Showing results by narrator "Sarah Pesek" in All Categories

Newly married, Helen Hawthorne can’t wait to start her life anew - and start an investigation agency with her PI hubby, Phil. Her penchant for working dead-end jobs comes in handy when they’re hired to look into a fitness fanatic who may be cheating on his wife. Taking a receptionist job at their subject’s gym, Helen soon discovers that she has to start pumping her own iron if she wants to keep an eye on the weight-lifting lothario.

When Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest want to discreetly trade their best barely-worn threads for cash, they bring it to Snapdragon’s Second Thoughts - which is where Helen Hawthorne finds herself selling the most chic second-hand clothing in Florida. But the usual haggling turns homicidal when a particularly petty customer turns up dead - dangling by a darling Gucci scarf - and Helen's boss Vera is eyed as a suspect.

Miguel Angel’s chic salon is where Fort Lauderdale’s high society hairdos get done. Even though Helen Hawthorne is just a gofer at the upscale salon, she has to admit the fabulous Miguel Angel is a master at the craft of coif. But with great heads of hair come great headaches. Especially when Miguel Angel and Helen try to prepare the pregnant fiancée of Kingman "King" Oden for her nuptials. King is a bloated, loudmouth bully with a gossip blog, a TV show, and a lousy attitude.

The Superior Club is where Fort Lauderdale’s wealthiest - and snobbiest - come to play. But for Helen Hawthorne, it’s all work and no play. As a customer care clerk, it’s her job to cater to the clients’ every little whim and take care of their every little problem.

After all she’s endured with her own marriage, divorce, and subsequent flight from alimony, Helen Hawthorne getting a job at Millicent’s Bridal Salon is ironic in the extreme. The newest client is Kiki, a wealthy witch who’s making her daughter's wedding day all about Kiki. When Kiki is found smothered to death with her daughter’s wedding dress, the cops seem to think Helen is responsible. Now, Helen must prove her innocence before the bride and groom read their wedding vows—and the police read Helen her rights.

All Harvey Beckett wants to do is help the residents of St. Marin's find the perfect book for that moment, snuggle with her hound dog Mayhem, and be ignored by her cat Aslan. But when the small waterside town's newest resident discovers the body of the community's persnickety reporter in her bookshop storeroom just before her grand opening, Harvey can't help trying to solve the crime, even when it might cost her business and her life. The more questions Harvey asks, the more secrets she uncovers.

In a Town Famous for Strawberries, Two Investigators Sort the Fruits from the Nuts ... All Bobbie Drex wanted was something normal—a new career as a private investigator. But after signing up with Nick Grayson to complete her internship, nothing normal has happened since. In fact, when Grayson gets a call about a possible alien invasion going down in Plant City, Florida, normal packs its bags and books a flight for another planet. Man pudding. Doomsday preppers. Wayne’s World wannabes ….Not to mention the whole “living-with-a-stranger-in-an-RV” thing. The horrors!

Everybody’s got their coping mechanisms. Val Fremden is no exception. But when her longtime boyfriend Tom Foreman takes off without even saying goodbye—well, that’s just the kind of thing that can make a good woman go bad. Out to track down Tom or die trying, everyone Val meets seems like a potential suspect. Especially her new coworker, Gary. Ever since he showed up, women around town have begun disappearing. And the macabre clues left behind at each woman’s last known address keep Val on the run like a chicken with its head cut off.

When Bobbie and Grayson head back to Plant City to help out some old friends, they run into a “hole” new set of problems. While investigating a rash of missing persons, it’s not long before they get under each other’s skin. What’s making them all hot and bothered? Each other. In more ways than one. Bobbie’s down-to-earth explanations for the missing men irritate Grayson, while his otherworldly theories have her itching for a sane solution. But when new, conflicting evidence emerges in the case, they soon realize they’ve only scratched the surface of the mystery at hand.

Still living under the radar in Fort Lauderdale due to her refusal to pay her ex-husband’s spousal support, Helen Hawthorne’s latest workaday job might just be the lowest rung on the employment ladder - telemarketing. While Helen is conducting a phone survey with the wealthy Henry “Hank” Asporth, Helen is convinced she heard a murder being committed. With no solid proof, Helen is driven to find out what really happened with Hank and the mystery woman. But if she’s not careful, she just might end up holding a dead line of her own.

Helen Hawthorne is still on the run because of her refusal to pay her worthless ex-husband alimony. But a girl’s gotta eat...and pay rent, utilities, etc. So she’s taken a cash-paying job at Fort Lauderdale’s own Page Turners bookstore. And while the job is decent enough, the owner of the store is anything but. Page Turner III is a boor with more money than brains: He’s cheating on his wife while running his family business into the ground and has a list of enemies longer than any best seller. So when he turns up dead, no one is too surprised. What is surprising is where.

When Grayson and Bobbie head to the Florida Panhandle to witness a spectacle of nature, they take a wrong turn and quickly find themselves up to their armpits in arthropods. And that’s the good part of their vacation. Campers are disappearing without a trace from nearby Torreya State Park. Whatever’s stalking them soon sets its eyes on Bobbie and Grayson, too.

When Bobbie and Grayson go on the hunt for the legendary Florida Skunk Ape, there’s more than one tangled mystery afoot. Grayson, the man Bobbie’s hung her life and career on, is every bit as evasive as the creature they’re tracking. At the start of their investigation, a colossally bad judgement call leaves Bobbie wondering just exactly who—or what—the elusive being is.

The streets of St. Marin’s are decorated for Christmas, and Harvey Beckett has decided that she’ll host Santa Claus at her bookstore, reviving a town’s long-standing tradition. But on the first day of the holiday season, a man stumbles into Santa’s lap and dies, threatening the holiday spirit . . . and bringing a slew of questions that Harvey can’t resist trying to answer.

Why are we selling off the impressive public enterprises we often battled as a nation to create? In The Sport and Prey of Capitalists, Linda McQuaig challenges the dogma of privatization, which has defined our political era. She argues that now more than ever, as we grapple with climate change and income inequality, we need to expand, not shrink, our public sphere.

From clinical sexologist Dr. Arlene Krieger comes a collection of nonfiction short stories for adults that explore love and relationships - the most thrilling and complicated quest in the world. Written with compassion and humor, Sex: From the Couch explores the irrational, passionate, and occasionally bizarre nature of love. Krieger’s stories will make you laugh, cry, and gasp - sometimes with subverted expectations, other times in uncomfortable recognition of the pitfalls of adult relationships.

Ever since he survived a suicide attempt, New York artist Stan Foster has not been himself. Plagued by amnesia and a head full of visions of death and destruction that fuel his ever-more disturbing work, he claws his way through a life he doesn't recognize in search of his true identity. What he finds leads him to believe he is Satan, spit out from the bowels of hell to live among the mortal inhabitants of earth. Is he delusional, or is there truth behind this troubling revelation? One woman can help him find out.

When unlikely sleuth Helen Hawthorne flees St. Louis, she fetches up in Fort Lauderdale, suddenly surrounded by the beautiful and the Botoxed. They all shop at the same place — Juliana’s, the overpriced boutique where Helen works. And they’re all looking for a wealthy wise guy to take to the cleaners.

An overachiever who is driven by an ambition to succeed, Samantha Harrison has set out to be the first woman president in United States history. With her devoted husband Ben behind her, she begins her campaign with Zachary Watts, a determined campaign manager with questionable ethics. As her campaign begins to take shape, Samantha is forced to deal with a crumbling home life as she continues her quest to hold the highest office in the land.

When Harvey Beckett stumbles upon the body of the community's most reviled dairy farmer, she, her friends, and her parents are launched into an investigation that reveals a family secret that wasn't really that secret after all. Soon, Harvey's curiosity lands her and her mother in a heap of danger that may mark the end of her sleuthing