Book picks similar to
The Coach House by Florence Osmund
historical-fiction
chick-lit
ebook
fiction
Dangerous Attraction
Sidney Bristol - 2015
Whether his prey is criminal or victim, he always gets his mark. He's no hero, just a man doing his job. It’s all he has after a felony conviction after a bad judgement call. When the FBI call in a favor and ask him to look into a serial killer over the holiday break, he jumps at the opportunity to fill the long, cold days with something besides regret and bad movies. In Las Vegas, he's on the hunt for a prolific serial killer no one wants to admit exists. The leads are dry and the evidence gone, until she walks into his life. Bliss Giles—curvy, sassy and everything he can't have.What’s worse, Travis knows Bliss’ sister is the killer's latest victim. She fits the profile. Time is running out and the fastest way to retrace the killer's path is with Bliss at Travis' side. In the seat of danger. He vows to keep Bliss safe and his hands to himself, after all, a nice girl like her doesn't need a guy like him in her life. Too bad no one told Bliss Travis was off-limits. She tests his boundaries and pushes his control every minute they're together until he can't remember why wanting her is a bad idea.The hunters become the hunted in this tale of serial killers and SEALs for hire. One broken man must unpack his baggage, a woman has make a leap of faith and a sister chooses to live in this new, romantic suspense serial by NYT & USA Today bestselling author, Sidney Bristol.
Warning: Hold onto your panties, because nothing is safe.
Before I Met You
Lisa Jewell - 2012
She had forfeited university, parties, boyfriends, summer jobs - all the usual preoccupations of a woman her age - in order to care for Arlette in their dilapidated, albeit charming home on the English island of Guernsey. Her will included a beneficiary unknown to Betty and her family, a woman named Clara Pickle who presumably could be found at a London address. Now, having landed on a rather shabby street corner in '90s Soho, Betty is determined to find the mysterious Clara. She's ready for whatever life has to throw her way. Or so she thinks . . . In 1920s bohemian London, Arlette De La Mare is starting her new life in a time of postwar change. Beautiful and charismatic, she is soon drawn into the hedonistic world of the Bright Young People. But two years after her arrival in London, tragedy strikes and she flees back to her childhood home and remains there for the rest of her life. As Betty navigates the ups and downs of city life and begins working as a nanny for a rock star tabloid magnet, her search for Clara leads her to a man - a stranger to Betty, but someone who meant the world to her grandmother. Will the secrets of Arlette's past help Betty find her own way to happiness in the present? A rich detective story and a captivating look at London then and now, "Before I Met You" is an unforgettable novel about two very different women, separated by seventy years, but united by big hearts and even bigger dreams.
Innocent in Las Vegas
A.R. Winters - 2013
She's one small step away from acquiring her Private Investigator license, and has her eye on the prize.Accepting her first real case - investigating the murder of casino-mogul Ethan Becker - should be exciting. Instead, things spiral out of control and Tiffany finds herself in over her head, as she confronts secretive suspects, corrupt casino henchmen and her mysterious, ex-Special Forces bodyguard.Tiffany's poker-hustling Nanna and pushy parents want her to find a nice man and settle down, but Tiffany just wants to track down the real murderer before he finds her first...
Kitchen Boy
Sanford Phippen - 1996
KITCHEN BOY is the story of Andy Harrison, a working-class Maine boy, who spends every July and August working for the summer people and tourists on the Maine Coast, while dreaming of his own escape from Downeast. That escape proves at once dramatic and very humorous.The novel also is the story of a small, exclusive summer hotel and its eccentric and unforgettable female proprietors who help their young kitchen boy grow up. Through the course of six summers from 1959 to 1964, the "Kennedy years," Andy has many adventures, his loss of innocence paralleling that of his country.Stephen King on KITCHEN BOY: "If you love Maine, you will love this book." Carolyn Chute on KITCHEN BOY: "KITCHEN BOY is great. It is THICK and FLESHY and full of splendor. Sandy Phippen is a wonderful writer, one of the world's masters at character and voice." Janwillem van de Wetering on KITCHEN BOY: "To know Maine one has to live here but to really know Maine one has to meet with the sly and splendid work of Sanford Phippen."John A. Williams on KITCHEN BOY: “KITCHEN BOY is a reflective, often funny and always perceptive analysis of Maine and the people who think they have escape to it, and of the ‘Mainiacs’ who serve them. Both, in fact, have been captured forever by Sanford Phippen’s internal camera, registering drudgery, sadness, joy and, in the end, the quiet triumph of the human spirit through learning and growing into understanding.”Leo Connellan on KITCHEN BOY: “Phippen, like Erskin Caldwell and Will Rodgers, has his ear and humor universal, for people everywhere. KITCHEN BOY is that summer-people book we’ve yearned for: ‘the folk’ working for the foolish rich who take advantage of the poor, but Phippen breaks us up in the way his ‘disadvantaged’ take advantage, win our hearts, carry on, never change. Phippen has us splitting our sides laughing if we’re not crying. KITCHEN BOY IS A MUST READ!”
The Seven Sisters
Lucinda Riley - 2014
Each of them is handed a tantalizing clue to her true heritage—a clue which takes Maia across the world to a crumbling mansion in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Once there, she begins to put together the pieces of her story and its beginnings.Eighty years earlier in Rio’s Belle Epoque of the 1920s, Izabela Bonifacio’s father has aspirations for his daughter to marry into the aristocracy. Meanwhile, architect Heitor da Silva Costa is devising plans for an enormous statue, to be called Christ the Redeemer, and will soon travel to Paris to find the right sculptor to complete his vision. Izabela—passionate and longing to see the world—convinces her father to allow her to accompany him and his family to Europe before she is married. There, at Paul Landowski’s studio and in the heady, vibrant cafes of Montparnasse, she meets ambitious young sculptor Laurent Brouilly, and knows at once that her life will never be the same again.In this sweeping, epic tale of love and loss—the first in a unique, spellbinding series of seven novels—Lucinda Riley showcases her storytelling talent like never before.
A Heartless Design
Elizabeth Cole - 2013
Yet men still try to win her, drawn by her sharp wit and intoxicating green eyes. But Cordelia knows a marriage could reveal her deepest secret and truly endanger her life. Besides, she hasn't met a man worth considering, until... Sebastien Thorne, a spy in the service of Crown. One of the elite agents in the group known as the Zodiac, he comes to London determined to solve a mystery with roots on the Continent. He won't let anything distract him. But is Cordelia a distraction, or the key to the mystery? As he learns more about the "heartless" woman, he becomes embroiled in secrets, plots, and a design that could change the future...and Cordelia is at the center of it all.
Heir Untamed
Danielle Bourdon - 2012
Encountering the Royals for the first time, Chey experiences an instant attraction to Mattias, second in line to the throne. He's charming, confident—and taken.During a horseback ride to clear her head, Chey finds herself in a scuffle with Sander Fisk, head of security. Rugged, determined and sharp tongued, Sander is infuriating as well as intriguing.Faced with conflicting emotions and a mystery unfolding in the castle, Chey must decide between men: a Prince of Latvala, or an arrogant rogue.She discovers the hard way that this particular fairy tale was more than she ever bargained for.
The Mill River Recluse
Darcie Chan - 2011
An arsonist, a covetous nurse, and the endearing village idiot are among the few who have ever seen Mary.Newcomers to Mill River -- a police officer and his daughter and a new fourth grade teacher -- are also curious about the reclusive old woman. But only Father Michael O’Brien knows Mary and the secret she keeps -- one that, once revealed, will change all of their lives forever.
The Other Family
Loretta Nyhan - 2020
Her greatest concerns, though, are the health problems of her young daughter, Kylie. Symptoms point to a compromised immune system, but every doctor they’ve seen has a different theory. Then comes hope for some clarity.It’s possible that Kylie’s illness is genetic, but Ally is adopted. A DNA test opens up an entirely new path. And where it leads is a surprise: to an aunt Ally never knew existed. She’s a little wild, very welcoming, and ready to share more of the family history than Ally ever imagined.Coping with a skeptical soon-to-be-ex husband, weathering the cautions of her own resistant mother, and getting maddeningly close to the healing Kylie needs, Ally is determined to regain control of her life. This is her chance to embrace uncertainty and the beauty of family—both the one she was born into and the one she chose.
Meant for Her
Amy Gamet - 2012
Ordered to the scene of a fiery homicide, Navy officer Hank Jared wants nothing more than to wrap it up and get to his sister's wedding. His sense of duty won't let him walk away from a case, even if he can't figure out why his boss insisted he handle this one personally.When the key to a safe deposit box is found among the ashes, Hank finds himself staring at two pieces of paper--on one is a coded message, on the other, a name that will change the course of his entire life.Julie Trueblood wouldn't trust a Navy man if he handed her a life jacket on board a sinking ship. Her father was a cryptologist for the Navy, who went into hiding a decade earlier to avoid charges of treason. In his absence, Julie was harassed and interrogated by Naval officers who believed she was a traitor, just like her father.Hank tracks Julie down and confronts her with the cipher. She can't stand what he represents and sends him away, insisting she knows nothing about the message. But when she realizes someone is after her, Hank is the only person she can ask for help. He finds the perfect place to hide Julie, right by his side, pretending to be his girlfriend at his sister's wedding. Now he just needs to remember their relationship is all an act.The coded message brings Hank and Julie together, but its secrets hold the power to tear them apart. Guided by her generous and quirky Aunt Gwen, Julie will gather the courage to unravel the cipher that was meant for her to decode, as she learns to trust the man she was meant to love.
The Light of Paris
Eleanor Brown - 2016
From the outside, it looks like she has everything, but on the inside, she fears she has nothing that matters. In Madeleine’s memories, her grandmother Margie is the kind of woman she should have been—elegant, reserved, perfect. But when Madeleine finds a diary detailing Margie’s bold, romantic trip to Jazz Age Paris, she meets the grandmother she never knew: a dreamer who defied her strict, staid family and spent an exhilarating summer writing in cafés, living on her own, and falling for a charismatic artist. Despite her unhappiness, when Madeleine’s marriage is threatened, she panics, escaping to her hometown and staying with her critical, disapproving mother. In that unlikely place, shaken by the revelation of a long-hidden family secret and inspired by her grandmother’s bravery, Madeleine creates her own Parisian summer—reconnecting to her love of painting, cultivating a vibrant circle of creative friends, and finding a kindred spirit in a down-to-earth chef who reminds her to feed both her body and her heart. Margie and Madeleine’s stories intertwine to explore the joys and risks of living life on our own terms, of defying the rules that hold us back from our dreams, and of becoming the people we are meant to be.
Armed and Fabulous
Camilla Chafer - 2012
That’s until she discovers the vice president, Martin Dean, in a pool of blood and herself at the center of an investigation into insurance fraud.Millions of dollars are missing, the chief suspect is dead and her mysterious, sexy, new boss is not what he seems.Recruited by the joint task force working on the case, all Lexi has to do is work out who killed Dean and where the missing millions are. That’s easier said than done when her sister insists upon the baby shower to end all baby showers, her wise-ass cop family just wants to keep her safe, someone keeps leaving her creepy gifts, and all the clues point to a seedy sex club on the wrong side of town.As the bodies start to pile up, Lexi is on a race against time to find the killer and the money, before she’s the next one in the murderer’s sights.Also in the series:Armed and FabulousWho Glares WinsCommand IndecisionShock and AwesomeWeapons of Mass DistractionLaugh or DeathKissing in ActionTrigger SnappyA Few Good Women - - coming soon!
Someone Else's Daughter
Linsey Lanier - 2011
Independent. Skeptical.Thirteen years ago her abusive husband stole her baby and gave it up for adoption.She comes to Atlanta to find her daughter.THE PIWade Parker.Ace detective.Wealthy owner of the Parker Investigative Agency.The most eligible forty-four-year-old bachelor in Atlanta.Still mourning the death of his socialite wife, he must solve a disturbing murder case.Before the killer strikes again.THE MURDERERA serial killer strangling young girls in a bizarre ritual.Why?She doesn't need a man.He needs to find a killer.Together, can they save a thirteen year old girl?
Bluegrass State of Mind
Kathleen Brooks - 2011
She is now a witness to a horrific crime involving some of America’s most influential men. She knows she must get away and can think of only one outsider that might help her—Will Ashton. The flame of their brief romance during their teenage years never completely died out, and now it is about to explode.Trouble at every turn, a feisty horse that refuses to race without a good luck kiss, and three old ladies hell-bent on playing match-maker turn this newly rekindled romance into a wild race to the finish. Can Will and McKenna cross the finish line together, and more importantly, alive?An Alternate Cover Edition can be found here.
Murder on the Hill
Kennedy Chase - 2014
Until now she’s been know as many things: Thief, Bandit, The girl dressed like a ninja… When she’s offered an investigative position at the Silvers Finders Agency, she decides it’s time to go straight. But when a jewelry store break-in she’s investigating turns into a murder case, Harley will need all her skills to find the killer and avoid the attentions of a Russian crime boss. With the help of her new friends, and some from her underworld past, Harley faces a race against the clock. She’ll need to uncover the secret behind the artifact left at the jewelry store if she’s to catch the murderer. If she fails, it won’t just be the job she loses — but her life.