473 Five Star reviews on Amazon. Historical novel with a psychological mystery in the unearthing of family 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?Recent Five-Star Reviews:By the end of the very first paragraph, I knew Marie F. Martin had written a book I would have a hard time putting down. In between high drama, there is a love letter to Montana, and she uses her love of the English language throughout. More "Oh wow" moments in this book than any other I have ever read in my more than half a century of life.  Yvonne Bechtold, Five-star reviewerThis is a tale so well told, you can smell the sage, feel the heat, and pain this family shares. I wish more authors crafted their characters so well.  Renita Hulsey Five-Star Reader Review.The author was a master at weaving the past with the present.  Quaintreader Five-Star Reader ReviewMartin knows family dynamics and human frailties.  From these she has crafted a heartbreaking story, of love, loss, and endurance.   Barb Ward Five-Star Reader Review

    The mystery takes a quick detour when Miriam and her friends return to Fitzgerald's Bluff with the Deputy Sheriff. The dead woman's gone, but not for long. Where the body turns up is only one of the surprising twists the mystery takes for Miriam and her friends.Can Miriam, her spirited Dalmatian, Domino, and her gang of Grand Old Lady Detectives solve the mystery without becoming the killer's next victim?Grab your copy of the box set 1 to read these fun, funny, fast cozy mysteries as Miriam, Domino, and the grand old lady detectives set the GOLD standard in solving crime.What's in this box set?A Body on Fitzgerald's BluffThe Murder of Shakespear's GhostGrave Expectations on Dickens' DuneRecipes Included

    

    Here Scarlet comes across a real treasure: a novel that Gran wrote, imagining the life of a girl just like Scarlet, who once upon a time lived in the flat and worked in a cake shop downstairs. But as Scarlet reads about Ruby's life in Victorian London, she begins to realise this is no piece of fiction - Ruby was real! A real life, facing real danger - and a mystery that unravels to the present day.

    Now she’s really in for a cleanup.Triana Moore lost her job as a maintenance technician when her boss discovered her true identity. But decluttering the galaxy isn’t just for janitors. When she visits the ringed planet Grissom with security agent Ty O’Neill for his sister’s wedding, Triana discovers just how messy life can get. Deported before she can finish her coffee, Triana barely misses an exploding shuttle. But in true space janitor fashion, she decides to investigate. With the help of a pair of mischievous twins, a hard-drinking grandma, and her old frenemy Vanti, will Triana save the wedding?Of course she will. But how crazy will it get along the way?The Rings of Grissom tells the continuing story of Triana Moore, (former) Space Janitor, but can be enjoyed by new readers as well. If you want to avoid spoilers, read Triana Moore, Space Janitor first.

    Following the death of her husband, Lady Darby has taken refuge at her sister's estate, finding solace in her passion for painting. But when her hosts throw a house party for the cream of London society, Kiera is unable to hide from the ire of those who believe her to be as unnatural as her husband, an anatomist who used her artistic talents to suit his own macabre purposes. Kiera wants to put her past aside, but when one of the house guests is murdered, her brother-in-law asks her to utilize her knowledge of human anatomy to aid the insufferable Sebastian Gage—a fellow guest with some experience as an inquiry agent. While Gage is clearly more competent than she first assumed, Kiera isn't about to let her guard down as accusations and rumors swirl. When Kiera and Gage's search leads them to even more gruesome discoveries, a series of disturbing notes urges Lady Darby to give up the inquiry. But Kiera is determined to both protect her family and prove her innocence, even as she risks becoming the next victim...

    Leia wants to get married there, so Dave has gone ahead with Katie, Bullard’s caterer, to set things up.Dave has a new lease on life, now that Bullard is safely back home, and fixes his sights on an old friend he’s always kept slightly distant. Katie has been in Dave’s orbit for a long time; she’s not sure what’s changed in their relationship, but something certainly has, and she couldn’t be happier.Except for one loose thread from that same island. After all, someone let the outside world know Bullard was alive. Someone they had yet to find. So a week in paradise might start with some time in hell first.

    When the ship’s captain is found dead, Ginger is only too happy to lend her assistance to the handsome Chief Inspector Basil Reed.The SS Rosa delivers a convincing array of suspects - the wife, the mistress, a jealous crew mate. To Ginger’s dismay, her name has been added to the list! With a little help from Ginger’s dog Boss, Ginger and Haley navigate the clues (those wartime operative skills come in handy.) They must solve the case and clear Ginger’s name before they dock–and oh, whatever shall she wear!

    Born into dismal poverty, young Nell Sweeney scratches by on her wits and little else until fortune blesses her with a position as nursery governess to the fabulously wealthy Hewitts. But she soon learns that ugly secrets lurk beneath the surface of their gold-plated world.The Hewitts’ eldest son, William, a former Union Army battle surgeon and the black sheep of the family, was reported to have died three years before in a notorious Confederate prison camp. But one snowy February afternoon, his parents learn that he is, in fact, still alive—and in jail for having murdered a man while intoxicated on opium. Infuriated by his son’s deception and convinced of his guilt, August Hewitt forbids his wife from coming to Will’s aid, so she begs Nell to help exonerate him. Nell finds that she must delve into the kind of dark and treacherous underworld she thought she’d left far behind if she is to unearth the truth before the hangman’s noose tightens around William Hewitt’s throat.

    So, when she commits murder in self-defense, she flees her cherished Ireland, under cover of a false identity, for the anonymous shores of late nineteenth-century America. When she arrives in New York and sees the welcoming promise of freedom in the Statue of Liberty, Molly begins to breathe easier. But when a man is murdered on Ellis Island, a man Molly was seen arguing with, she becomes a prime suspect in the crime.If she can't clear her name, Molly will be sent back to Ireland where the gallows await, so using her Irish charm and sharp wit, she escapes Ellis Island and sets out to find the wily killer on her own. Pounding the notorious streets of Hell's Kitchen and the Lower East Side, Molly undertakes a desperate mission to clear her name before her deadly past comes back to haunt her new future.

    Shan Hai Gaaru". This 2011 U.S. edition features an excerpt of the author’s WNYC Leonard Lopate Essay Contest-winning new novel "Memoirs of a Eurasian". In the post-Cultural Revolution Shanghai of 1984, university senior Sha-fei Hong longs to study in the U.S. for graduate school, ostensibly to pursue the American Dream, but partly to escape her sexually-harassing Communist cadre stepfather. She meets the visiting Chinese-American businessman Gordon Lou, who has political ambitions and ties to the Chinatown underworld in the U.S. He takes Sha-fei to the American Consulate in Shanghai to look into studying in America. There, Sha-fei meets the intern Edward Cook, a young, Caucasian American lawyer who has a strong preference for all things Asian. Within a year, these three people of entirely different cultural and socio-economic backgrounds cross paths in New York. Value systems and self-interests clash. The curtain falls on a dramatic stage of ambition, sex, intrigue, and murder.

    Emotionally scarred from war, the career soldier returns home on emergency leave to temporarily care for his orphaned nephew and niece. But when someone tries to kidnap the kids and their teenage babysitter, Grant knows it’s not a random act…and neither were the murders.Already devastated by her neighbors’ violent deaths, Ellie Ross is shattered by the attempted abduction of her teenage daughter so she desperately turns to Grant for help. As they navigate a deadly search for the truth, they struggle with growing feelings for each other and Grant’s impending return to deployment.But time is running out. The killer is growing bolder by the hour, and Ellie and Grant must find him before the children become his next victims.

    Stop that espresso! Annie Talbot's coffeepot has been turned upside down when her cafe is declared a front for a money laundering scheme and the FBI suspects she is the mastermind. So now her sexy new tenant, Special Agent Fisher McCoy, is sifting through her coffee grounds looking for the real culprit while trying to keep his hands off the delightful Annie. Marriage-phobic Annie is doing her best to ignore FBI hottie Fisher, but he is so distracting, her lattes are steaming over and she's thinking crazy thoughts like marriage and happily ever after.

    Sweeping us to the exotic island of Crete in 1928, Cleverly introduces a marvelous new heroine: whip-smart and spirited Laetitia Talbot, an aspiring archaeologist with a passion for adventure–and for the mysteries that only the keenest eyes can see.Born into a background of British privilege, Laetitia Talbot has been raised to believe there is no field in which she may not excel. She has chosen a career in the male-dominated world of archaeology, but she approaches her first assignment in Crete the only way she knows how–with dash and enthusiasm. Until she enters the Villa Europa, where something is clearly utterly amiss…Her host, a charismatic archaeologist, is racing to dig up the fabled island’s next great treasure–even, perhaps, the tomb of the King of the Gods, himself. But then a beautiful young woman is found hanged and a golden youth drives his Bugatti over a cliff. From out of the shadows come whispers of past loves, past jealousies, and ancient myths that sound an eerie discord with present events. Letty will need all her determination and knowledge to unravel the secrets beneath the Villa Europa’s roof–and they will lead her into the darkest, most terrifying place of all….

    During and after dinner he had nothing to excite him save the receipt of a letter which somewhat annoyed him, and that his wife consumed rather more wine than he considered to be good for her health. Immediately after retiring to his room he was seized with symptoms of irritant poisoning, and despite every effort made on his behalf, he succumbed to its effects. An inquest was held, which vexed the minds of the Coroner’s jury to a degree without precedent in Coroners’ Inquest Law, and an open verdict was returned. However, the matter will not rest there, for after questions in Parliament, a second inquest has been called under suspicion that Mr Charles Petrie was murdered. * * * Who poisoned Charles Petrie? Dr James Collymore, a man familiar with poisons, a man harbouring a dark secret that, if exposed, would ruin his career; Florrie, the maid who supplied Charles with his bedtime drink; Bert Kemp, a disgruntled groom, who used poisons in his work, who four months previously had predicted Charles’ dying day; Mrs Jennet Quinn, a lady’s companion with a deep knowledge of poisons, and a deep fear of dismissal; or Grace Petrie, Charles’ wife of four months, a woman with a scandalous past, a woman shunned by polite society. With crowds flocking to the courtroom and the shadow of suspicion falling upon Grace in the shape of the hangman’s noose, could dashing young advocate, Daniel Morgan, save her?