Showing results by narrator "Amy Bentley" in All Categories

It's an ordinary day at Harry's Hair Stop until Imogene hears her favorite client's dying wish. Two days later, she finds herself in the embalming room at Greener Pastures Mortuary, bottle of hair dye and scissors in hand. Styling her client's hair for the funeral is creepy. She'd expected that. But she hadn't expected the body to buzz like it was loaded with corpse caffeine. Was it her imagination, or was something more sinister at play? Determined to prove her sanity, she teams up with the mortuary's handsome night watchman to investigate.

Studious and sensible, the only thing Molly Wakefield wants to do is get through senior year and graduate. That, and hit the beach in her spare time. Maybe even read a book or two. And things are going great—until the day she catches Weston McGrath, handsome star athlete and scholar, spying on her in study hall. A tad creepy? Maybe. Thrilling? Absolutely. Why? Because Weston McGrath is one guy no one can get close to. Despite her efforts to avoid him, Molly and Weston form an unlikely friendship. But it's a friendship that comes with a price—because Weston cannot stop screwing up.

It's October in Daybreak Harbor, which means everything Halloween. The town is going all out for the holiday, hoping to one-up the festivities in neighboring Salem, Massachusetts, and Maddie James is delighted to be part of the planning for the annual happenings. But trouble brews when Maddie's youngest sister, Sam, books a famous medium, Balfour Dempsey, to come to town for the celebrations and stay in the local haunted inn—along with his equally famous black cat. The town busybody books a secret reading with Balfour and doesn't want anyone to know why.

Everyone knows how all those fairy tales go. The princess gets beautiful, nabs her prince, falls instantly in love, lives happily ever after and leaves her evil stepsisters in the dust. But what happens when you're the ugly stepsister and your obnoxiously perfect - read pretty, smart, and, worst of all, sickeningly nice - stepsister is dating the charming, tall, devastatingly handsome guy you've had a thing for since you were nine years old? Quirky, artistic and snarky Mattie Lowe does not lead a charmed life. Her mother is constantly belittling her on Skype.

Manhattan fashionista Kelly Quinn thought she'd left her upstate New York town far behind...until the Seventh Avenue expat returns home to revamp her grandmother's consignment shop into an upscale boutique - and unwittingly sets a trend for murder....After her rising career as a Manhattan buyer is derailed, Kelly has mixed feelings about relocating back to Lucky Cove, in spite of her big plans for the soon-to-be-renamed Curated by Kelly Resale Boutique. What's left of her luck starts running out when a customer puts on a black lace dress that triggers visions of someone being murdered.

Imogene Lynch, assistant to the head embalmer at Greener Pastures Mortuary, feels the final sensations of the deceased when she touches their hair. So, why did she get a hit from a 200-year-old skull? When an earthquake reveals a long-hidden tomb under the historic San Juan Capistrano Mission, El-Greener Pastures' hunky night watchman-moonlights to guard the discovery. He and Imogene have recently declared their love for one another. What better place to grab some alone time than among the skulls and crossbones of the dead?

When Nina Faye was 14, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now, she'll do anything for the boy she loves to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What is she if not a girlfriend? What is she made of? Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are.

Every girl imagines meeting her prince charming. It's doubtful, however, that any of these fantasies include it happening when they're soaked with sweat and knee-deep in pond scum. Fate can be funny that way.

One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence—or her previous marriage—to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.

It's Mardi Gras season on the bayou, which means parades, pageantry, and gumbo galore. But when a flood upends life in the tiny town of Pelican, Louisiana - and deposits a body of a stranger behind the Crozat Plantation B&B - the celebration takes a decidedly dark turn. The citizens of Pelican are ready to laissez les bon temps rouler - but there's beaucoup bad blood on hand this Mardi Gras. Maggie Crozat is determined to give the stranger a name and find out why he was murdered.

It's 16-year-old Edie who finds their mother, Marianne, dangling in the living room from an old jump rope, puddle of urine on the floor, barely alive. Upstairs, 14-year-old Mae had fallen into one of her trances, often a result of feeling too closely attuned to her mother's dark moods. After Marianne is unwillingly admitted to a mental hospital, Edie and Mae are forced to move from their childhood home in Louisiana to New York to live with their estranged father, Dennis, a former civil rights activist and literary figure on the other side of success.

She'd been told her fiancé died in a military training accident, but Gina Santino's gut told her otherwise. Still, she never imagined his killers would come after her. Now she is dodging bullets and running for her own life, not sure who to trust. Her fiancé had left specific instructions for her to contact fellow US Army Ranger Ian Masterson should anything happen to him. But how could she trust a man who abandoned his team years ago? With no other choice, Gina must place her life in his hands in order to stay alive long enough to find the truth.

Shy, skittish Rose Christner is more comfortable tending to the beehives on the family farm and keeping her aunt's unruly cats in line than attending social gatherings with the rest of the die youngie. A childhood trauma and secret shame keep her heart under lock and key, and Rose just cannot accept the sweet attention she's receiving from a handsome neighbor. But the more she shies away from Josiah Yoder, the more their families sneakily plot to bring them together.

Would a billionaire’s son ever fall for his maid? Maybe in a fairytale. But in real life? I’m not holding my breath. I’ve always been invisible to Nash Hastings—the beautiful boy I’ve been in love with since one magical night last summer. A night he doesn’t even remember until an accidental text puts it back on his radar. But I can’t tell him the girl he met at his family’s garden party is now a housekeeper in his family’s mansion. Because if he knew it was me he was texting, the fairytale would be over. I’m no princess and don’t belong in his world. If only my heart knew its place.

I'm trying very hard not to be in love with my best friend. After all, we've "been there, done that." Or rather, we dated for three amazing weeks last spring before Scarlett's overprotective dad found out and made her break up with me. And now that I've left her dad's church, there's no chance for us. I'm considered dangerous—a threat. Though, it's really the secrets I hold that scare Pastor Caldwell the most. As long as I don't talk about why I left The Fold, her dad won't transfer Scarlett from our private boarding school before graduation.

Follow the aroma of shamrock sugar cookies to the Beacon Bakeshop, a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan where amateur sleuth Lindsey Bakewell is busy preparing for Beacon Harbor's St. Patrick's Day festivities—with a little help from her adorable Newfoundland, Wellington, of course!

Savannah was four years old when her twin sister, Georgia, went missing from their small Louisiana town, fracturing their family. Twenty-eight years later, Savannah convinces her estranged older sisters, Rayanne and Sue Ellen, to honor the pact they made as children and retrieve the time capsule they buried in their old backyard. But coming home means confronting old ghosts…and their stubborn grandmother, Meemaw.

Tragedy strikes Palmetto Deaf School - twice. With one student murdered and another missing, it's up to homicide detective Catelyn Clark to find the killer - and probable kidnapper - fast. She'll even work with her ex-boyfriend, FBI agent Joseph Santino, to solve the case...while keeping her distance. Relationships between cops never work; her parents taught her that. They also taught her that the only one she can rely on is herself.

When a radical Pagan group blows into Tequila Key to celebrate the autumnal equinox, Althea Rose's psychic senses start tingling. She goes on full alert after meeting Horace, a Gandalf wannabe who reminds Althea of an old man playing dress up. One look into his pale eyes sets her straight, and soon Althea's best friend Luna is forcing her to learn a magickal protection spell before they investigate Horace and his festival. To make matters worse, Althea botches the spell and the results are...interesting to say the least.

It was the early 1900s when Obadiah (Oba) and Merriweather's (May's) parents died tragically, leaving them orphans at ten and eleven years old. When none of their nearby relations volunteer to take them in, they are set on a train to Arkansas to go live on their Amish aunt and uncle's cotton farm. Once there, it didn't take long to discover they would be treated cruelly, no matter what they did. May, always anxious to be a godly young lady, took on more and more responsibility, trying desperately to keep the peace and convince her older brother not to run away.