Showing results by narrator "Hollis McCarthy" in All Categories

Just when Pepper Dunn starts accepting her ability to communicate with animals, she’s thrown for a loop - an egg containing a baby dragon winds up on her doorstep. Convinced the creature will grow up to become a destructive force of nature, Pepper gives the dragon to the first person interested in buying - a traveling magician named Mysterio, who claims he can communicate with the dead.

I can remember a time when I baked for fun. I loved dreaming up new recipes, trying different combinations of flavors. Sharing my creations with friends and family. Now? I have nightmares where the TV cameras are on me and I’m baking naked. Or I open my oven and my cake pans are empty. You don’t need to be Freud to figure out I’m freaking out. This week on The Great British Baking Contest could be my last. I am one bad bake away from being waved good-bye.

Tillie Winchester's past is about to come back to haunt her, and what she sees as fun and games someone else sees as a recipe for murder. When a local woman is poisoned at Hemlock Cove's senior center, Aunt Tillie is the prime suspect. Bay, Thistle and Clove don't believe their great-aunt is guilty - although Thistle is fine if the police want to haul her away for a long weekend. Everyone in town is suspicious, but things spiral out of control when FBI Agent Landon Michaels' boss believes he can't be objective where his girlfriend's family is concerned and sends another agent to lead the investigation. The new agent is gung-ho, headstrong, and making witchy enemies at every turn. When the investigation turns to the past instead of the present, Aunt Tillie refuses to talk and a long held Hemlock Cove secret risks being exposed. Bodies start piling up as old grudges overlap with new clues and the Winchesters are caught in the crossfire.

Here, for the first time in one volume, are the first three books of the internationally best-selling The Ghosts saga, featuring Child of the Ghosts, Ghost in the Flames, Ghost in the Blood, and the bonus short story "Ghost Aria". When her life is torn apart by sorcery and murder, young Caina Amalas joins the Ghosts, the legendary spies and assassins of the Emperor of Nighmar.

Too many cooks spoil the stew! The Irish stew at O’Brien’s pub in Ballydehag is a Friday night favorite—until several people get sick and terrible reviews bubble to the surface on social media. Publican and chef Sean O’Grady is horrified, but when one of his customers dies after eating the stew, he realizes he has more than poisonous reviews to worry about. Was Sean the only one who added ingredients to the simmering pot—or does someone have a taste for murder?

When the president of the Brook Ridge Falls senior center book club is found dead, face down in one of the pies meant for the club’s pie-eating contest, Lexy and her posse of grandmothers take it upon themselves to find the killer. Too bad the only potential clue might be buried inside one of the many pies taken by the police for evidence. Lexy, Nans, and the ladies will use their uncanny methods of deduction to ferret out the killer. They waste no time filling their suspect list. But what has Lexy really worried is that someone in her group seems to have a secret of her own.

Hemlock Cove is mired in a cold snap, which means the town is calm and quiet. That all changes in an instant when a beer truck tips over on the highway and half the town shows up to get drunk. Bay Winchester is about to be the sole owner of the town newspaper so she heads out to take photos...and accidentally stumbles over several bodies. It seems there’s a serial killer on the loose, although no one can figure out if the dump site was convenient or if the killer is local.

When a mutilated body shows up in their seaside town of Noquitt, Maine, the Blackmoore sisters realize that an ancient relic they'd been trying to locate has been hidden right in their own hometown the whole time.

Finding a body facedown in a chocolate fountain isn’t exactly the way earth witch Zola Meadows wanted to start her day. Even worse, her sweet old lady neighbor, Lilly Martinelli, is arrested for the crime. The evidence against Lilly is flimsy at best, and Zola vows to clear her name - not only to make sure justice is served but also to get rid of the trouble-making cat that Lilly has entrusted to her care while she’s in jail.

Welcome to the North Pole, the town where Christmas is everyone’s job. Jayne Frost is a lot of things. Winter elf, Jack Frost's daughter, Santa Claus's niece, heir to the Winter Throne, and soon to be newlywed. She and fiancé Sinclair (and their cats, Spider and Sugar) have moved back to the North Pole, they’re firmly entrenched in planning their wedding. Sinclair suggests calling a friend to help, the ever-resourceful Birdie Caruthers. Not long after she arrives, however, the trio discovers the most terrible thing in the wedding carriage.

Lady Phoebe Killigrew is appalled by the scandalous country parties her new neighbor, a war hero marquess, is holding at his estate in Moonstone Landing. She has every intention of keeping well away from him—until a governess arrives at her door with his two nieces. They are mere children and cannot possibly reside under the same roof as that dissolute. When she storms over to demand he reform his ways, or she will not give them over to him, she is unprepared for the feelings he stirs in her, for her heart understands his nieces are not the only ones in need of rescuing.

At age 70, Bunny Howard is determined to prove that she is just as useful as anyone else. Who knew it would be the new bookclub at Tides that would provide the opportunity? They are deep into a murder mystery, and Bunny has noticed that the strange behaviors of the Inn’s mysterious guest are eerily similar to that of the killer in the book!

Under the Great British Baking Contest tent, the competition's heating up to be crowned Best Baker in all of Britain. For amateur baker Poppy Wilkinson, there are mysteries, secrets, and lies, even murders to solve. As a fledgling witch, Poppy's having enough trouble controlling her sponge cake, never mind trying to control her powers. Besides solving crime, Poppy's also trying to uncover the mystery surrounding her own background. Will she discover who she really is before she gets sent home? Or worse?

Bookstore owner Willa Chance had no idea that a magical key was hidden in the old recipe book that she sold to food blogger Mary Ashford. Luckily the key is now safely tucked away in a box high on a shelf in the bookstore...or is it? Feline sleuth Pandora needs Willa's help to make sure that key doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. This time she’ll have to take drastic measures to break through the barrier that has stopped her from communicating with her human...even if she has to take a chance on one of Pepper St. Onge’s enchanted teas.

Bay Winchester is newly married and happy. Things have been quiet since she returned from her honeymoon, which means trouble is just around the corner. When it comes, it takes the form of a despondent man on a bridge. Despite her best efforts, Bay and the hostage negotiator can’t save him, and death is swift. That should’ve been the end of it, but a weird symbol on the dead man’s hand piques Bay’s interest, and when the negotiator turns up sick with the same symptoms, she knows that they have a problem on their hands.

Tempers are fraying and the cream is melting as summer temperatures hit the competition tent at Broomewode in the UK just in time for patisserie week. With only four contestants left, the pressure is mounting in the race to be chosen the best amateur baker in the UK. Poppy's working hard to find out who her parents were and what happened to them, even as she's trying to become a more accomplished witch, so she definitely doesn't have time for romance. Then someone dies and it looks like a crime of passion. Can she unmask a killer before she's the one who gets creamed?

Liz Weston’s life has reached rock bottom. Her husband dumped her, her life savings are gone, and her apartment is being turned into condos that she can’t afford. Maybe she shouldn’t have taken early retirement last year? In her late 40s, she has limited possibilities for employment. When her elderly father passes away, she heads to her hometown to clean out the family home. Staying at the beachside inn is a blessing because there’s no way she’ll sleep in her childhood home. But when she befriends Jane Miller, the owner of Tides, her life slowly starts to change.

The day I was drafted into the army of the gods, all I knew about being a MASH surgeon was what I’d learned from Hawkeye Pierce and Hot Lips Houlihan. Now here I am, Dr. Petra Robichaud, in the middle of an immortal war, assigned to a MASH camp with a nosy sphinx, a vegetarian werewolf, and an uptight vampire who really needs to get a life. At least they’re all too busy with their own dramas to discover my secret: I can see the dead. It’s a forbidden gift, one that can get me killed, so I haven’t told a soul.

Life in the Winchester household is hardly settled. That’s true for Bay Winchester more than anybody else. Her boyfriend, Landon Michaels, is away from town on an undercover assignment for the FBI, and Bay is struggling not to let worry and unease rule over her life. Halloween is approaching, after all, and Hemlock Cove is bustling with activity. Bay has her hands full even when her heart feels empty. A chance encounter with Landon while he’s undercover leaves Bay exposed...and furious.

Welcome to Nocturne Falls, the town that celebrates Halloween 365 days a year. Jayne Frost is a lot of things. Winter elf, Jack Frost's daughter, Santa Claus' niece, heir to the Winter Throne, and now private investigator. Sort of. When Lark Bramble, an old frenemy, shows up in Nocturne Falls, Jayne finds herself reliving the painful past and trying to make responsible decisions that won’t mess up her future. But being an adult proves harder than she thought.