Here you’ll find descriptions and links to featured books by our authors.
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Books by Catherine Browning
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Andra Ames believes she is all alone in the world with no family, no friends, no job, and no home. Circumstances force her to claim an inheritance property she has never seen in northwest Montana. Once there she discovers there is a condition to retaining it: she must marry within the next five months or forfeit her inheritance. Someone else wants the property as well and threatens Andra with increasing violence to relinquish her rights.
Determined to do whatever it takes to keep the dream property on Flathead Lake and to change her friendless state, Andra ventures out into the town, meeting locals whose friendliness pushes past her barriers. She accepts a position with the Biological Station working with the new marine biologist who will be researching reports of a mysterious creature or monster in the lake.
Andra is shocked when she discovers that her neighbor is actually her great-uncle and that her mother is alive and living in the area. Can a change of address change a life? Will Andra find a way to keep her new home and find her family?
Is there really a monster in the lake?
In 1907 the Wild West was still pretty wild . . . Alex Macrae will do anything to save his family’s land, even if it means stealing the gold that the Pinkerton Company pays him to guard. Mariah Saunders will do anything to prove herself and assert her independence, even flaunt her family’s rules for a young, unmarried lady.
When daring and violent men steal the gold first, Alex has no choice but to follow them into Montana’s Rocky Mountains. Mariah thinks she can beat him to it and return the gold to its rightful owners. As they each race for the prize of the gold, will they find another treasure as well?
Books by Leslie Budewitz
Leslie writes the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries.
PEPPERMINT BARKED (2022 – Will be available in all formats)
Celebrate Christmas in July with Peppermint Barked, the 6th Spice Shop mystery by Leslie Budewitz, out now. Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, investigates when a young woman working the Christmas rush is brutally attacked in her friend Vinny’s wine shop, on the busiest shopping day of the year.
THE SOLACE OF BAY LEAVES (ebook and audio July 2020; paperback Oct 2020, Seventh St. Books and Tantor Audio, 5th in series)
Pepper Reece never expected to find solace in bay leaves.
But when her life fell apart at forty and she bought the venerable-but-rundown Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, her days took a tasty turn. Now she’s savoring the prospect of a flavorful fall and a busy holiday cooking season, until danger bubbles to the surface …
Between managing her shop, worrying about her staff, and navigating a delicious new relationship, Pepper’s firing on all burners. But when her childhood friend Maddie is shot and gravely wounded, the incident is quickly tied to an unsolved murder that left another close friend a widow.
Convinced that the secret to both crimes lies in the history of a once-beloved building, Pepper uses her local-girl contacts and her talent for asking questions to unearth startling links between the past and present—links that suggest her childhood friend may not have been the Golden Girl she appeared to be. Pepper is forced to face her own regrets and unsavory emotions, if she wants to save Maddie’s life—and her own.
CHAI ANOTHER DAY (June 2019, Seventh St. Books, 4th in series)
Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece probes murder while juggling a troubled employee, her mother’s house hunt, and a fisherman who’s set his hook for her.
As owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece is always on the go. Between conjuring up new spice blends and serving iced spice tea to customers looking to beat the summer heat, she finally takes a break for a massage. But the Zen moment is shattered when she overhears an argument in her friend Aimee’s vintage home decor shop that ends in murder.
Wracked by guilt over her failure to intervene, Pepper investigates, only to discover a web of deadly connections that could ensnare a friend – and Pepper herself.
AS THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CRUMBLES (June 2018, Midnight Ink, 5th in series)
The Agatha-Award winning Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries continue.
In Jewel Bay, all is merry and bright. At Murphy’s Mercantile, AKA the Merc, manager Erin Murphy is ringing in the holiday season with food, drink, and a new friend: Merrily Thornton. A local girl gone wrong, Merrily’s turned her life around. But her parents have publicly shunned her, and they nurse a bitterness that chills Erin.
When Merrily goes missing and her boss discovers he’s been robbed, fingers point to Merrily—until she’s found dead, a string of lights around her neck. The clues and danger snowball from there. Can Erin nab the killer—and keep herself in one piece—in time for a special Christmas Eve?
TREBLE AT THE JAM FEST (June 2017, Midnight Ink, 4th in series)
Erin Murphy, manager of Murphy’s Mercantile (aka the Merc), is tuning up for Jewel Bay’s annual Jazz Festival. Between keeping the Merc’s shelves stocked with Montana’s tastiest local fare and hosting the festival’s kick-off concert, Erin has her hands full.
Discord erupts when jazz guitarist Gerry Martin is found dead on the rocks above the Jewel River. The one-time international sensation had fallen out of sync with festival organizers, students, and performers. Was his death an accident?or did someone even the score?
Despite the warning signs to not get involved, Erin investigates. And when the killer attacks, she orchestrates her efforts into one last crescendo, hoping to avoid a deadly finale.
KILLING THYME (October 2016, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; 3d in series)
In Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece is savoring her business success, but soon finds her plans disrupted by a killer in the latest from the national bestselling author of Guilty as Cinnamon.
Pepper Reece’s to-do list is longer than the shopping list for a five-course dinner, as she conjures up spice blends bursting with seasonal flavor, soothes nervous brides fretting over the gift registry, and crosses her fingers for a rave review from a sharp-tongued food critic. Add to the mix a welcome visit from her mother, Lena, and she’s got the perfect recipe for a busy summer garnished with a dash of fun.
While browsing in the artists’ stalls, Pepper and Lena drool over stunning pottery made by a Market newcomer. But when Lena recognizes the potter, Bonnie Clay, as an old friend who disappeared years ago, the afternoon turns sour. To Pepper’s surprise, Bonnie seems intimately connected to her family’s past. After Bonnie is murdered only days later, Pepper is determined to uncover the truth. But as Pepper roots out long-buried secrets, will she be digging her own grave?
GUILTY AS CINNAMON (December 2015, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; 2d in series)
Murder heats up Seattle’s Pike Place Market in the next Spice Shop mystery from the national bestselling author of Assault and Pepper.
Springtime in Seattle’s Pike Place Market means tasty foods and wide-eyed tourists, and Pepper’s Seattle Spice Shop is ready for the crowds. With flavorful combinations and a fresh approach, she’s sure to win over the public. Even better, she’s working with several local restaurants as their chief herb and spice supplier. Business is cooking, until one of Pepper’s potential clients, a young chef named Tamara Langston, is found dead, her life extinguished by the dangerously hot ghost chili—a spice Pepper carries in her shop.
Now stuck in the middle of a heated police investigation, Pepper must use all her senses to find out who wanted to keep Tamara’s new café from opening—before someone else gets burned…
ASSAULT AND PEPPER (March 2015, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; 1st in series)
Pepper Reece, owner of the Seattle Spice Shop, thinks she can handle any kind of salty customer—until a murderer ends up in the mix…
After leaving a dicey marriage and losing a beloved job in a corporate crash, Pepper Reece has found a new zest for life running a busy spice and tea shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market. Her aromatic creations are the talk of the town, and everyone stops by for a cup of her refreshing spice tea, even other shopkeepers and Market regulars.
But when a panhandler named Doc shows up dead on her doorstep, a Seattle Spice Shop cup in his hand, the local gossip gets too hot for Pepper to handle—especially after the police arrest Tory Finch, one of Pepper’s staffers, for murder.
Tory seems to know why she’s a suspect, but she refuses to do anything to curry favor with the cops. Convinced her reticent employee is innocent, Pepper takes it on herself to sniff out some clues. Only, if she’s not careful, Pepper’s nosy ways might make her next on the killer’s list…
BUTTER OFF DEAD (July 2015, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; 3d in series)
As the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village mysteries continue, the merchants of Jewel Bay, Montana try to heat up chilly winter business with a new film festival. But their plans are sent reeling when a dangerous killer dims the lights on a local mover and shaker …
In an attempt to woo tourists to Jewel Bay and cheer up the townies, Erin Murphy, manager of the specialty local foods market known as the Merc, is organizing the First Annual Food Lovers’ Film Festival, popping with classic foodie flicks and local twists on favorite movie treats. But when her partner in planning, painter Christine Vandeberg, is found dead only days before the curtain rises, Erin suspects someone is attempting to stop the films from rolling.
To make matters worse, Nick—Erin’s brother and Christine’s beau—has top billing on the suspect list. Convinced her brother is innocent and determined that the show must go on, Erin must find who’s really to blame before Nick gets arrested or the festival gets shut down. And as the anniversary of Erin’s father’s death in a still-unsolved hit-and-run approaches, her own beau isn’t so keen on her leading role.
But the closer Erin gets to shining a spotlight on the killer, the more likely it becomes that she’ll be the next person cut from the program…
CRIME RIB (July 2014, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; second in series)
Gourmet food market owner Erin Murphy is determined to get Jewel Bay, Montana’s scrumptious local fare some national attention. But her scheme for culinary celebrity goes up in flames when the town’s big break is interrupted by murder…
Food Preneurs, one of the hottest cooking shows on TV, has decided to feature Jewel Bay in an upcoming episode, and everyone in town is preparing for their close-ups, including the crew at the Glacier Mercantile, aka the Merc. Not only is Erin busy remodeling her courtyard into a relaxing dining area, she’s organizing a steak-cooking competition between three of Jewel Bay’s hottest chefs to be featured on the program.
But Erin’s plans get scorched when one of the contending cooks is found dead. With all the drama going on behind the scenes, it’s hard to figure out who didn’t have a motive to off the saucy contestant. Now, to keep the town’s rep from crashing and burning on national television, Erin will have to grill some suspects to smoke out the killer…
DEATH AL DENTE (August 2013, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House; first in series)
WINNER OF THE 2013 AGATHA AWARD FOR BEST FIRST NOVEL!
The town of Jewel Bay, Montana—known as a Food Lovers’ Village—is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family’s century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin’s freshly booming business might go rotten when a former employee turns up dead…
Murphy’s Mercantile, known as the Merc, has been a staple in Jewel Bay for over a hundred years. To celebrate their recent makeover as a gourmet food market, Erin has organized a town festival, Festa di Pasta, featuring the culinary goods of Jewel Bay’s finest—including her mother Fresca’s delicious Italian specialties.
But Erin’s sweet success is soured when the shop’s former manager, Claudette, is found dead behind the Merc on the Festa’s opening night. With rival chef James Angelo stirring up rumors that Fresca’s sauce recipes were stolen from Claudette, Erin’s mother is under close scrutiny. Now Erin will have to hunt down some new suspects, or both her family and her store might wind up in hot water…
BOOKS, CROOKS AND COUNSELORS (September 2011, Linden Books/Quill Driver Press)
WINNER OF THE 2011 AGATHA AWARD FOR BEST NONFICTION!
Addressing the misunderstood and misrepresented aspects of the law in today’s writing, this reliable guidebook demonstrates how to use legal concepts, terminology, and procedure to create fiction that is true to life and crackling with real-world tension. Examples from actual cases are provided along with excerpts of authentic courtroom dialogue. Topics covered include criminal and civil law; differences between federal, state, and Native American jurisdiction; police and private investigation; wills and inheritances; and the written and unwritten codes that govern the public and private conduct of lawyers and judges. Providing a quick and simple legal reference, this handbook is the key to creating innovative plots, strong conflicts, authentic characters, and gritty realism.
Books by Deborah Epperson
SHADOWS OF HOME
A Woman with Questions. A Man with Secrets. A Bayou without Mercy. A gripping southern tale of rekindled love, heartbreaking betrayal, and the power of secrets to both destroy and bind a family together.
After fleeing to Chicago five years earlier, Elita Dupree returns to her ancestral home on Louisiana’s mysterious Caddo Lake. Now twenty-two, she seeks answers to questions about her father’s death, questions that cast shadows over her childhood memories of him.
On her first trip into the bayous of Caddo Lake, Elita encounters Jax Boudreaux, a shotgun toting loner who warns her to stay out of the Caddo. When Royce Sutton finds her and offers to take her home, Elita is overjoyed, but soon learns that the teenager to whom she’d given her heart is now a bitter young man, scarred by war, and filled with secrets. But no matter how much they’ve changed, they can’t resist their smoldering passions.
As she navigates their turbulent relationship, Elita discovers some of the secrets Royce is keeping involve her family. Trust in the people she loves most erodes with each new unanswered question. The truth lies in the bayous of Caddo Lake, and Elita won’t rest until she finds it. But while she is hunting answers, someone…or something…is hunting her.
BREAKING TWIG
Set in rural Georgia in the 1960s, BREAKING TWIG is a coming-of-age novel about Becky (Twig) Cooper, a young woman trying to survive the physical and emotional abuse of her mother, Helen, a beautiful, calculating woman who can, with a mere look, send the meanest cur in Sugardale, Georgia running for its life.
Not even Twig’s vivid imagination, keen wit, and dark sense of humor is enough to help her survive the escalating assaults of Helen and a new stepbrother, but help comes from an unexpected source–Frank, her stepfather. Sometimes, having one person who loves and believes in you is all a girl needs to keep hope alive.
Often raw and irreverent and sprinkled with all the Southern flavoring found in a good bowl of chicken and dumplings, BREAKING TWIG, is about finding love where we least expect it, destroying lives with easy lies, and realizing each of us determine our own truth.
Books by M.F. Erler
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THE PEAKS AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD SAGA
BOOK ONE
Ginna and Danny, Twenty-first Century siblings, are having a hard time adjusting to their parents’ divorce. Then two time-travelers, Jon and Jael, arrive, promising to help them. They soon find themselves on the distant planet of Terres, where young Jael’s family is being torn apart by the dark forces of the Galactic System. Soon he finds himself on his own in a hostile world, with no one to turn to except a stranger named Jon. Can Jael trust Jon to help him find his runaway sister, Martina? Or is Jon drawing him into a subtle trap?
BOOK TWO
In “Searching for Maia”, Jon draws twentieth century teens, Danny and Ginna, into a daring experiment, in which they live the lives of his friends Jael and Martina. Together the three of them, and Jael’s telepathic feier-cat, search the Galaxy for a new home, where they can escape the overpowering Galactic System. They encounter several planets, each with a different philosophy and culture, but each one also has problems and evils of a different shape. Will they ever reach a place where peace and hope exist? All seems lost, when their tiny spacecraft crashes, but then hope comes from a surprising place.
BOOK THREE
In “Mountaintops and Valleys”, Jon continues his daring experiment of merging teens, Danny and Ginna, into the lives of Jael and Martina. He also gives them a flash-back glimpse of what happened to Jael’s friend Raina in the disaster of Terres. Now that they all have discovered Maia, it isn’t what they hoped for. New challenges face the trio, problems that threaten to tear them apart. An old sage tells them they must cross many physical and spiritual mountains and deserts. Martina, especially, faces great temptation when a co-worker is attracted to her. Will her friendship with Jon survive these trials or not?
BOOK FOUR
Twenty-five years have passed on Earth, in both the 21st and 31st Centuries. Two women, Ginna and Martina, who were once connected across the GAP, now have daughters of their own, but Annemarie and Celestia have taken very different paths. Soon, however, all four will be taken into another GAP with many unanswered questions–including who is Annemarie’s mysterious father, why has the System returned to Earth, and why has the world suddenly gone cold? Now it’s time for the next generation to seek their own answers to the questions that have plagued their elders.
BOOK FIVE FOUNTAIN IN THE DESERT
Annemarie Parker has traveled far in space and time to find her unknown father. Now she wonders what to make of him, and where to take her life next.
She desperately wants to find this Fountain in the Desert that her mother talks of. But when GAP-crosser Celestia tries to take her and her parents there, something goes terribly wrong
BOOK SIX BEYOND THE WORLD
A new dark force is rising, forcing Celestia Sullien and her family to flee Earth. When they discover a portal to a parallel universe, their hopes rise that they can escape. But is there true safety in this strange new world?
BOOK SEVEN WHERE ALL WORLDS END
Young Dain Parker and his brother Evin have been pulled through the GAP into a distant future by a strange old man. He insists they must help overcome an evil Red Dragon who threatens not only their world, but the entire Galaxy.
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VOICES IN THE PAST
In this historical fiction novel, thirteen-year-old Cinda Parker knows she and her younger brother Ian have a special connection. It’s not until a mysterious stranger named Lexi arrives from the future that they realize they are more than typical mid-twenty-first century children. – Lexi convinces the siblings to travel back 200 years into the minds and lives of their ancestors, in order to help their father, who is dealing with grief over his own father’s death and anger with his brother’s questionable choices. When their family line is disrupted, Cinda and Ian learn the true value of a single life.
- FINDING THE LIGHT
- SEARCHING FOR MAIA
- MOUNTAINTOPS AND VALLEYS
- WHEN THE WORLD GROWS COLD
- THE FOUNTAIN AND THE DESERT
- BEYOND THE WORLD
- WHERE ALL WORLDS END
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Books by J.M. Goodison
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Books available at: Amazon
FOOTPRINTS IN HISTORY
Based on the personalities who created America’s Early Colonial Period, Footprints in History, combines imagination and historic events to tell of the author’s sixth great-grandfather, blacksmith and indentured servant, James Fitchett. James and his neighbors toil in the new land for the twenty-four Scottish investors, known as proprietors. These men control East New Jersey hoping to amass fortunes from the sweat and tears of their tenants, indentured servants, and slaves. Not all settlers share the same hopes and beliefs. Footprints in History reveals the winners and the losers.
PLANS INTERRUPTED (BY MADGE WOOD aka J.M. GOODISON)
Have you ever been disappointed because your major plans were interrupted, or have you willingly given up your plans for someone you loved? If so, have you ever wondered if it’s too late to revise past plans? Yeh, I have, too.
And now here I am a sixty-something widow with only one major plan left—a trip to Monaco, a ride up the “To Catch a Thief” cliffside road, wearing a long, pink, Grace Kelly-like scarf that catches the sunlight as it flies in the wind, and a visit to Princess Grace’s Palace.
My last plan, What could possibly interrupt it? An antique ring, thugs accosting me, enigmatic men offering assistance, and time travel to change ancient history. You’re not going to believe it. I wouldn’t either—except I lived it.
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Books by Betty Kuffel
All books available at: Amazon Author
PAPA DEAREST
Twelve-year-old Anna sobs at the grave of her loving mother. Without a protector, life in a desolate Montana town with her father warps into a nightmare when physical pain and horror compound her sorrow. Papa, a respected church deacon and dependable railroad worker, is a different man behind closed doors. He threatens death if Anna tells the truth. Her plan to escape his violence and build a life for herself is met with desperation when she becomes pregnant. Giving birth to his child brings more lies and increased abuse strengthening Anna’s resolve to flee with her little girl. How will they escape?
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FATAL FEAST
Fatal Feast is set in Montana.
A prion pandemic threatens the world as brilliant young researcher Dr. Callie Archer vows to find a cure for the aggressive variant of mad cow disease that killed her father. Like unstoppable super-bugs, the deadly prion proteins infect livestock and wild game, threatening world food supplies. Unknowing humans who eat infected meat become paranoid, violent and die horrible deaths. Dr. Archer closes in on a cure, but murderous activists penetrate her lab, steal infected animals, and nearly kill her. The disease spreads in ranching and hunting country. Callie’s promising treatment may be the only hope to prevent a world-wide pandemic. With forces against her mounting, can she save mankind and herself?
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DEADLY PYRE
Book 1 – A Kelly McKay Medical Thriller Dr. Kelly McKay struggles to complete her ER residency at Seattle’s Harbor Medical Center. Ferocious competition, burnout, and an unpredictable lover complicate her life. Besides unexplained deaths of patients under her care, a sudden increase in stabbing victims points to a serial killer stalking women near the hospital. Will Kelly be next?
DEADLY SPIN
Book 2 – A Kelly McKay Medical Thriller ER doctor and pilot Kelly McKay takes a job in Anchorage after a chaotic end to her medical training at a large university hospital in Seattle. Her plans for a peaceful recovery after near fatal injuries and time to enjoy flying abruptly switch to survival. Challenges in the busy ER expand to rescue missions in the Alaskan wilderness and fear accelerates when a violent stalker closes in.
ALASKA FLIGHT
A Romantic Medical Thriller Flight nurse Liz Elliot quits her Arizona job and flees to Alaska to cool hot emotions after a medical helicopter piloted by her lover crashes, killing him and two close friends. Her escape from grief backfires when she meets Paul Lasher, a charming flying doctor in need of her emergency skills in the Alaskan bush. They learn her friends were murdered. Will Liz be next?
MODERN BIRTH CONTROL
A fifty-page science-based booklet with explanations of current methods of birth control, sexually transmitted diseases and treatments. Also includes concepts of avoidance of sexual assault, and advice on what to do should it occur.
EYES OF A PEDOPHILE
True Crime – How to recognize pedophile behavior
Peer inside the mind of violent child molester, Nathanael Bar-Jonah.Personal coded writings, life-long behaviors and victim testimony reveal how he operated and the difficulties law enforcement experienced stopping him. Eyes of a Pedophile follows Bar-Jonah’s evolution from religious beginnings to hunting children. Extensively researched medical and psychological details explain what is known about child predators and show you how to recognize pedophile behavior and protect children.
YOUR HEART – PREVENT & REVERSE HEART DISEASE IN WOMEN, MEN & CHILDREN
Your Heart is a comprehensive guidebook to heart health. Written by a physician and based on current scientific data, the contents provide a foundation for understanding risks, prevention and treatments of the leading cause of death. Choices for preventing heart disease and improving health before or after a heart attack are detailed with the latest medical studies.Real-life patient experiences are woven into facts on fats, sugars, diabetes and their relationship to heart disease. Food choices and exercise options proven to contribute to health and longevity are included. This is a reference about cardiovascular diseases and treatments for lay people, caregivers and medical practitioners.
Books by Marie F. Martin
DON’T MESS WITH MRS. SEDGEWICK
Roberta Sedgewick is stuck in a house too empty without her Burton. The rat died and left her with his odd dog and rooms that rattle. She convinces her three golfing buddies, all in their seventies, to sell their homes and buy adjoining condos. The widows intend to spend the rest of their days golfing, gambling and having fun. They all hire the same maid, who uncovers long-hidden criminal secrets kept by each woman. Three of the widows could possibly face jail time, the fourth fears for her life. What will they do with the blackmailing maid?
RATHAM CREEK
Unexpectedly widowed and left destitute, Arianne Hollis retreats to a remote area of Montana and struggles to build a new life. She becomes acquainted with clannish mountain people and newcomers, only to find herself sucked into a feud between them. Then she becomes a target. Will Arianne give into the same vengeance that corrupts the clan?
HARBORED SECRETS
In May of 1935, Blinny Platt’s homestead shack burns to the ground forever leaving her family asunder, scattering them like the embers flew on the Montana wind. She was only eight-years-old, sent away and in charge of her little sister. She could handle that because Platts take care of Platts.
However, it is the hidden secrets of her parents smoldering beneath the charred remains that haunts Blinny until 1982. She once again leaves the home place to build a house for herself. As the foundation is poured and the walls go up, each of the hurtful memories are uncovered. Finally the mystery, left in the ashes of the burned home, is revealed. How could her mother do what she did?
MATERNAL HARBOR
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Could an accidental friendship put your life and your newborn child at risk? Could a well-intentioned promise turn you into a fugitive? Teagan O’Riley befriends three single moms at a Seattle OB clinic. Now, two of them are dead and the third is close on Teagan’s heels, intent on eliminating the last obstacle to a monstrous plot. And Teagan cannot risk entrusting the three infants to the police with her fingerprints all over one crime scene and her footprint smeared into blood at another. She flees with the babies to the only refuge she can think of − the wilderness cabin of her lost love’s grandmother. But is even this remote location safe?
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Books by P.A. Moore
COURTHOUSE COWBOYS
Murder dogs Jack and Paige Defalco from their days as California prosecutors to their newfound careers as Montana defense attorneys. Never mind that they’ve uprooted their kids, caravanned 2,000 miles to the hinterlands of Kootenai County, kissed goodbye to their fat salaries, or vowed to avoid homicide.At Deer Lodge State Prison in 1999, murder sits before Paige in the guise of a skeletal, bloody-lipped, broken-nosed teenager who grins out one side of his mouth as he stares at her through a swollen eye. Evidently his fellow criminals brook no mercy for a convicted killer, regardless of his age or feeble intelligence.This kid’s parents have no money and the local legal eagles have warned Paige to let the conviction stand … or else. Yet that threat, a gauntlet thrown down, fuels her addiction to criminal law. It makes her flip the bird at those in authority and go to trial anyway. So, as she returns the kid’s stare, her nod conveys her agreement to defend mentally disabled Ben Stagg.Is it coincidence that soon thereafter anonymous callers threaten her? That the local media excoriates her? That the State Bar investigates both Defalcos? Is Paige crazy to rat out the corrupt criminal justice system to the ACLU and the Montana Supreme Court? Is she foolhardy to challenge the powerful judges, lawyers, and cops who comprise the Courthouse Cowboys?And with the discovery that Ben Stagg suffers from Klinefelter’s syndrome, a common but rarely diagnosed genetic disorder, will a jury acquit him of murder when presented with a never-before-used insanity defense?
This legal thriller rocks the reader with suspense, gallows humor, and a finale filled with redemption.
From the 5 STAR author of Courthouse Cowboys: A Modern Tale of Murder in Montana comes Book 2 in the Defalco Law series. Courthouse Rebel wraps the era of Courthouse Cowboys, beginning in 1987 when Jack Defalco, an ambitious young prosecutor, determines to win his first California death penalty case…even if it means colluding with a judge to illegally stack the jury. Fast forward 17 years, as Jack and wife Paige work in their own law office in small town Montana, and the past comes back to haunt them. The man whose death sentence Jack engineered faces execution. If Jack keeps silent, his reputation and livelihood remain secure, but a wrongly convicted man dies. If Jack admits guilt, both he and Paige face disbarment, financial ruin, and public shame. Yet neither lawyer anticipates the chain reaction of mayhem and murder that results from Jack’s confession. P.A. Moore, as a tenured attorney and sure-footed author, takes readers on an inside tour of America’s justice system, exposing its underbelly of corruption through gritty writing and gallows humor.Books by Kathy Dunnehoff
THE DO-OVER (A Romantic Comedy)
Just before her fortieth birthday, Mara Jane Mulligan, devoted wife and mother, runs out of bubble bath, and the ensuing panic attack drives her to Canada for more. She realizes that one foamy soak probably won’t cure what ails her, so she takes a 30 day vacation from her life. (What woman doesn’t need one of those?) As her 30 days sail by, Mara Jane Mulligan discovers she has a decision to make that even Dorothy couldn’t avoid… Will she click her heels for home or kick them up for good?PLAN ON IT
It’s a logical plan to Professor Hattie McLean. Date 6 men in 6 months and one will be the clear choice to father her child. But biology involves the heart as well… even if she didn’t plan on it!
BACK TO U
When Gwen hits the big 4-0, her husband leaves and her daughter takes off with a Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band. Taking her daughter’s place at the university seems like a good idea until she runs into the reason she dropped out twenty years before… and he’s also found his way Back To U.
FIFTEEN YEARS OF LIES
A college student is raped, and her two roommates feel responsible for not protecting her. In solidarity, both friends get tattoos to match the victim’s distinctive ink. She gives birth to a son Zane, and best friend Lark adopts the baby. The three young women conspire never to reveal Zane’s true history, but fifteen years later, a stranger recognizes the tattoo. He stalks mother and son, causing the family’s lies to unravel. Was the stranger a witness to the rape or in fact one of the assailants?
Beautiful Whitefish, Montana serves as the setting for Fifteen Years of Lies, yet the story could occur anywhere and in any family struggling to keep harmful secrets. Parents of teenagers will relate to Lark’s fears for her son as his growing rebellion leads him to violence. The timely issue of sexual assault on campus will capture the attention of readers across this country. But Fifteen Years of Lies goes beyond today’s news stories to lay bare the aftermath of rape and its effects on the victim, the child, loved ones, and even the rapist. Readers will resonate with the raw emotions of past injustice and imminent threat when a suspected rapist believes he has found his victim and his son. How far will Lark and her friends go to protect Zane from the truth?
Serita goes off her brain-numbing medication to reclaim her old pizzazz and find love. And it works until…Serita’s Shelf Life gives us a peek inside the head and heart of a crazy, loving character you’ll never forget. She’s a vivacious six-foot redhead, plump fashionista, and a shameless flirt who never meets a stranger.
Come ride the emotional roller coaster with Serita.
After all, what’s a good-looking middle-aged woman to do, Hon?
Hannah Dyer’s crazy mother was abusive and an alcoholic. At the age of sixty she adopted an infant, and now that she’s dead, Hannah must raise the child. But fighting the effects of severe burns sustained in childhood may be all that Hannah can manage. Defined and alienated by both emotional and physical scars, Hannah fears that she might be abusive and crazy, too.Burden of Breath alternates between the intervening years since the fire and the present as Hannah struggles to separate from her mother’s crippling influence – even from the grave. Anger and isolation force Hannah to confront her emotional and physical damage, and she transforms her life in ways she could never have imagined.
TRACES
When Alida Bernie’s husband Stan runs naked through their small Montana hometown, she can no longer keep his dementia a secret. Her adult children arrive to intervene. So does her estranged daughter-in-law, Joli, recently released from prison for abuse of Alida’s grandchildren. Alida is horrified when Joli becomes Stan’s caregiver in a nursing home. After his death, Alida uncovers his secret life that forces her to question her once-happy marriage. Meanwhile, Joli ingratiates herself back into the family, inflaming Alida’s fear of potential harm to her beloved grandchildren. As she struggles to protect them, she must face the consequences of secrets that were hidden from her as well as ones that she herself hides.
NO GOAT FARM
Christine Norris hits emotional bottom after two young cousins are removed from her care due to her ‘lesbian lifestyle.’ She descends into self-destruction, but a wise older neighbor and the neighbor’s adult son Seth inspire Chris to become a teacher and later, guardian to the developmentally delayed Seth. Chris falls in love with Delilah and finds her voice as a wife, a teacher, and advocate for children in need of a loving home. Set in rural East Texas, Chris and firebrand Delilah overcome violence, racism, and homophobia to create their own diverse, loving family.
Books by Karen Wills
REMARKABLE SILENCE
Sepphoris, Israel, 1995: Henry and Alice Cross, Harvard scholars leading an archaeological dig, discover clay tablets recording a family’s epic history from Moses through Mary, the mother of Jesus. The tablets raise serious questions about the foundations of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Was Moses a servant of God or a charlatan? What did Jesus want? What were Mary’s secrets? The discovery holds many answers. Henry and Alice call their find the Jesus Tablets.
News of the discovery leads to behind-the-scenes conflicts among world powers, some willing to kill either to suppress or reveal the evidence. The American President, the Israeli Prime Minister, the Pope, a Hamas commander, Jesuits, and agents with unknown allegiances all scheme to control the Tablets. Henry and Alice’s struggle to protect what they’ve unearthed takes them from Israel to Washington, D.C. as they survive shocking murders of innocent friends. Will they and the Tablets survive? How important is the truth? Will a Machiavellian solution to conflict in the Middle East actually work? You are invited to enter the complex labyrinth of Remarkable Silence.
RIVER with no BRIDGE
In 1882, eighteen-year-old Nora Flanagan works in Boston as a maid and dreams of better things. Then she meets Tade Larkin, who tells of better things in Montana Territory where he works as a miner. Nora makes the long journey across the country to marry Tade, but life is harsh in the West, and Nora faces challenges she never imagined. Through it all she is sustained by the affection of an unlikely protector and her growing love for the wild untamed landscape of the West.
All too Human
In 1905, Rebecca Bryan begins her legal career in Kalispell, Montana, mentored by her senior law partner and only living relative, Max Bryan. Max suffers a stroke after learning of the death of Lucinda Cale, an affluent, artistic widow he’d loved for years. There’s a troubling question of Lucinda’s missing will. Max believes it could reveal financial information and truths long denied.
After traveling by train to the boom-town of Jennings, Rebecca hires a coach to take her to join the Cale family at Lucinda’s mansion, Eagle Mountain. After a wheel breaks and her drunken driver passes out, Rebecca braves a nocturnal forest trek during winter’s first bitter-cold snowfall. She finds the cabin/studio of Lucinda’s compelling youngest son, Bretton.
Next morning she meets Damon, Lucinda’s disgraced oldest son, his pregnant wife, and their children, mysterious thirteen-year-old Amy, and uncomplicated five-year-old Teddy. The stakes of inheritance are high for the adults and Amy.
Searching the library, Rebecca discovers Lucinda’s hidden diaries. They tell of a naïve bride finding freedom from scandals and poverty via marriage to handsome, wealthy Civil War veteran Garrett Cale. Lucinda describes the newlyweds’ journey by steamboat from St. Louis to Fort Benton, Montana, then by wagon to Eagle Mountain, their home in Northwest mining country. The diaries soon reveal ongoing physical and emotional abuse, dark deceptions, and Lucinda’s secret passion.
Lucinda alters from a hopeful bride to a schemer using her beauty to control the men around her, possibly to murderous ends.
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Books by Lise McClendon
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When Francie Bennett, 4th in the line of lawyer/sisters, comes under serious allegations of wrongdoing at her law firm, she is mortified to learn she must take a leave of absence. Just a formality, they say, but she is sure this is the end of her reputation and her law career. Will she sit around her apartment and eat cheese, drink wine, and binge Netflix for weeks while hoping it gets worked out?
ZUT ALORS! NON! She is off to Paris on assignment by the mother of a student jailed for serious drug crimes in France. She stays with her sister Merle and her boyfriend, the debonair policier Pascal, in the Marais district while trying to navigate the murky waters of the French criminal system. Is the student an actual European drug kingpin? Or has he been framed by someone? He looks guilty as hell, but first impressions can be confusing, especially inside one of France’s worst medieval prisons.
But wait– a distraction from crime. A law school boyfriend that the flighty Francie kicked to the curb years before has surfaced. Instead of the boring lad she flicked away, Dylan Hardy is now sophisticated and suave– and speaks perfect French from working in an international law firm. And he’s single again, Merle discovers, eager to find her sister a real boyfriend after many rejects over the years.
IT’S SPRINGTIME IN PARIS– or would be if the rain would ever stop. In between visiting the student in prison, gumshoeing about his University, and witnessing drug stings gone wrong, Francie longs to find blooming cherry trees that make Paris the magical place she imagines it is. Will Dylan’s sudden re-appearance in her life be a good thing, or a repeat of her many romantic failures? Will she figure out what is going on with the drug dealer/student? Will she ever find her pink trees of legend?
The Seventh book in the Bennett Sisters Mystery Series.
Books by Nan McKenzie
BIGFOOT
Action-thriller ‘Bigfoot’ Is Also a Heart-Warming Romance
Young widow Zoe Zahn moves with her dog Wizard into a beautiful secluded cabin in the Montana wilderness. She gets a terrifying wake-up call when Bigfoot arrives! Pinned by a fallen tree, the furry creature is rescued by Zoe, who wades through heavy snow to cut the tree with a chain saw and save him.
Bigfoot runs off, but later returns to kidnap Zoe and carry her off to his mountain lair. Somehow these two lonely souls find rapport without language, and Zoe realizes that Bigfoot won’t hurt her. Now all she has to do is convince him to take her home, and then save him from the media and all the crazies who would capture or kill him.
The 405-page novel is an exciting adventure packed with plenty of humor, a blizzard, terrible rain, a giant flood. Bigfoot is huge, stinky, and scary, and seems to be a little sweet on Zoe. Handsome forest ranger Sam Hill also has a warm spot in his heart for this spunky woman. Throw in some bad guys, a mountain cabin set in the stunning wilderness, good friend Darcy and her fella’, George, and a gentle love story between Zoe and Sam, and you have an unbeatable novel. With perseverance and remarkable courage, tiny Zoe finds her way into Bigfoot’s heart, and yours.
This is the first of three volumes in this series. Available on Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Nobles.
Bigfoot Returns
HE’S BACK!! In all his stinking, huge, ugly scary glory!! Ten-foot tall Bigfoot has returned to haunt Zoe Zahn and her friends, Sam Hill, Darcy Johnson, Valli and Rauol, Montana Governor Judy Harris, and others.
Zoe, Sam, Wizard and friends are pulled into the drama of Bigfoot versus everyone else in the world. It seems that most people are only interested in a dead Bigfoot, one they can study. This time Bigfoot has a girlfriend, Helga, who pops out Helgette, an ugly baby Bigfoot, and they are all threatened by a beast who want Helga, Ssshhhrrrmmm!
More adventures with these creatures who Zoe is convinced are like a lost tribe, and related (distantly) to humans.
Available on Amazon paperback and Kindle, and Barnes & Nobles.
BOOKS BY MAGGIE PLUMMER
SPIRITED AWAY: A NOVEL OF THE STOLEN IRISH
Spirited Away: A Novel of the Stolen Irish paints an intimate portrait of 1650s Irish slavery in the Caribbean.
In May 1653, young Frederica (Freddy) O’Brennan and her sister Aileen trust a stranger on an empty beach in western Ireland, inadvertently placing themselves in the crosshairs of Cromwell’s notorious Reign of Terror.
Freddy awakens in the crammed hold of a slave ship bound for Barbados. Ripped from their loved ones, she and Aileen endure the voyage – only to be wrenched apart when purchased at auction by sugar plantation owners from different islands. Freddy faces the brutal realities of life as a female Irish slave on a seventeenth century Barbados sugar plantation. Amidst the island’s treacherous beauty, she must find a way to bear her cruel, drunken Master’s abuse.
Heartsick with yearning for her family, Freddy must reach deep inside herself for the strength she needs to protect her young spirit from being broken. As she struggles to survive rape, degradation, beatings, and the harrowing spectacle of her Irish countrymen being flogged and starved to death, she is buoyed by powerful friendships with her fellow slaves – especially the Native American kitchen slave with whom she works long hours in the plantation cookhouse. The two women risk severe punishment by sneaking food and medicine to the suffering Irish and African field slaves.
Eventually Freddy braves much more for the sake of love and loyal friendship.
DARING PASSAGE: BOOK 2 OF THE SPIRITED AWAY SAGA
Daring Passage: Book 2 of the Spirited Away saga tells the rest of the story.
In 1656, Freddy O’Brennan is on the run, determined to protect her young children and keep her family together. Her character is tested more than ever as she navigates a choking gauntlet of greed, corruption, duplicity, and bloody violence.
Romantic sparks fly, smolder, and threaten to explode.
Freddy’s story, inspired by historical events, captures a rare, authentic glimpse of New World colonies in the seventeenth century.
Montana Women Writers 
A group blog! What a lovely way to share your ideas as well as your books. Would you be interested in connecting with a small group of writers from Edmonds, WA? (We’re north of Seattle in a small town along the Puget Sound.) LIke you, we write in a variety of genres. I’m in Missoula, Bozeman and Billings this next week for events about my book based in Montana. Are any of you along that trajectory?
Paddy, sorry we missed the chance to connect. Most of us are up in the NW part of the state, near Glacier Park. Please keep in touch!