Showing results by author "Connie Shelton" in All Categories

Samantha Sweet and Beau Cardwell are getting ready for their September wedding, with the whole Sweet clan about to show up for the celebration.

Dealing with her mother may turn out to be the least of Sam’s problems when an unwelcome visitor walks into her pastry shop - Sam’s old heartthrob, the charmer Jake Calendar. Jake wants money for a Hollywood get-rich-quick scheme and he wants Sam to finance the deal. Can Sam convince him that the answer is "no"? Or will he sabotage the plans for her wedding?

Now that Samantha Sweet has a contract to provide her special handmade chocolates for the wealthy jet-set clients of Book It Travel, Sweet’s Sweets bakery is taking on a whole new dimension. It’s almost Halloween, and her pastry shop is bursting at the seams. She needs extra employees, but there is no place to put them. Right before the witching day, she comes upon a large Victorian house she can adapt for the business, but the mysterious, spooky noises at night are way more than the normal creaks and groans of an old building. Something else is going on.

Two things are weighing on Samantha Sweet's mind this summer - organizing the Sweet Somethings chocolate festival and tracking down information on the mystical carved wooden box that came into her life nearly two years ago, changing her forever. At last she believes she has located the person who can give the answers.

Revenge is often a cold dish, but in the tiny northern New Mexico town of Sembramos emotions are running decidedly hot. When two men convicted of murdering a local girl are released from prison after serving only a few years, their convictions overturned, the town's old pain rises to the surface and tempers flare. Samantha Sweet has her hands full with Easter at Sweet's Sweets, while her husband, Taos County Sheriff Beau Cardwell, is charged with keeping order among the two hundred residents of Sembramos.

It's a freezing January day when Samantha Sweet finds herself facing the unpleasant task of going back to her old job of breaking into houses. Meanwhile, a customer who's just a little bit too nice seems to be worming her way into Jen's confidence. Sheriff Beau, on the other hand, is dealing with a car-crash-turned-murder, and somehow it all seems to tie together in a great big sticky situation.

When a woman walks into Samantha Sweet’s pastry shop, claiming to have amnesia, it’s a puzzle that seems to have nothing to do with Sam’s new commission for a fantastic one-of-a-kind order of chocolates, although "Jane Doe" seems to know a lot about that. Sam calls Sheriff Beau to solve the mystery of who this stranger is and where she belongs. But Beau’s attention is occupied by other things: nearly his entire force is out sick with some kind of flu bug, and now a murder far from Taos requires his full attention. “Jane’s” forgotten memories become vitally important....

Samantha Sweet learns that an Irish great-uncle left her an inheritance, so she and Beau change their honeymoon plans and go to the Emerald Isle. Will the gift be something lavish and wonderful? Or is there no pot of gold waiting for Sam? Meanwhile, before Sam fully has the answers to her questions, a new mystery presents itself when a local charter boat is found adrift near the rocky Irish coast, its occupants missing. The family of the captain wants answers and when it looks like a group of Americans might be implicated, the Galway homicide detective in charge of the case enlists Beau’s help.

Charlie Parker and her husband Drake Langston accept a job with Gold Trail Adventures in Skagway, Alaska, flying visitors by helicopter to remote cabin sites to experience the outdoor lifestyle and seek their fortunes. It isn't long before one of the guests finds a set of bones in an old mine, remains that date back decades.

Women are flocking to invest in film producer Robert Williams' latest project, and Gracie's mother is no exception. She has sunk her life savings into his latest movie investment scheme. Big returns were promised, along with the chance to hobnob with famous actors. Now, the money's gone, the bank is threatening foreclosure, and Mama has also taken on the responsibility of Gracie's younger sister and her two kids. Left homeless, the whole brood may be showing up at Gracie's door!

Samantha Sweet's life is a little crazy right now, beginning with her daughter's wedding, which coincides with Sam's receiving a huge new contract for her chocolate factory. The day after the wedding, someone takes a shot at Sam, and she discovers the bad guys are back.

Upon returning to her New Mexico home after visiting her fiance in Hawaii, private investigator Charlie Parker discovers that her mother and father, a scientist at Sandia Labs, were killed in a suspicious small plane crash.

Charlie Parker is asked to look into a controversial series of miscarriages in a small town in New Mexico that's heavily populated by Mexicans. The town has one medical clinic. Her first assumption is to look for some type of environmental problem such as pesticides but that draws a blank. Then she shifts her suspicions onto the medical industry and finds herself embroiled in politics regarding health care among minorities. It's when the dead bodies start to show up that she realizes she's onto something far bigger than she imagined and far deadlier....

Amber Zeckis has just flown home to Phoenix after a dream vacation with her dream guy in Paris. But things go sour when she is stopped at the airport and US Customs finds a huge amount of undeclared cash in her luggage. The problem is, Amber has no idea where it came from. The authorities don't believe her and it's looking like she could be facing prison time and fines. She calls on her friends for help, and the Ladies are faced with their trickiest case yet.

Mary Holbrook and Sandy Warner are volunteering at Heaven Sent, a homeless shelter, and discover it has been the scene of some thefts. The Heist Ladies decide to investigate. At the same time there are some strange doings at the New Age establishment next door. The Temple of the Rising Moon is run by gurus Orion and Sunshine, a husband and wife team living in a converted school bus, who claim to be raising money to build homes for poor people. As the Ladies dig deeper, they discover the charity is suspect and the hippies aren't exactly who they claim to be either.

It's Halloween, one of the busiest seasons of the year for Samantha Sweet and the crew at her pastry shop, Sweet's Sweets. After baking a zillion pumpkin cookies, ghostly cupcakes, and an all-black cake for a young witch's wedding, the gang is looking forward to a gala costume party at the neighborhood bookshop. But when one of the guests is murdered and a rare book vanishes—practically in front of their eyes—the evening takes a whole different turn and Sam finds herself in the midst of another mystery.

It's Christmas in Albuquerque; Charlie and family are ready for a quiet holiday at home. But right away, her hopes fade when Charlie's brother and PI business partner, Ron, brings in two new cases, one of which made national headlines. Five years earlier, with the tide of media attention and public sentiment against her, Tali Donovan was acquitted of killing her two children and went into hiding. Now, on the anniversary of the children's disappearance, their father wants answers.

For John Carver, a simple Celtic woodworker, life is a struggle to feed his family. Then one summer day, as he walks past a near-dead alder tree, lightning strikes. With the shattered tree lying all around him, Carver pulls himself up and decides to make the best of it - he takes the usable pieces to his workshop. From the shards of that dead tree John creates three boxes. Then the unexplained happens - shortly after handling one of them, John's touch brings his young son back from the brink of death.

Charlie receives an enigmatic letter from her namesake aunt, her father's estranged sister, whom she's never met. Soon she's off to England. In the charming medieval Suffolk town of Bury St. Edmunds it isn’t only slightly eccentric Aunt Louisa’s beliefs in the occult or her spooky "haunted sites" tours that pique Charlie’s interest. When a friend of Louisa's is plagued by a series of pranks, Charlie and Louisa offer to find out what's behind them. But Charlie soon discovers that something sinister is brewing and she finds herself drawn into an investigation of crimes that are far too real.

It’s a terrible case of mistaken identity when a gang of bank robbers think that Charlie is a famous movie star. Disappointed with their take from the bank, they decide that a hefty ransom will be their ticket to riches. But what will happen when the real star steps forward? Charlie knows that only her wits will save her from this band of desperate men. Meanwhile, in a race against the clock, Charlie's husband Drake is working with the FBI and local authorities to get Charlie back before her captors realize their mistake.

Charlie is invited to a plush Santa Fe spa, a week-long spiritual/nutrition retreat with her friend Dr. Linda Casper. The massages and spa treatments sound great, until she realizes that there is something darker going on at the mountain resort. Meanwhile, Drake has his own set of concerns. He's been asked to testify as an expert witness in a helicopter crash case and it's causing him more anxiety than any feat of flying ever did. It seems that they are each on their own but their two cases overlap and dangers abound, from all sides.