South American Mystery

Thirteen bitter sweets. Thirteen bitter suspects. One unhappy ending. World-famous Chandler's Chocolates has unveiled a new storybook-inspired chocolate collection, Once Upon a Truffle. It's up to Anna Clementine, the company's event coordinator, to promote the product by hosting a fairytale-themed beauty pageant. To set the scene, contestants are invited to an abandoned castle deep in the Smoky Mountains. After all, every little girl dreams of being a princess in a palace- unless that castle turns out to be haunted. Anna soon finds herself in a cursed castle, surrounded by spoiled ...

Haunted by sins of the past while grappling with the challenges of the present, the citizens of Tennyson County, Georgia, must come to grips with the reality that not all secrets stay buried forever. Allison Edwards, a part-time journalism student, arrives in South Georgia after receiving a mysterious grant to write a human interest story. Soon, like layers of an onion, she peels back story after surprising story, many of which were never meant to see the light of day. Like the crippling southern heat, lies and deception smolder. Allison will soon learn that when the old South and modern ...

Since the night Atlanta mayor, self-made millionaire, and womanizer Jamison Jackson plummeted from the top floor of a downtown hotel, everyone seems to have profited, from vicious criminals to corrupt politicians. Everyone except his jilted first wife Kerry. Once a socialite, she's now the prime suspect in Jamison's alleged murder. But she swears she's no killer - and surprisingly, Jamison's widow Val agrees. For all they know, it was Coreen, the mother of Jamison's secret love child.

That brash decision lands Pegasus Quincy in the midst of a hostile murder situation. She alienates her new partner and almost gets him killed. She ignores regulations and jeopardizes an ongoing investigation. Just when she thinks things couldn’t get worse - they do! She encounters the Nettle family: an insanely jealous wife, a banished son, and a sister whose little girl has been traumatized by an explosion at the illicit family whiskey still.

Beyond the Veranda: Ghost Stories from the Myrtles invites you deep into the haunting heart of one of America’s most mysterious plantations. From phantom duels played out beneath moonlit oaks to the sorrowful Lady of the Veranda beckoning newlyweds over the railing, these eight chilling tales reveal secrets whispered through centuries of moss-draped silence. Step inside the Myrtles, where history and the supernatural collide, and where every creak of the floorboards might be the footsteps of a spirit longing to be heard. Perfect for lovers of Southern Gothic, historical mysteries, and ...

A sudden disappearance, an island escape, the boy from her past, a raging blizzard of secrets and fear, another woman’s betrayal & the quiet suffering of a broken heart. She’d known the boy he was and it had never been a secret that she loved him with all her heart...then walked away...her dreams and hopes lost. Years later her life depends on the man he’s become. Dark secrets and twisted truths...hidden clues and unexpected danger...a lost island of dreams and mystery...faded hope. There was only time to grab her purse and the small keepsake box she couldn’t leave behind. She had ...

In the wake of the Great Depression, during the 1942 bombings off the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the Deacon family has lost the life they knew before the Second World War. As the family and their closest friends struggle to make sense of the secrets they keep from one another, their dogs—Big Love and War Horse—help them find the strength and endurance to survive the aftermath of devastating loss and adversity. Abandoned by their father, Luke, after the sudden death of their mother, fifteen-year-old Jonas and his younger sister Kay are coming of age in a world shrouded in secrecy and...

Iggy Guerra is out of prison, but his homecoming is anything but smooth. His beloved mother is gone, his grief-stricken father Armando is deep in debt, and they are about to lose the butcher shop that has been in their family for generations. Iggy must earn his father’s lost trust in order to save La Carnicería Guerra from the threats imposed by a new rival business, a vigilante activist, and big-game hunter Orin, who has dragged Armando into his dangerous money-making schemes deep in the Everglades, where more than secrets are buried.

Fear. Anguish. Heartbreak. Selfless love. Ultimate sacrifice. All in less than a minute. Sometimes that’s all there is. Adam Manning arrives at the crime scene and quickly sees that not everything is as it seems. Neither is he. If you enjoy clean mystery romance and inspirational women’s fiction filled with love, hope, family, new and old friendships, and a mystery to keep you guessing, Stay With Me is the series collection for you. This is Book Five of the eight-part Stay With Me mystery romance novella series. Book 5 of 8.

“Dispute in progress, lethal weapons involved.” Deputy Pegasus Quincy takes the call to resolve violence on a Friesian horse ranch in Arizona. Intent on his own personal vendetta, partner Shepherd Malone refuses to declare a murder in a fatal fire at the ranch. Peg unwisely circumvents the law to investigate anyway. Two families feuding over water rights, a Gypsy clan suspected of drug dealing, and a blackmailer on the loose, all lead Pegasus astray on her quest to find the killer in a desert mountain town beset by flash floods and arsenic-laced creeks.

In cosmopolitan Johannesburg, three high-flying couples form the core of the elite Khula Society: part investment group, part social club, with meetings where the champagne flows, the dresses are designer and the one-upmanship is off the scale. Noma, Moshidi, Lerato and their husbands are living the dream—or so it appears from the outside. In reality, the cut and thrust of ‘keeping up with the Khulas’ is taking its toll on all three couples.

As a young man, Virgil Moody vowed he would never be like his father, he would never own slaves. When he moves from his father's plantation in Savannah to New Orleans, he takes with him Annie, a tiny woman with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, who he is sure would not survive life on the plantation. She'll be much safer with him, away from his father's cruelty. And when he discovers Annie's pregnancy, already a few months along, he is all the more certain that he made the right decision. As the years pass, the divide between Moody's assumptions and Annie's reality widens ever further.

Something is exciting and chilling about a pursuit to identify the remains of a murdered victim and the victim’s murderer—especially when the crime was committed 49 years ago in a small Southern town. The remains were found on Great Aunt Hannah’s property after she died, and Vett Brayborn, Great Aunt Hannah’s most trusted niece and executor of her estate, works as an amateur investigator to solve the murder mystery. The mystery must be solved before the sale of Great Aunt Hannah's properties occurs because an unsolved murder has a way of devaluing properties. Needless to say, the ...

“The System of Dr. Tarr and Prof. Fether” is an Edgar Allan Poe short story that expertly blends his dark perspective with the comic. -This is the original story—only word order and difficult vocabulary have been updated. -End notes, interpretation, and discussion of major themes follow the text. -Biographical information on Edgar Allan Poe is included. -For other classic short stories in easy to understand updated English search for “Simplified for Modern Readers Series.”