This is an audiobook of short stories of everyday human emotional experiences. Stories of profound loss, of great friendships, of growing old with a dog, of going to war, and of course, stories of deep romantic love. I hope the stories encourage the listener to do some introspection on what it means to be human. I believe the poems, like all art, will mean more to some than to others.

For five grand a month and a million-dollar chaser, Roger Mulligan didn't care how crazy the old geezer was. All he had to do was keep Joseph Perry Shackleford alive and keep him from squandering the estate for a year. But they didn't tell him about the pixies.

It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.

After being kidnapped as a child, heiress Emma Grace McMurray has seen firsthand the devastation that greed causes in the world, and she wants nothing to do with it - including her father's offering her hand in a business deal. She sneaks away to be a Harvey Girl at the El Tovar Grand Canyon Hotel, planning to stay hidden even if it means always looking over her shoulder. Ray Watkins arrives at the hotel wanting to impress his father by finding success on his own. Then maybe he can take on more of the family business and do something good with the profits.

June 1933. Independent, young Kitty Underhay has been left in charge of her family’s hotel, The Dolphin, on the tranquil English coast. But when several rooms are broken into and searched, including Kitty’s own, she quickly realizes that something out of the ordinary is afoot at the hotel. Soon, rumors are flying in the cozy town that someone is on the hunt for a stolen ruby. A ruby that Kitty’s mother may well have possessed when she herself went missing during the Great War.

1920. Poppy Denby, an aspiring journalist, arrives in London to look after her ailing Aunt. She encourages Poppy to apply for a job at The Daily Globe, but on her first day, a senior reporter is killed and Poppy is tasked with finishing his story. It involves the mysterious death of a suffragette seven years earlier - an event some powerful people would prefer forgotten....

Fleeing some unsavory doings in her hometown of Charlotte, Jenna accepts her uncle's gracious invitation to stay with him in small-town Hokes Folly, North Carolina. In exchange, she'll help him out in his antiquarian bookstore. But soon after she arrives, Jenna finds her uncle's body crumpled at the base of the staircase between his apartment and the bookstore. Before the tragedy even sinks in, Jenna learns that she's inherited almost everything her uncle owned...which adds up to more than a million dollars.

1940, England: Evelyne Redfern, known as “The Parisian Orphan” as a child, is working on the line at a munitions factory in wartime London. When Mr. Fletcher, one of her father’s old friends, spots Evelyne on a night out, Evelyne finds herself plunged into the world of Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s cabinet war rooms. However, shortly after she settles into her new role as a secretary, one of the girls at work is murdered, and Evelyne must use all of her amateur sleuthing expertise to find the killer.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager.

Edinburgh, 1911: When Maud McIntyre and her lady’s maid, Daisy, form a detective agency, they never dream their first case will take place at a glamorous house in the Scottish Highlands. But when the duchess of Duddingston, concerned that a notorious jewelry thief will target her lavish weekend party, employs Maud to go undercover as a guest to find the culprit, the agency has its first case to solve....

The parcel arrived on an ordinary morning in the mailbox of her New York apartment, postmarked Paris. It was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a silk ribbon. Little did she know that the old brass key and letter it contained were about to turn her life upside down. From best-selling author Ella Carey comes an utterly spellbinding novel about wartime secrets. Paris Time Capsule shows that pulling on the tiniest thread of a life can unravel everything you thought you knew and change your world forever.

Alice McNeil resolved at a young age to travel through life unencumbered by love or marriage, free to make her own decisions. A seasoned telegrapher, she's recently acquired a coveted position at an important trading firm, but when the company's ambitious junior director returns to London, things begin to change in ways Alice could never have imagined. For Douglas Shaw, years of hard work and ingenuity enabled him to escape a life of grinding poverty. He's also determined to marry into high society - a step that will ensure he never returns to the conditions of his past.

Zeke left the Army and joined his brother's bar, Grimm's, as a bouncer before convincing Zander to open a restaurant next door. Now, as co-owner of Grimm's Bar and Grill, he shared his success by working as a cook at the local homeless shelter. One night, he sees a woman seeking shelter and is captivated by the smile she offers when she is in such need.

Can a house save the lives of the people who live in it? Can an inscription written in a book over 60 years ago change the fates of people not even born when it was written? Beryl Gray is solid and dependable - her partner, Claire, thinks so, her family thinks so, her colleagues think so. She has a job she likes as a university librarian. Her life seems settled, content - except nothing is as it seems. Aggie Bishop's last girlfriend left her three years ago and she hasn't had a date since. She now takes care of her great-aunt Cory who doesn't want to be taken care of.

As a young girl, Lillian Walsh lost both her parents and a younger sister. Now in her 20s, after enduring the death of her adoptive mother, Lillian must find her place in the world. Just as her adoptive father is leaving for an extended trip to his native Wales, a lawyer appears at the door to inform Lillian that she has inherited a small estate from her birth parents - and that the sister she had long believed dead is likely alive.

It's 1913, and on the surface, Laura Lyons couldn't ask for more out of life - her husband is the superintendent of the New York Public Library, allowing their family to live in an apartment within the grand building, and they are blessed with two children. But headstrong, passionate Laura wants more, and when she takes a leap of faith and applies to the Columbia Journalism School, her world is cracked wide open.

The last thing Katie Bonner wanted was to become the manager of Artisans Alley. But when her business partner Ezra Hilton is found bludgeoned to death, she has no other choice. Business under Ezra had been faltering - but was it enough to provoke someone to murder? Only Katie can find the answer.

Can a house save the lives of the people who live in it? Can an inscription written in a book over 60 years ago change the fates of people not even born when it was written? Beryl Gray is solid and dependable - her partner, Claire, thinks so, her family thinks so, her colleagues think so. She has a job she likes as a university librarian. Her life seems settled, content - except nothing is as it seems. Aggie Bishop's last girlfriend left her three years ago and she hasn't had a date since. She now takes care of her great-aunt Cory who doesn't want to be taken care of.

When Gemma finds a rare and potentially valuable magazine hidden in the bookshop, she and her friend Jayne set off to find the owner, only to stumble upon a dead body. The highly perceptive Gemma is the police's first suspect, so she puts her consummate powers of deduction to work to clear her name, investigating a handsome rare books expert, the dead woman's suspiciously unmoved son, and a whole family of greedy characters desperate to cash in on their inheritance.

Promoting her latest books brings best-selling mystery writer Jessica Fletcher to New York for Christmas. Her schedule includes book signings, chat-show appearances, department store shopping...and murder. But it all begins with a sidewalk Santa staring at Jessica with fear and recognition.

When Laura McAllister, a young lady's maid, learns her three siblings have been taken from their mother and emigrated to Canada without her mother's knowledge, she becomes determined to search for them and reunite the family. But a lack of funds and resistance from authorities push her to use a false name and take a position with a child emigration society to gain passage to Canada.

Everyone wants a piece of millionaire Bennett Marshfield, owner of Marshfield Manor, but now it's up to new curator Grace Wheaton and handsome groundskeeper Jack Embers to protect dear old Marshfield. But to do this, they'll have to investigate a botched Ponzi scheme, some torrid Wheaton family secrets-and sour grapes out for revenge.

In need of a good adventure, Delaney Nichols takes the leap and moves to Edinburgh, Scotland, to start a job at The Cracked Spine. She doesn't know much about what she's gotten herself into other than that the work sounds exciting and that her new boss, Edwin MacAlister, has given her the opportunity of a lifetime.

In Osaka in 1973, the body of a murdered man is found in an abandoned building. Investigating the crime, Detective Sasagaki is unable to find the killer. Over the next 20 years, through the lens of a succession of characters, Higashino tells the story of two teens, Ryo and Yukiho, whose lives are most affected by the crime, and the obsessed detective, Sasagaki, who continues to investigate the murder, looking for the elusive truth.

Winter 1919: Norma is summoned home from France, Constance is called back from Washington, and Fleurette puts her own plans on hold as the sisters rally around their recently widowed sister-in-law and her children. How are four women going to support themselves? A chance encounter offers Fleurette a solution: clandestine legal work for a former colleague of Constance's.