The secrets in this south Arkansas town run deep and dangerous…Merritt Quinn is stunned to learn that, to inherit a sizeable estate, she must discover the truth about her own mother’s death. Aunt Mary left a single clue: Ernie knows.But Merritt arrives in Crossroads to discover local attorney Ernie Crowell bludgeoned in his office.The murder is the first test for new police chief Tim Birch, and he’s determined to prove himself worthy of the promotion. His prime susp...

A dangerous killer is hunting for more than deer in this southern forest…New police chief Tim Birch is too late on the scene to save his youngest officer from fentanyl exposure at a routine traffic stop, and the grief cuts deep into his department. Someone is trafficking dangerous pills in Crossroads, Arkansas.Jana Nance has returned home to steer the town’s tourism and be close to her dying grandmother. But when she and her committee visit lakefront property designated to ...

Lexie Gilroy thought running the family construction office for a week would be routine—until thieves rumble off with their brand-new bulldozer before sunrise. She knows one of the criminals. He once saved her life. Now she wants answers, and she’s not waiting for the police to hand them over.Reporter Jack Huddleston is chasing redemption, and Southern Pines board member Cal Kinney has his own suspicions about missing money. They, too, would rather keep the law at arm’s length whil...

It's going to take more than carefully labeled boxes to sort through the clues of this homicide . .Professional organizer Crystal Ward knows she can make a success of her new business, Organizing Chicago. The extra income would allow her to renovate her own home, full of more cluttered spaces than she'd ever admit to her clients. But her life wasn't always this disorganized. Five years ago her husband, Rick, a Chicago police detective, was shot while chasi...

**Her business plan doesn't call for sleuthing—but murder changes everything.Professional organizer Crystal Ward has nothing against publicity—as long as it's the truth. But a local reporter is putting Crys in the headlines for her role in solving crimes, not clearing out clutter. Now she's receiving requests for services that aren't on her website, and the spotlight is wearing on her family.At least something good comes out of the unwelcome attention: Crys reconne...

Carol Light’s Heaven from Steam, a finalist for the 2012 Able Muse Book Award, moves effortlessly from the humorous to the serious, from mundane concerns to sublime. She writes as convincingly of carnal pleasures as of spiritual mysteries. Light’s playful energy is imbued with pleasing rhythms and sonic patterns. With surprising wordplay and associations, she renders complex vistas as understandable simplicities, finds fresh, inventive turns of phrase that will remain with the reader. Her ...

Not all clutter is visible to the human eye . . .Professional organizer Crystal Ward's latest client, her neighbor Roscoe Tremaine, is changing his will, an announcement that sets off an explosive reaction within his family. That same night, a gas leak ignites, destroying his house, killing him, and rocking the Ward family at its foundation.Her husband, Rick, is injured in the blast, so Crys hires Roscoe's former caregiver, Wink Keller, to help him recover ...

Can she get the right read on this situation before someone ruins the ending?Professional organizer Crystal Ward is at a crossroads with her business, Organizing Chicago. Her husband, Rick, isn't on board with online advertising, and their friends and family are running out of referrals. And now her client's husband is outraged to learn that Crys donated novels he had promised to his brother. Crys's only hope of salvaging the situation is to recover the titles....

Once, I pass across a magazine booth and I see a picture of Carol, on a cover. It was a picture taken on the move. She was elegant dressed, her face radiant. Her perfect right foot was stretching a little laterally, as she was entering Tamara's wide open left door. The whole assembly was a hymn to Carol's mercury fluid body. I've seen this so many times, so close, so naked. It was a great picture, but it's bearing a secret that nobody can read it but me. In her eyes, partially caught on ca...

Carol is something. Something else. I cannot tell much more because I do not understand much either. Carol is my wife-to-be but I don't know what she is. Here is our story. Partly love story, partly mystery. All changes for us. I don't now if this thing is real or not.

When faced with impossible choices, how do you decide what matters most?For ten years, the incorruptible Tribune Titianus enforced Rome’s laws. He’s four days from leaving the Urban Cohort to teach at his brother-in-law Kaeso’s school when Emperor Hadrian and the Praetorian Prefect draft him to secretly investigate and thwart an assassination plot…one that might involve his own commander. He can’t refuse, but if Hadrian’s enemies discover his Christian faith, will it mean ...

River of Life: a Roman-era adventure with dangerous choices, unlikely friendships, world views in conflict, and a love story you won’t forgetWhen the future you dreamed of looks impossible, maybe God has a better one planned.Driven from home because of her Christian faith, Neferu lands a position tutoring Jason, her childhood friend’s young son. Jason's father despises him and banishes both the boy and Neferu to his ancestral estate, where Jason be...