revive her old writing career, story ideas prove as elusive as a moment alone without her boyfriend Tom breathing down her neck. Tom’s moved in, and Val’s itching to move out–at least temporarily. A last-minute getaway to the country seems like the perfect solution for dissolving her writer’s block. But a fateful fish fry ends up inspiring a whole different kind of dead end.

Val knows she can’t solve all the world’s problems, so she’s settled on two: smashing every tacky figurine on the planet…and ridding the universe of her boyfriend’s hideous vinyl recliner.

Val’s always been unlucky at love—and a whole bunch of other things. But she’s never actually felt cursed. Until now. When Tom gives Val an engagement ring for her 50th birthday, she wants to fly the coop. But it’s Tom who skips out on the romantic getaway he planned. When he can’t make the trip, one of Val’s pals goes instead. On the first day, her friend entangles Val in a prank that ticks off the wrong tourist. On the second day, she gets Val charged with murder. Did I mention Val was unlucky?

Could it possibly get any worse than having absolutely no magical abilities when you’re a member of the most powerful family of witches ever? It used to be that I’d say no, but then I keep getting set up on dates with Gil Connolly whose hotness is only matched by his ego. Seriously. I can’t stand him. Even if I also can’t stop thinking about him (specifically kissing him) but we’re going to pretend I never told you that part.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

Helen Hawthorne is still on the run because of her refusal to pay her worthless ex-husband alimony. But a girl’s gotta eat...and pay rent, utilities, etc. So she’s taken a cash-paying job at Fort Lauderdale’s own Page Turners bookstore. And while the job is decent enough, the owner of the store is anything but. Page Turner III is a boor with more money than brains: He’s cheating on his wife while running his family business into the ground and has a list of enemies longer than any best seller. So when he turns up dead, no one is too surprised. What is surprising is where.

It’s moving day for Val. And, as usual, anything that can go wrong does - beginning with her new boyfriend, Tom. When he shows up at her doorstep with an unwelcome delivery, Val becomes the unwitting center of attention for a whole new world of weirdos…whose antics could pin Val for human dismemberment. Plagued with a hot cop on her tail and a mean one on her trail, Val is forced to turn to old friends and new ones in her attempt to point the finger of blame on somebody else. But when an unexpected witness identifies Val as the guilty party, it may be time for her to skip town.

What better place than the Sunshine State for dark souls to live out their golden years? After all, who would notice? Uh, Bobbie and Grayson, of course. As a rogue physicist turned conspiracy chaser, Grayson's motto is: Have sentience, will travel. As a broke, private-eye wannabe, Bobbie doesn't have much choice but to follow his sketchy command. But every road Grayson travels down leads to the bizarre, the unexplained, and taco-induced heartburn. Vampires. Zombiguanas. Ikigai smell. Its hard to decide which is scarier!

Planning for a rainy day has never been Val’s forte. But when a storm brews up right in her own backyard, Val’s forced to get off her lounge chair and spring into action. A shady, ham-fisted developer’s threatening to knock down Val’s favorite beach haunt, along with all the precious memories held within its shabby walls. With the owner’s signature on the bill of sale, the plan seems like a done deal. Or is it? Something fishy is going on at the beach, and it’s going to take all the wits Val can muster to put a pig-headed developer out to pasture.

In a Town Famous for Strawberries, Two Investigators Sort the Fruits from the Nuts ... All Bobbie Drex wanted was something normal—a new career as a private investigator. But after signing up with Nick Grayson to complete her internship, nothing normal has happened since. In fact, when Grayson gets a call about a possible alien invasion going down in Plant City, Florida, normal packs its bags and books a flight for another planet. Man pudding. Doomsday preppers. Wayne’s World wannabes ….Not to mention the whole “living-with-a-stranger-in-an-RV” thing. The horrors!

Stuck working in a run-down thrift shop, Val yearns for a way out—a destiny that doesn’t involve sorting used clothes by how repulsive they smell. The only problem is, Val is in debt to her boss all the way up to her sweaty armpits. Desperate to find a way out of her dead-end job, Val decides to clean up her act, even if it means giving up her most precious possessions. But her attempt to turn over a new leaf won't be easy. And Val is about to find out that one good deed doesn’t necessarily lead to another.

After 50 years of bumbling around on the planet, Val Fremden’s got nothing to show for her life but a long string of dead-end jobs and a two-digit bank balance. But just as she’s about to toss her champagne dreams and caviar wishes into the dumpster, Val discovers that Marco Shamway—the jerk who plagued her all through high school—is now a millionaire. Worse yet, the idea that catapulted Marco to fame and fortune was one he’d stolen … from her!

Everybody’s got their coping mechanisms. Val Fremden is no exception. But when her longtime boyfriend Tom Foreman takes off without even saying goodbye—well, that’s just the kind of thing that can make a good woman go bad. Out to track down Tom or die trying, everyone Val meets seems like a potential suspect. Especially her new coworker, Gary. Ever since he showed up, women around town have begun disappearing. And the macabre clues left behind at each woman’s last known address keep Val on the run like a chicken with its head cut off.