Still, single mom and ice skating coach Chris Nelson is committed to keeping her sexy, scruffy, new “house husband” around. After all, she did break his arm…and his toe…and she can’t just turn him out into the cold…It seemed like luck when this gorgeous stranger first stopped to help Chris with her car, but suddenly her peaceful life turns topsy-turvy as tender, long-suffering Ken Callahan enlists the sympathies of her 7-year-old daughter and her meddlesome Aunt Edna. And even Chris can’t deny the excitement his magnetic blue-black eyes spark deep within her…But who is he?

    This set includes the first three books in series:LOUISIANA LONGSHOTIt was a hell of a long shot…CIA assassin Fortune Redding is about to undertake her most difficult mission ever—in Sinful, Louisiana. With a leak at the CIA and a price placed on her head by one of the world’s largest arms dealers, Fortune has to go off-grid, but she never expected to be this far out of her element. Posing as a former beauty queen turned librarian in a small bayou town seems worse than death to Fortune, but she’s determined to fly below the radar until her boss finds the leak and puts the arms dealer out of play. Unfortunately, she hasn’t even unpacked a suitcase before her newly inherited dog digs up a human bone in her backyard. LETHAL BAYOU BEAUTYNo one in Sinful liked Pansy Arceneaux, but who hated her enough to kill her?When aspiring actress Pansy Arceneaux returns to Sinful, Louisiana to head up the beauty pageant portion of the Summer Festival, CIA assassin Fortune Redding knows she’s in for trouble. Her undercover identity as a former beauty queen makes Fortune the perfect choice to chair the event with Pansy, but Pansy’s abrasive personality makes it impossible to get through a single rehearsal without a fight.When Pansy turns up dead, Fortune is the prime suspect. SWAMP SNIPERIn the two weeks CIA assassin Fortune Redding has been hiding in Sinful, Louisiana, she’s been harassed, poisoned, and shot at…and that was the easy part. But now, she’s about to face her biggest challenge since setting foot in the tiny bayou town. When mayoral candidate Ted Williams is murdered, everyone is surprised. Ted was a blowhole and a Yankee, but those usually weren’t good reasons to kill someone. When Fortune’s good friend Ida Belle becomes the lead suspect in the crime, Fortune knows she’s got to solve a murder and save one of the only friends she’s ever had. But as the investigation begins, more and more secrets surface, and Fortune realizes that sometimes nothing is as it seems.

    She didn't plan for her parents to skip bail for a white-collar crime, leaving her to raise her brother. She didn't plan on having the silver spoon ripped from her mouth and forgoing college to work retail. She didn't plan on her blue-blood fiancé dumping her. And she didn't plan on still being single ten years later, working at Neiman Marcus, with no idea where her fugitive parents are.She's coping. Until……her lovable brother is arrested, and the hunky cop decides to reopen her parents' case.…her brother becomes a body mover for the morgue and his sexy boss gets Carlotta involved.…her former fiancé's wife is murdered, fingering Carlotta.With three men in her life, Carlotta has added motivation to help bag a murderer to keep her own well-dressed body from being next on the list!

    Or that she’s a gum-snapping hairdresser with Barbie-doll curves pinched into hot pants and a tube top. Or that she’s saddled with a sleazy ex-hubby, a precocious daughter and a shoplifting mother. What can a beautician do to add new highlights to her image? For starters, trip over a corpse, and implicate a wealthy town socialite in the crime. Now, with a well-muscled photographer by her side, Bubbles is playing star sleuth. But as the investigation unravels, her shining moment grows as dark as a shopgirl’s roots. However dangerous her new career, at least the hottest graduate of Two Guys Community College is finally busting loose—and this time she’s really giving Lehigh, Pennsylvania something to talk about. Sarah Strohmeyer won the 2002 Agatha Award for best first mystery for Bubbles Unbound.

    It taught her everything she needed to launch the Pants On Fire Detective Agency. Now armed with spy glasses, camera and chocolate, Private Investigator Cat DeLuca catches cheaters. She scales balconies and dangles from hotel windows to nail the 8X10 glossy that'll sweeten a client’s divorce settlement.Life takes a strange turn when a reporter for the Chicago Tribune (Rita Polansky) masquerades as a client with a liar-liar husband. Rita retains Cat to follow Chance Savino, a seriously hot guy with a pocketful of smuggled diamonds. The detective is fast on his heels when an explosion hurls her out of her sling-backs and into the hospital. The FBI claims Chance Savino was killed in the blast but concussed Cat’s choppy memory plays a different scenario.Cat escapes the hospital to meet with her client. When Rita fails to show, Cat finds her at home with a knife in her chest. Cat learns the reporter was researching a ball-buster case involving a gangster, gun smuggling, and a pocketful of diamonds. She discovers two clues at the murder scene: a clutch of Starburst candy wrappers and the “dead” Chance Savino rummaging through Rita’s drawers.As no one else sights Chance, everyone around Cat believes she’s crazy. Everyone except a determined killer who’s added Cat to his “kill” list. A botched attempt puts ex-husband Johnnie Ricco on the short list of suspects. When the bullets start flying, Cat will need more than chocolate for back-up. This is Cat’s first big case and she’s determined to prove she’s more than a hootchie stalker. The question is can Cat, catcher of cheaters, catch a killer before he gets her?Cat DeLuca is an unlikely heroine and her partner, a beagle named Inga, is quite likely to eat the evidence. K.J. Larsen’s characters sizzle to life. Liar Liar delivers steamy romance, intrigue, and laugh out loud humor for a wickedly delicious read.

    This twenty-eight-year-old may have a checkered past littered with romantic mistakes, excessive drinking, and creative vandalism; she may be addicted to Get Smart reruns and prefer entering homes through windows rather than doors -- but the upshot is she's good at her job as a licensed private investigator with her family's firm, Spellman Investigations. Invading people's privacy comes naturally to Izzy. In fact, it comes naturally to all the Spellmans. If only they could leave their work at the office. To be a Spellman is to snoop on a Spellman; tail a Spellman; dig up dirt on, blackmail, and wiretap a Spellman. Part Nancy Drew, part Dirty Harry, Izzy walks an indistinguishable line between Spellman family member and Spellman employee. Duties include: completing assignments from the bosses, aka Mom and Dad (preferably without scrutiny); appeasing her chronically perfect lawyer brother (often under duress); setting an example for her fourteen-year-old sister, Rae (who's become addicted to "recreational surveillance"); and tracking down her uncle (who randomly disappears on benders dubbed "Lost Weekends"). But when Izzy's parents hire Rae to follow her (for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of Izzy's new boyfriend), Izzy snaps and decides that the only way she will ever be normal is if she gets out of the family business. But there's a hitch: she must take one last job before they'll let her go -- a fifteen-year-old, ice-cold missing person case. She accepts, only to experience a disappearance far closer to home, which becomes the most important case of her life.

    The familiar protagonist has her plate full with the mystery of a serial killer, while facing off against a mob boss nicknamed "Uncle Sunny." On top of that, there is a giraffe loose in the city, and Plum finds herself in the midst of a complicated love triangle. Janet Evanovich weaves humor and action throughout Takedown Twenty to provide a lighthearted and entertaining mystery novel. Whether you have read the previous 19 books in the series or you are encountering Stephanie Plum for the first time in Takedown Twenty, this review provides need-to-know information about this read. With modern features that are relevant to readers, as well as relatable family dynamics, this page-turner from Evanovich offers true entertainment value. While trying to solve the mystery alongside Plum, readers laugh at humorous situations, and witness how Plum deals with her inability to commit romantically. Check out this review to set your expectations before you engage in the fun and suspenseful adventures in Takedown Twenty.

    Her life is organized and predictable, revolving around her husband and two children. All that changes the day she stops at the grocery store for some carrots. As the cashier rings up her purchases, a gunman is busy robbing the bank inside the store. When a customer grabs the robber's mask, he is shot and everyone runs for cover. Everyone except Shelby, who finds herself face to face with the killer. The next thing she knows, she's lying on the floor with a bullet wound to her head. Luckily, the bullet only grazes her scalp, and she doesn't suspect any lasting affects until later, when she suddenly 'hears' what people are thinking. With this uncanny ability, her life takes on a whole new dimension. Her kids think she's bossy and too old to understand them, but that's nothing compared to her husband. He says he loves her, but what is it about the redhead at work that he doesn't want her to know? As if that isn't enough, the gunman knows she can identify him, and he's out to silence her forever. In her fight to stay alive, she is saved from certain death by a handsome hit-man with ties to organized crime. This pulls Shelby even deeper into danger, where knowing someone's thoughts can not only hurt her feelings, but get her killed.

    ("My sister's married to a Polynesian! I just love your culture!") So Sophie knows it's not paranoia, or post-divorce, living-alone-again jitters, when she becomes convinced that a crazed reader is sneaking into her apartment to reenact scenes from her books. The police, however, can't tell a good plot from an unmarked grave.When a filmmaker friend is brutally murdered in the manner of a death scene in one of his movies, Sophie becomes convinced that a copycat killer is on the loose...and that she's the next target. If she doesn't solve the mystery, her own best seller will spell out her doom. Cursing her grisly ending (why, oh, why did she have to pick the axe?), Sophie engages in some real-life gumshoe tactics.The man who swoops in to save her in dark alleys at night is mysterious new love interest Anatoly Darinsky. Of course, if this were fiction, Anatoly would be her prime suspect.

    B, avid reader Boxed set of three Hollywood Headlines Mysteries novels from New York Times, USA Today, and #1 Kindle Bestselling author Gemma Halliday, including: HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS Tina Bender is the gossip columnist at the infamous L.A. Informer tabloid. She knows everything about everyone who's anyone. And she's not afraid to print it. That is, until she receives a threatening note, promising, "If you don't stop writing about me, you're dead." Teaming with a built bodyguard, a bubbly blonde, and an alcoholic obituary writer, Tina sets out to uncover just which juicy piece of Hollywood gossip is worth killing over. HOLLYWOOD SECRETS Cameron Dakota is the L.A. Informer's staff photographer and paparazzi extraordinaire. Her latest subject is Trace Brody, top-shelf actor and half of America's favorite Hollywood couple. Trace is about to get married in a blow-out wedding, and Cams editor, Felix Dunn (from the High Heels Mysteries), has assigned her to get the first shots of the bride and groom. But when Cam takes pictures of what looks like Trace being threatened at gunpoint, she suddenly finds herself smack in the middle of a scandal more sensational than even she could invent. On the run, under fire, and in serious danger of falling in love with one leading man, Cam must get to the bottom of this story... before she becomes tomorrow's headline. HOLLYWOOD CONFESSIONS Allie Quick has high aspirations - much higher than reporting on the latest celebrity gossip for the L.A. Informer, Hollywood's most notorious tabloid. But if she's going to join the ranks of the real reporters, she's going to need a headline worthy story under her belt. Which is just what she gets when the producer of the trashiest reality shows on TV winds up murdered, and Allie convinces her editor, Felix Dunn, that this story has her name written all over it. Between an aging dance-off judge, a family with sextuplets and triplets, and the star of a little person dating show, Allie has no shortage of reality stars to question. But when she finds herself falling for her prime suspect, Allie's relationship with her editor is suddenly on the rocks, and her life is in danger. This is one deadline Allie can't afford to miss! REVIEWS: "Heading to the beach, pool or some other vacation destination? Grab a copy of (HOLLYWOOD SECRETS). The latest in the Hollywood Headlines series is 320 pages of pure fun. Halliday has created yet another laugh-out-loud whodunit. She breathes life into her mystery with a rich cast of vivid, pulp-fiction type characters and a heroine worth rooting for. 4 1/2 stars!" - RT Book Reviews "Gemma Halliday's witty, entertaining writing style shines through in her new book! I look forward to seeing lots more of Tina as this series continues. A fun read!" - Fresh Fiction

    She just never expected the lows to be so… sparkly. After falling on her face during an attempt to follow in her recently-deceased mother’s stripper-boots, Lacey realizes she’s not cut out for life on stage. She sets out on a year-long investigation to find her true family, never expecting she’ll find it with a capital “F.” With a rumbling stomach, a need for money (check engine lights don’t fix themselves!), and a conscience that operates at 78% on a good day, Lacey is sucked into a whirlwind of Family secrets, hard-as-cement cookies, and mysterious, sexy men who unfortunately shoot guns, sometimes aimed at her face. The long-lost-granddaughter of Carlos Luzzi, the Godfather of the Italian Mafia, Lacey accepts her first assignment for the mob: finding fifteen million dollars of ‘the good stuff.’ Even after she enlists the help of her mouthy best-friend and her cousin, a technical genius and social disaster, she finds that going toe-to-toe with the rival Russian mob is more dangerous than expected. No one chooses their Family, but Lacey Luzzi will be lucky if she can survive hers. ** ** Lacey Luzzi: Sprinkled, is a full-length, laugh-out-loud, humorous cozy mystery with a strong female protagonist in the spirit of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum, albeit one working for the wrong side of the law…

    I know, I know, it's a big planet with a lot of wonderful things, but golden retrievers are the absolute best. Mine is named Tara . . . The only problem she has ever caused is that I spend so much time with her in the mornings that I am almost invariably late for work." Whether dueling with new forensics or the local old boys' network, irreverent defense attorney Andy Carpenter always leaves them awed with his biting wit and winning fourth-quarter game plan. But Andy prefers the company of his best friend, Tara, to the people he encounters in the courtroom. Tara, a golden retriever, is clearly smarter than half the lawyers who clog the courts of Passaic County. However, just as it seems Andy has everything figured out, his dad, New Jersey's legendary ex-D.A., drops dead in front of him at a game in Yankee Stadium. The shocks pile on as he discovers his dad left him with two unexpected legacies: a fortune of $22 million that Andy never knew existed . . . and a murder case with enough racial tinder to burn down City Hall. Struggling to serve justice and bring honor to his father, Andy must dig up some explosive political skeletons - and an astonishing family secret that can close his case (and his mouth) for good.

    she used to be a Demon Hunter.Now retired, she's more interested in the domestic than the demonic. So when she catches sight of a demon in Walmart, she tells herself it's some other Hunter's problem. But when that demon attacks her in her kitchen, retirement is no longer an option.Now Kate has to kick a little demon butt, figure out why the creatures are trying to take her out and take over her home town, and at the same time take care of her 2-year-old, deal with a hormonal 14-year-old, get the family to Mass on time, and try to keep her past a secret from her daughter and her husband.She's a little out of practice, but hey ... if she can juggle two kids and an impromptu dinner party, ridding the town of demons should be a piece of cake. Like the saying goes, Carpe Demon ... and Kate intends to do just that.

    Throw in a gig as a phone sex operator, an unexpected hunk of a boyfriend, and a client's murder, and you have all the ingredients for the perfect chick lit romp. Even bloggers at Trashionista just had to read it: "A fabulous book.” Shy, funny, loveable Emily’s a pretty unlikely candidate for a phone sex operator. She’d die if she had to talk dirty face-to-face—especially to her hot cop boyfriend. She sure didn’t set out to do phone sex—she wanted to be a writer. But when her BFF framed her for plagiarism, she got in a tiny financial hole and saw this ad for “phone actresses”… Hey, it’s not nearly as bad as it sounds. No pantyhose or pantsuits, no regular hours, you’re your own boss, and lots of people to talk to. Guys, that is. But here’s the odd thing—lots of them want to talk about more than Emily’s imagined attributes; they start to think of her as the best friend they’ll never have to meet. Next thing you know, one of her customers gets killed. What’s a phone kitten to do? Solve the murder herself, of course! “Phone Kitten was a fun debut read with an interesting premise and some great characters – excellent chick lit.” -The Brazen Bookworm “Marika Christian's debut novel was one of the most fun reads I have had this year. Sweet Emily taking a job as a 'phone actress' has to be one of the funniest things ever.” -Just Jump A fun, refreshing treat for fans of Jennifer Crusie, Janet Evanovich, and Stephanie Bond, Phone Kitten is your ticket to hours of giggles—so long as you’re not looking for raunch. Because this is so not it! “When I first heard of this book I was intrigued; a phone-sex worker turned sleuth? Sounds like the perfect mix...a fabulous book. --Trashionista Excerpt: The girl who answered the phone sounded a lot like me. She was perky, upbeat, and wanted me to come in that night for an interview. The thought terrified me, but my only other option was Walmart. I heard Walmart locks employees in the store. I've often wondered what would happen if one of the employees were pregnant and went into labor while locked up. Would they let her out? Would her supervisor deliver the baby in housewares and slap a little smiley face sticker on the baby's bottom? Phone sex had to be better than twenty-four hour retail. The company name was Dimensions. Located in the back of an industrial park, it was a little scary. There was a gravel parking lot with a dozen cars and only one door with a camera to capture anyone who pressed the call button. I was buzzed in immediately. I wondered, Why does a phone sex place need this much security? I was met by Taylor, the bubbly girl I talked to on the phone. “Come on, I'll take you in the back and we can talk.” She wasn't what I pictured. Taylor was a tattooed Goth chick, with every piercing imaginable. Taylor isn't what most people envisioned when it came to “bubbly.” Once we were in her office, she quickly closed the door. “Look, we talk dirty here. The language is sexually explicit. You have to say it all. Tits, cock, and fuck. Can you do that?” “Yes.” There, I said it. I said I could do it. I hoped I really could. She whipped out a headset, plugged it in, and said, “I want you to listen to a call.

    But after she finds a member dead, killed in a manner that eerily resembles the crime the club was about to discuss, Roe has to uncover the person behind a terrifying game, one that casts all the members of Real Murders, herself included, as prime suspects—or potential victims…A Bone to Pick When a deceased acquaintance names Roe as heir to a substantial estate, which includes money, jewelry—and a house complete with a skull hidden in a window seat—Roe concludes that the elderly woman has purposely left her a murder to solve. She must identify the victim and figure out which one of Jane’s ordinary-seeming neighbors is a murderer—without putting herself in deadly danger…