LINDA S GUMPP

At age 26 Agatha Raisin has already come a long way. She has clawed her way up since leaving the Birmingham slum where she was born. She's lost her Birmingham accent, run away from her drunken husband, and found a job at a public relations office as a secretary. Then her boss asks Agatha to go to the home of Sir Bryce Teller to tell him that he is soon to be arrested for the murder of his wife and that the agency no longer wants to represent him.

After her husband, Jack, dies in a climbing incident, Shauna has only her five-year-old son and her helicopter charter business to live for. Every day is a struggle to make ends meet and she lives in constant fear of losing even more than she already has. When her business partner is murdered, his final words convince Shauna that she’s in danger too. But where can she turn? Zach Bannister was her husband’s best friend and is the person she blames for his death. She’s barely spoken to him since. But right now he seems to be her only hope for protecting her son.

Can love triumph over tragedy and bring joy amid winter? When unexpected tragedy hits her family, Carol Mason struggles to forge a new life for herself and her sons. Though Vermont has been their home for 20 years, betrayal and misunderstanding force Carol to leave the mountains she loves and return to her hometown of Apache Pointe, Arizona. There she is welcomed by scorching heat, lizards, scorpions, and (gulp) Aunt Penny. Carol finds a sympathetic friend in her cousin Millie as she does her best to put the pieces of her shattered life back together.