Christi F

A missing heiress. A trip to Paris. Can a gentleman-turned-footman convince the runaway beauty that at least one man in her life is worthy of trust?

When Emma comes to the Black Hills to work at her Aunt Roses B&B, the Sweetbrier Inn, she is hoping for a quiet break from the corporate treadmill. But she hadn't expected murder and intrigue to mar this peaceful setting. As she wades through too many clues to identify the murderer, she soon finds that the culprit isn't stopping at only one homicide and may even have placed Emma herself on the list of targets. With the help of her friend Becky and a deputy sheriff who grudgingly lets them join in on the investigation, Emma tracks down the killer. But will it be in time to save the next victim?

When Carsten Whitford is arrested for a robbery he didn't commit, he struggles to clear his name that's already stained by his father's arrest from four years ago. Carsten is the sole supporter of his mother and he works the farm he has lived on his whole life.

When Eloise Blackburn finds a strange gentleman perched in the leafy branches of an ash tree, she has strong suspicions he is not who he says he is. After all, the neighboring Allen family has never mentioned a cousin named Crispin from the West Indies. And what's this he's saying about a missing inheritance and a secret passageway in Allen Abbey?

These last two stories in the series are about Jackie's relationship with two rare people. One took me to his club, where Jackie and Brooke Astor were among the first female members. The other told me about accompanying Jackie to India, where together with her husband they travelled as a threesome.

For many people, Jackie was beyond criticism. People who came from her own background, however, were often more detached. They could be more forceful with her and sometimes more openly critical of her than others were. Nan Talese was one of the most important people in American publishing at the end of the 20th century. Nan and Jackie both grew up as bookish debutantes in and around New York. When Nan and Jackie worked at the same publisher in the 1990s, a muted rivalry arose between them.

When new lumberjack Tom Jeffries tells the camp cook, Jo Christy, that he’ll marry her if she can make a fruitcake “as good as the one my mother makes”, she rises to the occasion. After all, he’s the handsomest, smartest, and strongest axman her camp-boss father has ever had in his camp - and the cockiest. And she intends to bring this lumberjack down a notch or three by refusing his proposal.