Showing results by narrator "Julie McKay" in All Categories

When Inspector Oscar Piper asks his old friend Hildegarde Withers to stop meddling in murder, she surprisingly agrees. But old habits die hard and Hildy soon finds herself back in harness, investigating suspects and snooping for clues. Oddly enough, she spots a vital clue while looking at her own tank of tropical fish.

There are two kinds of safety choices: those that disrupt power structures and those that leave them unquestioned. Gender-based violence is a social and political problem, but it’s often enacted in the most intimate spheres of our lives. In this book, nationally recognized leader in abuse prevention Meg Stone debunks baseless advice we get about personal safety. Tips like “don’t go shopping alone” and “don’t wear a ponytail” are not based on any evidence, but that doesn’t stop police officers and other men in authority from telling women to restrict our lives.

Augusta Aldridge believes in Ian Patterson's innocence, even after he was arrested for killing two young women. She was with him the night one of the crimes occurred, hidden in the shadows beneath a beachside pier, locked in a wild, unthinking embrace with a man whose dangerous fascination may have fatally lured other victims. Now that another body has been discovered, and a 13-year old boy has gone missing, the police suspect a copycat killer, but Augusta is certain they have the wrong man.

“I don’t want to die,” said the man in the brown suit, who was the last passenger to board the little airplane, but he did. The other passengers thought he was just airsick and the pilots of the Dragonfly assumed it was a heart attack, but when they landed on Catalina Island where Miss Hildegarde Withers was enjoying her first vacation in five years, they bowed to her insistence that the body be examined by the island doctor as well as the chief of police.

Birmingham, Alabama, is infested with malevolence. Prejudice and hatred have consumed the minds and hearts of its populace. A murderer, unimaginatively named "Harry the Hacker" by the press, has been carving up citizens with a hatchet. And from the church known as Chapelwood, an unholy gospel is being spread by a sect that worships dark gods from beyond the heavens.

Hildegarde Withers heads down Mexico way where the death in the afternoon involves neither a matador nor a bull. Inspector Oscar Piper is off on a junket to Mexico in the summer of 1937 (surrounded by a bunch of Democrats, huffed Miss Withers) when a customs inspector on a train headed for Mexico City sniffs a very potent bottle of cheap perfume and promptly drops dead. Quite naturally, Oscar telegraphs Hildegarde in Manhattan about the perfume and quite naturally Miss Withers packs her bags and heads south of the border, figuring Oscar is out of his depth if he has to rely on deductive reasoning rather than a rubber hose.

If no one meant for it to happen, should someone be guilty? Laurie is happy when asked out by Quin. Then his car hits something. When he realizes what has happened, he decides he must not let it ruin his future. As the lives of people who never wanted to hurt others intersect, harsh realities of choices that cannot be changed are explored.

The doctors assure Erin Bennett and her parents that they can't find a physical cause for her headaches. But the throbbing, violent pain is so intense that Erin knows she needs help. Even landing the lead in the senior musical opposite David Devlin, the good-looking, popular guy everyone else is wild about, doesn't give Erin much pleasure. In fact, she finds David so annoying that her headaches are getting worse. Erin knows that the headaches started just after the death of her younger sister, Amy, one year ago. She though her grieving was over, but somehow the headaches must be connected to Amy.

Dori, at age 17, participates in a hate crime against a gay boy from her school and runs away to escape prosecution - and her own harrowing childhood. In her pocket, she carries the address of an older, half-sister she’s never met. She has no idea that her sister Teresa is married to another woman. When Dori and Teresa finally meet, they’re forced to confront that, while they don’t like or really even understand one another, they are inextricably bound together in ways that transcend their differences.

When pretty little Ina Kell arrived in Manhattan full of foolish dreams about making it big in show business, she had no idea how quickly she’d be in the headlines. But when TV personality Tony Fagan is murdered in the apartment building where she’s staying and she disappears shortly thereafter, the search is on, led by Inspector Oscar Piper and his long-time friend Hildegarde Withers.

When sexy, buttoned-down accountant Jeff gets sucked into Cecilia's sticky, single-mom universe, his life turns inside out. Her checkbook's a nightmare, her oldest kid hates him, and she's messy, mouth-watering, independent, and annoyingly unforgettable. He can't stay away. Quirky Cecilia has her life (sort of) in order, and doesn't need a man pointing out where it's not. A single mom with three kids and a dog can't afford a sex life, even if he is hotter than ever, and strong just when she needs him to be. Plus, his parrot hates her.

Sarah Jane Pullman is a good cop with a complicated past. From her small-town chicken-farming roots through her runaway adolescence, court-ordered Army stint, and ill-advised marriage, Sarah Jane unfolds her life story, a parable about memory, atonement, and finding shape in chaos. Her life takes an unexpected turn when she is named the de facto sheriff of a rural town, investigating the mysterious disappearance of the sheriff whose shoes she’s filling - and the even more mysterious realities of the life he was hiding from his own colleagues and closest friends.

What does it mean to grow up with pink bits between your legs? Writer Kat George takes you on a journey of self-discovery from the moment you're pushed out of a vagina, to the moment you realize you have one, and the ongoing struggle of figuring out what it all means. From her first period, to sex in a hostel cloakroom, to fully lucid cervical biopsies, Kat's charming, sometimes painful yet hilarious stories of feminine exploration will have you giggling, squirming, and hopefully feeling a little bit less alone when you're face-to-face with your own sexuality.

Jessica McMillian and Jeremy Travino are a perfect couple. But now Jessica has been diagnosed as having kidney failure. She is on dialysis three days a week and is so depressed that she's not sure she wants to live. Her one hope for a normal life is a kidney transplant, but she's an only child and her parents aren't suitable donors. Jeremy is determined to donate one of her kidneys to her, but his parents are terrified of losing their only child. Will Jeremy find the strength to go against his parents' wishes and do what he must to save Jessica?

Williston, North Dakota, was a sleepy farm town for generations - until the frackers arrived. The oil companies moved into Williston, overtaking the town and setting off a boom that America hadn't seen since the Gold Rush. Workers from all over the country descended, chasing jobs that promised them six-figure salaries and demanded no prior experience. But for every person chasing the American dream, there is a darker side - reports of violence and sexual assault skyrocketed, schools overflowed, and housing prices soared.

"You here for the Midnight Coven?" Icy words, whispered upon her lips in the night, used to scare Lorelei Huntington. But that was before. Before her mother tried to have her killed, before her world went back 50 years, before the magic of the swamp found its way into Lorelei's blood. Now she finds the whispers and the cold breath of the dead a comfort. That is until she's warned, by a small ghost haunting Whit's family's castle, about the secrets of the bloodthirsty family she resides with.

A young man is stopped by the police, a body is found in his backseat, and he is convicted of murder. While he awaits execution, he makes out a will leaving all his money to the police lieutenant who handled his case. The lieutenant learns of this when Hildegarde Withers, schoolteacher and hard-boiled private eye, stops by. She determines to clear the man in the few days left before his execution. The opening paragraphs bear comparison with the opening of Chandler's short story "Red Wind".

Nathan Malone has been homeschooled his whole life. He’s never spent much time with kids his own age and he’s never dated. His mother is now busy with his new twin sisters, so Nathan must enroll at the local high school for his senior year. On the first day, a girl on a motorcycle catches his eye and Nathan is excited to discover the girl is also in his English class.

Crusty schoolteacher/sleuth Hildegarde Withers can't escape mysterious deaths, even on a trans-Atlantic crossing on an ocean liner. En route to England she spends part of her time (when not feeling queasy) sizing up her fellow passengers. Her intuition helps when passengers and crew start dropping over the side, or just dropping, period.

Cassie Blake seems to lead a charmed life as the heiress to Fenton's, San Francisco's most exclusive department store. But when she discovers her husband Aidan, a handsome UC Berkeley professor, has had an affair with a student, she flees to the comfort of her best friend Alexis' Presidio Heights mansion, where she wonders if she should give their marriage one more chance.