Evil lurking on her doorstep—or something like that.Shady characters flitting in and—usually—out of the Stapleton House. In the wee hours. When an insomniac middle-aged woman is most likely to be awake. At first, Rosie Trout can't believe her eyes. Then she believes them all too well.Her neighbor—the one with the New Jersey accent he just can't hide—is up to something. Like her, he's a transplant from another region, another culture—a misfit. But Ben Hanrahan, the grouch, h...

When a body bumps against the dock just a few feet from Eva Fairchild's floating house on the night of her welcome party at the marina, she begins to wonder if her recent move across the country was such a good idea. Combine the resulting murder investigation with mysterious nighttime kayak trips, politicians run amok, nosy neighbors, and culinary lessons for her blue-haired, teenage tagalong, Willow Ratliff, and Eva has her hands full. It doesn't help that the police detective on the case...

When a body bumps against the dock just a few feet from Eva Fairchild’s floating house on the night of her welcome party at the marina, she begins to wonder if her recent move across the country was such a good idea.Combine the resulting murder investigation with mysterious nighttime kayak trips, politicians run amok, nosy neighbors, and culinary lessons for her blue-haired teenage tagalong, Willow Ratliff, and Eva has her hands full. It doesn’t help that the police detective on th...

Do small-town residents commit crimes? You bet they do!On a grand scale? Even better!If they can get away with it.But Rosie Trout hasn't dealt with corruption on the national stage just to miss it when it happens at the community garden club. There might be some fleecing going on, but no one's going to pull the wool over her eyes.Not while she has her wits about her. And not while she can rope Sergeant Flip Baylar into going undercover before someone else ge...

Gone. Just gone.Roxy Sperry, the stalwart manager of Marten's Marina is just plain gone.Yeah, that Roxy—the chain-smoking dry wit who normally can't be rousted more than twenty feet from the bench where she holds court just outside the marina office. The woman who knows everybody and everything. The woman whose life motto is grit and pragmatism.She's left behind one starting-to-panic teen granddaughter and a community of bewildered tenants.But Eva Malloy and...

Rosaria Trout is on the run—from a bucketload of heartache and fury, and toward a clean slate where her new name is as anonymous as her short haircut.She'd planned not to stop for breath until she hit the Pacific Ocean, but a small town in the Columbia River Gorge had other ideas. Namely, a summer festival complete with a rinky-dink parade that clogged up Main Street and a 'For Rent' sign in the window of a dilapidated historical house.She did, after all, need to start over...

Eva Fairchild is reveling in the idyllic, if insular, setting of her adopted home at Marten's Marina when a rash of newcomers triggers speculation and the not-so-latent nosy tendencies among the residents. Eva is appalled to learn that she's acquired a surprising new persona along with her new location—since when does she get involved with other people's problems?But Ancer's Potts' distress is not to be ignored. Everyone knows the absentminded genius needs friendly nudges now and t...

It's a cause avid foodie and enthusiastic eater, Eva Fairchild, can really get behind—the launch of a CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm in the small town of Fidelity, Oregon. But when a tractor plows up a WWII-era bomb in the back forty, things get dicey. Turns out there's more lurking under the surface than anyone expected.As a marketer and publicist, Eva wants nothing more than to help her friends and clients protect the reputation of their farm, but to do her job proper...

Changes are afoot. Lots of them. Eva Fairchild supposes that's to be expected when one is self-employed. But being conscripted into pro bono work on top of her already busy schedule? Sure, why not?Add supper club experiments in the midst of a January ice storm; missing valuables; the snarky, inbred world of philanthropic (mis)management; and one criminally good-looking police detective who invites himself over for dinner on a regular basis, and Eva's well-planned life is brimming o...

* This short story takes place between the events of Rocked to the Core and Hard Rocked. *When Joe surprises Liss with a trip to New York for just the two of them, she's over the moon. He's thought of everything, and a little time alone is exactly what the couple needs. But when the trapping of his fame intrude and the reality of dating a rock star hits her again, Liss risks falling into bad old habits - running away when things get hard.But a chance meetin...

DEA agent Pete Olivera has lived some hard times, so when a local cop is forced to shoot a teenage boy in the Indiana city Pete's temporarily assigned to, he's uniquely qualified to understand what Officer Joseph West is going through. Joseph's actions were justified and saved lives—his own and those of the people around him—but knowing he did the right thing doesn't ease his guilt.Pete knows Joe needs to come to terms with the shooting. But neither man realized that the friendship...

Stephen was a rich playboy who was probably going to lead her on and dump her as soon as he got bored with her. His brother Andrew thought she was a golddigger. His mother and sister liked her even less than Andrew did. She couldn't afford to keep doing this. If she fell for him, fell hard the way she knew she was going to, he was going to shatter her heart into a million pieces. But when he asked her to go away with him for the weekend, somehow she couldn't tell him no.What wa...