The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith - A 30-minute Chapter-by-Chapter Summary


Instaread Summaries - 2013
    Robin Ellacott's long-term boyfriend, Matthew, proposes on her first day to work for Strike as temp secretary.

Tides of Autumn


Amanda McIntyre - 2014
    Recently widowed, Darci Cunningham swims against popular current that she should take her time and heal after the sudden death of her husband. But in a bold turn, she decides to follow a dream set aside and moves to Mackinac Island to pursue her dream of writing.But as she prepares for her first winter on the island, she is unaware of the dangers that have washed ashore--one that may steal her heart, while the other may steal her life(*available in ebook and soon in paperback)

Calamity Jayne Boxed Set


Kathleen Bacus - 2011
    Tressa is determined to prove there's more to this cockeyed cowgirl than meets the eye and she’s just been handed the perfect opportunity to get "Ranger Rick" and a skeptical citizenry to finally take her seriously. How? By solving a murder no one else believes happened...No one, that is, except the killer. CALAMITY JAYNE RIDES AGAINTressa’s off to the State Fair to work at her Uncle Frank’s ice cream concession stand. But when a soft-serve saboteur appears at the same time her cousin, Frankie, goes missing, it's another fine, sticky mess she's gotten herself into. With a string of malicious pranks, to scary, psycho dunk-tank clowns, two geriatric Jessica Fletcher wannabes, a dishy state trooper, and a sister who may have her eye on a certain ranger-type, and it's mayhem on the midway time. GHOULS JUST WANT TO HAVE FUNTressa thinks she on to a scoop when eccentric and reclusive bestselling writer, Elizabeth Courtney Howard comes to Grandville to finish her latest book. So, what's stopping Tressa from scoring this journalistic coup? Only the fact that the skeletons to uncover in this little exposé are all in a closet in Haunted Holloway Hall--a house only Norman Bates could love.CALAMITY JAYNE GOES TO COLLEGEAce cub reporter Tressa Jayne Turner is back in college and nothing’s going to stop Tressa from making the grade. Well, except for a wrinkled roommate rekindling an old flame, maid of honor madness run amok, a botched betrothal that’s more than just schoolyard gossip and a campus criminal out to teach the student body a lesson—one one crime at a time. Failure is so not an option.CALAMITY JAYNE HEADS WESTTressa Jayne Turner’s off to Arizona to see her gammy hitched. Her cousin’s keeping secrets, Ranger Rick Townsend is sending signals—more of the smokin’ than smoke variety—and it seems Tressa’s not the only person with an attachment to “Kookamunga”, the fertility figurine she picked up at a roadside stand. Throw in a washed-up actress out to kick-start her career, a suspect spiritual advisor, locals with a cause, and a ten-year-old who’s a chip off a certain ranger’s blockhead and it’ll be a vision quest to make Thelma and Louise’s southwestern spree seem like amateur night at the OK Corral. May the best spirit guide win.ANCHORS AWEIGHTressa Jayne is off on a post-wedding cruise. Good food. Warm beaches. Romantic sunsets. Nothing can take the wind out of Tressa’s sails this time. Nothing that is except this particular Love Boat has Iceberg ahead! written all over it. Why? It’s a lo-cal “biggest loser” cruise, Tressa’s bad-boy faux fiancé and his marriage-minded aunt Mo are stowaways, and Tressa’s barely got her sea les before a dastardly murder plot bobs to the surface and Tressa Jayne knows just how Capt. Jack Sparrow feels when the rum is gone. Yo ho ho and a bottle of V-8!

A Mackenzie Security Series Omnibus 2: Sizzle, Crave, Scorch


Liliana Hart - 2019
    He owes Declan his life, and Declan more than has his hands full with his own family problems. Little does Archer know he’ll be chasing a would-be recruit all the way to hell and back. Or maybe Alaska just seems like hell. Audrey Sharpe works for no one but herself. Not even when the most elite security company in the country wants her. She doesn’t have time to worry about MacKenzies. She’s racing against the clock to hunt down the man who taught her everything she knows and to stop him from killing more innocent people. When sexy, but tough as nails, Archer Ryan keeps getting in her way, Audrey has to decide whether he’ll be an asset or a distraction her body and mind can’t afford. CRAVE: When Evangeline Lockwood witnesses the murder of a prominent politician, the killers will do everything they can to make sure she can't testify. Since Evangeline's father was once Deputy Director of the CIA, he knows just who to call to protect his only daughter – MacKenzie Security. The last thing Cal Colter wants is to get stuck with a babysitting job, but Declan MacKenzie has assigned him the task and he has no choice but to accept. Cal especially doesn't know what to do with the quirky computer nerd who covers her lush body in baggy clothes and her stunning violet eyes behind glasses. But if Cal knows anything, it's women, and he's just as determined to peel back the layers of this unusual woman as he is to keep her alive. SCORCH: Shane MacKenzie’s life has been turned upside down. He’s lost his command, his identity, and his will to live. He’s a dead man walking, and the only thing that makes waking up in the morning worthwhile is knowing he’ll come head to head with the one woman who gets his blood moving. Doctor Lacy Shaw spent years as a medic on the battlefield. She’s seen things that can never be erased from her memory, and when Declan MacKenzie gives her the opportunity to work for MacKenzie Security, she decides any job has to be better for the body and soul than watching soldiers die in a war zone. That’s until she meets Shane MacKenzie and realizes she’s never fought so hard for one person to live.

Amy: Mail Order Bride (The Christmas Brides of Jefferson City Book 2)


Indiana Wake - 2020
    

Alpha Men: Books 4-6 (Alpha Men, #4-6)


Hope Ford - 2019
    He was my everything. We knew he would be joining the service when we graduated. Just like his dad and grandfather did before him. So, no matter how much I wanted him to stay, he had to go. He had to leave me. My mom was once in the same situation and she waited her whole life for my dad to come back to us. I saw what she went through and how it destroyed her. I couldn’t do that to myself. So, I ended it with Tank. Tank Emily thinks I will never come back to her. But what she doesn’t realize is, I don’t have a choice. No matter what happens, no matter how far away I go, I’m coming back to her. Where I Belong (Alpha Men, 5) An Alpha Man and BBW, Steamy Sweet Romance Kim I fell for Rich in a picture. He is in my brother’s army unit and twelve years older than me. Although I dreamed about him all the time, I never imagined that we would ever meet… and he would live up to my fantasy. Rich My army brother asked me to check in on his sister. I told him I would and then he gave me her picture. I fell for her just by looking at her, and I knew the minute I saw her, I was where I belong. Do Over (Alpha Men, 6) An Alpha Man, and BBW, Steamy Sweet Romance Madison Jase and I were in love and going to be together FOREVER! And then he had to leave me. I spent the last five years dealing with a broken heart. I tried to move on, I met someone else and we had a baby together. But now, Jase is back and says he’s here to get what is his. Jase I had to leave her. At the time I didn’t think I had a choice. But I worked all this time to get back to her. She thinks since her body has changed and she has a little girl now that I don’t want her. She couldn’t be more wrong and I’m going to prove it to her. I’m going to get my second chance… my do-over. Note: This is a steamy, sweet, SHORT romance. It has a HEA with alpha male and a plus-size woman that makes him hers! If you love short romances with insta love, hot love scenes, and a sweet story, then this one is for you.

A Bottle Full of Djinn / Loony Town / Mummy Issues


Paula Lester - 2019
    She's the Chief of Staff at a retirement home, which doesn't sound odd on its own, but when you consider it's a retirement home for witches and other paranormals, the strange factor ratchets up.  And, with a facility full of partly senile but still powerful witches, things go hilariously awry fast. This e-book contains the first three books in the Sunnyside Retired Witches Community series. Book 1: A Bottle Full of Djinn: Zoey Rivers has a pretty great job as Head of Staff at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community. She's good at handling the magical messes that are part and parcel of providing a home for elderly (and some slightly senile) witches. But when the messes turn from slightly sloppy to hugely horrible, Zoey realizes there's more involved than just her residents. If she doesn't figure out who's causing havoc at the Home, the place might not be standing for much longer. If you love crime capers with magic, mayhem, and mystery, you'll adore Zoey Rivers and her comical crew of witch retirees. Please note: This book is a crime caper, not a murder mystery. Book 2: Loony Town: Caring for elderly witches at the retirement home in Sunnyside, California is a full-time job for Zoey Rivers. But when one of them is blitzing, causing magic to act even weirder than normal, things get…well, downright wacky. And when a local insurance agent winds up dead, some of the people Zoey is responsible for become the prime suspects. As the zaniness of the magical blips continues and things get crazier and crazier, Zoey has to work fast and try to stay one step ahead to keep her charges out of jail, figure out who is causing the chaotic blitzing so she can fix it, and also figure out who the real killer is. It’s a tough job, but she's determined to do it. The people who live at Sunnyside Retired Witches Community are counting on her. And she’s not about to let them down now. Book 3: Mummy Issues: Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.Sunnyside Retirement Witches Community gets its fair share of visitors. Some of them like the entertainment and others enjoy volunteering. But when one of the sight-seers ends up dead, Zoey Rivers has to figure out what happened. The residents come up with a fantastic idea: Since the retirement complex seems to have more than its fair share of murders, they figure it might be a good idea to have a psychic on staff. So, Zoey hires Iris. And all the information she pulls from the ghosts of the growing list of victims points to Zoey herself. Except the clues aren't pointing to her. They're fingering someone she'd thought was long dead.

The William Kent Krueger Collection #4: Vermilion Drift, Northwest Angle, and Trickster's Point


William Kent Krueger - 2015
    Five are connected to a series of old unsolved disappearances. But the sixth is fresh. What’s worse, two of the victims—including the most recent—were killed with Cork’s gun. As Cork searches for answers, he must dig into his own past and that of his father, a well-respected man who harbored a ghastly truth. Northwest Angle: Amid the wreckage of a violent storm, Cork O’Connor and his daughter Jenny discover a body. Nearby, a baby boy lies hungry and dehydrated but still very much alive. Powerful forces in pursuit of the child follow them to the isolated Northwest Angle, where it’s impossible to tell who is friend or foe. Trickster’s Point: Cork O’Connor sits deep in the wilderness with his good friend Jubal Little—favored to become Minnesota’s first Native American elected governor—who is slowly dying with an arrow through his heart. But this is no hunting accident. The arrow is one of Cork’s. As he works to clear his name and track the killer who set him up, only Cork knows that his complex, passionate, ambitious friend was also capable of murder.

Bride's Adventure


Caroline Clemmons - 2017
    The millinery shop she establishes is popular with area women—except for two troublemakers. When she believes her life is near perfect, a major problem arrives that requires her quick thinking. Sean Murdoch has made up his mind that Amelia is the one for him. He tries to bide his time until she’s had time to get her business flourishing but he’s finding waiting harder and harder. When a problem arises, he lends support to her surprising decision.

SEAL Executive


Claire Adams - 2018
    I spent ten years as a Navy SEAL, where I learned discipline, and now even in civilian life I apply that discipline to my job as an executive at Palladium Corp, a security company. But it’s hard to be professional when an auburn-haired goddess is your secretary. I didn’t hire Corin because she’s beautiful, but, damn, it didn’t hurt her chances. Feisty, smart, driven, she’s everything I want in a woman, but she’s my employee, not my lover. At least not yet. Still, there’s something there. Something she’s hiding from me, and considering my company is involved in some shady dealings I’m not supposed to know about, I can’t help but wonder if she’s a beautiful angel sent to help me, or a seductive demon sent to tempt me. I’m just going to have to enjoy finding out.

A Clean Billionaire Boxset


Anne-Marie Meyer - 2019
     Get swept away today with these swoon-worthy heroes! Forgiving the Billionaire Love deserves a second chance. Hannah has finally come home after having been away for seven years. Despite her fears about facing her past, she’s desperate to get away from her boyfriend’s proposal. She didn’t expect to see Logan again. Logan is trying to adjust to his father’s death, being a single dad, and his new status as a billionaire. He thought he had a handle of that until his childhood crush, Hannah, comes back into his life. And she’s everything he remembered her to be. If only they could move on from their broken hearts. If only they could see how perfect they are together. Then maybe the mountains in front of them wouldn’t feel so unsurmountable. Finding Love with the Billionaire Opposites attract in the Alaskan wilderness. Madeline is desperate to finally be taken seriously, but that doesn’t seem to be the case when her boss asks her to write a puff piece of billionaire party boy, Liam Davenport. Liam just wanted a quiet life roaming the world. When his father dies, leaving him to face the media storm surrounding Davenport Outdoors, he’s forced to trade in his hiking boots for tailored suits. They’re determined they already know all there is to know about the other person. Until their plane crashes into an Alaskan mountain side. Suddenly, they’re faced with a choice. Put down their pride to survive, or keep their prejudices and struggle alone. Falling for the Billionaire Two lost souls make a whole. Paige has moved to New York after her father lost his business and passed away. Living with her quirky aunt as she attempts to start over wasn’t what she had envisioned for her life, but she’d determined to be successful. James has a golden finger. As a billionaire, his life is perfect—except that’s not the life he wants. Trouble is, he’s not sure what he’s meant to do. When James meets Paige, he’s intrigued by her. She seems to have everything figured out. The plan was simple. Figure out what James enjoys. If only their hearts hadn’t gotten involved. If only their pasts didn’t come back to haunt them. When everything feels as if it’s crashing down around them, the one thing they feared might be the one thing they needed all along. Fixing the Billionaire Love can mend a broken past. Millie has given up on love. After all, men never seem to show up when they’re supposed to. Joseph is trying to atone for his mistakes that he made before his daughter passed away. He’s left behind his privileged life to travel from town to town, paying off stranger’s medical bills. They were perfectly happy living their single lives until Millie rear ends Joseph in the parking lot of the hospital where she works. Fate intervenes and they find themselves thrown together. But love isn’t that simple.

Strictly Confidential Attraction & Taking Care of Business


Brenda Jackson - 2010
    Instead of asking her to be his lover, he was asking her to be temporary nanny to his baby niece. Not an ounce of desire in sight. Or was there? Living together, spending time in intimate surroundings, created a sensual tension too powerful to ignore. How long before this strictly business relationship turned into a strictly passionate predicament?Taking Care of BusinessFrom the moment she met Tag Elliott, Renee Williams thought of nothing but how his lips would feel on hers. That and darkened bedrooms and whispered promises. But as a member of Manhattan's wealthiest family, Tag was way out of the social worker's league. Besides, no matter how much she craved him, there was another small matter: she was black and Tag was white. Renee had agreed to one night to live their fantasies, but in the light of day Tag decided once was not enough. He could ignore the scandal they would stir; why couldn't she? After all, Tag wanted her. And he always got what he wanted….

A Study Guide to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice


Jane Austen - 1994
    And certainly what Melville did for whaling Austen does for marriage--tracing the intricacies (not to mention the economics) of 19th-century British mating rituals with a sure hand and an unblinking eye. As usual, Austen trains her sights on a country village and a few families--in this case, the Bennets, the Philips, and the Lucases. Into their midst comes Mr. Bingley, a single man of good fortune, and his friend, Mr. Darcy, who is even richer. Mrs. Bennet, who married above her station, sees their arrival as an opportunity to marry off at least one of her five daughters. Bingley is complaisant and easily charmed by the eldest Bennet girl, Jane; Darcy, however, is harder to please. Put off by Mrs. Bennet's vulgarity and the untoward behavior of the three younger daughters, he is unable to see the true worth of the older girls, Jane and Elizabeth. His excessive pride offends Lizzy, who is more than willing to believe the worst that other people have to say of him; when George Wickham, a soldier stationed in the village, does indeed have a discreditable tale to tell, his words fall on fertile ground. Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy's hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy's insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth's low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen's best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." She may be joking, but there's more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet "as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print". Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. --Alix Wilber

Nora Roberts CD Collection 2: Hidden Riches, True Betrayals, Homeport, The Reef


Nora Roberts - 1998
    She seeks help from her intriguing upstairs tenant, former cop Jed Skimmerhorn. True Betrayals Kelsey Byden grew up believing her mother had died when she was three. Now twenty-six, she receives a letter from her mother explaining that she is alive. But there are more secrets to be found out and Kelsey decides to stay at her mother's splendid horse farm, where she falls in love with handsome gambler Gabe Slater. Homeport Dr. Miranda Jones welcomed the distraction offered by a summons to Italy to verify the authenticity of a Renaissance bronze. However, her professional judgment is called into question when the bronze is declared a hoax. Miranda turns to Ryan Boldari, a seductive—and supposedly reformed—art thief. The Reef Tate Beaumont and Matthew Lassiter share the dream of finding Anguelique's Curse, a jeweled amulet surrounded by legend. Tate soon learns that her arrogant but attractive fellow diver holds as many secrets as the sea itself.

Mills & Boon Loves...The Petrov Proposal / The Cinderella Bride / Secret History of a Good Girl / Secrets and Speed Dating


Maisey Yates - 2011
    Now, they are about to come face to face… The Cinderella Bride by Barbara Wallace Secretary Emma O'Rourke keeps her head down and works hard. But to bring back the heir of Kent Hotels, jaded Gideon Kent, she has to step out of the shadows… Secret History Of A Good Girl by Aimee Carson Miami hotel tycoon Paulo Domingues suspects that beneath his new events planner Alyssa Hunt's southern prissiness, she's all passion! He's determined to seduce the fire out from behind her good-girl exterior… Secrets And Speed Dating by Leah Ashton Sophie Morgan's dealt with life's curveballs by being logical. Her latest project is to reclaim her life now that her fiance's left her. Task one: speed dating. But Sophie takes a rather unconventional approach!