Stolen Drugs. Ransacked Newspaper. Missing Cash. What’s going on in Wanee?
November 1876. Cora Countryman envisions dancing the Viennese Waltz in Vienna, not her hometown. But Wanee may be as close as she gets if only she can steer the Winter Dance committee and find a band.
Sales are up at her store, and she is making headway on her debt. Her new cook scares everyone and her domestic is a mess, even before new boarders arrive from the Deep South and shake everyone up. Things have just settled when much-needed drugs are stolen from the hospital, and the newspaper office is tossed.
Angered, Cora, Sebastian Kanady at her side, pieces together a theory based on an influx of new people and a flurry of nearby train robberies. She scrambles to convince her neighbors she’s right before someone dies. When death comes, she gathers the town and constructs a plan to stop the bandits in their tracks.
Will Cora’s plan work in time to save the Winter Dance?
Read more about One Horse Too Many
Also Available:
A Confluence of Enemies
August 1876. Cora Countryman dreams of a life of mystery and adventure, anywhere but confining Wanee, Illinois. Even when the long drought attracts a rainmaker panhandling his own version of fantasy.
As thirst and disease rampage across the railroad tracks, she fights for what little she has. Campers steal her vegetables and raid her water. But when the editor of the newspaper is dumped at the undertakers near death, she fears for her village, already a tinderbox of resentment.
She snatches then hides the newspaperman at her boarding house, endangering all those within her walls. To save him, she determines to solve the killing—no matter the danger to her. Not from disease, drought, or dreadful secrets—but from the men who would stop her.
Read more about A Confluence of Enemies, and buy on Amazon
Unbecoming a Lady
A friend knocks on Cora Countryman’s front door seeking help with the torn sleeve of her work dress, claiming she ripped it on a bush. As the town’s seamstress, Cora has mended many a dress. So, when she sees a ragged tear in her friend’s forearm and a bruise left by a thumb, Cora questions her friend’s story. When Cora asks about the wounds, her friend is evasive. Worried by the lack of answers, Cora starts her own investigation.
When murder is done, Cora won’t give in, back down, or submit to the behavior expected of a young lady in 1876 in a burgeoning Illinois prairie town. Why should she, she never expected to stay. That is until her mother abandoned her, leaving her heavily in debt, her reputation on the line, and the drudgery of a boarding house to run for one boarder.
Her intended life of mystery and adventure never seemed so far away.
Read more about Unbecoming a Lady, and buy on Amazon
Booth Island
It’s been nine years since Boothe Treader summered at her family’s island. Twelve since her brother died on its rocky shore. She’s never forgiven him for abandoning her, her parents for divorcing, or the dark-eyed boy who watched him drown. The stranger, the killer, no punishment that let him live could ever be enough. So, she wished him dead each passing day.
Now her dead brother is beckoning her to his gravesite. Her mother has deeded her the island. And old friends are lining up to welcome her back—or are they?
Saving Calypso
Teen heiress Calypso Swale was about to join the U.S. equestrian team in the Olympics when a car crash involving drunken Grieg Washburn, heir to the Washburn Exploration (WashEx) empire, killed her parents. At the time, Larch Swale, Calypso’s father, was COO of WashEx. Her father’s last word to her was “Run,” and Calypso obligingly disappeared with a chunk of his money and a precious patent for a new kind of engine. Five years later, Grieg’s father is dead and it looks like someone’s trying to kill Grieg too. WashEx’s board is offering a reward for Calypso’s return, and no one wants her found more than Grieg.
Perfidia
The DEA claims Olivia Lassiter’s father, Del, was last seen retrieving the wave-battered body of his drug running partner from a rocky cove in Barbados. In disbelief, Olivia outruns the DEA to Del’s safe deposit box only to uncover an emerald and ruby necklace, bearer bonds, and a rusty key.
When a couriered note from Del demands the key, and a glib Barbadian lawyer dangles intrigue, Olivia grabs the next flight to Barbados landing in the middle of a tug of war over a historic plantation, a hunt for rumored pirate booty, and a host of long kept secrets.