Showing results by narrator "Sara Morsey" in All Categories

'I did an evil thing to be put in here, and I’m going to have to do an evil thing to get out.'

When Ettie stumbled over a dead body, she was surprised to see it was an Amish woman, Deena Brown. Ettie soon learned Deena had not always been Amish. It was one reason the woman never fitted in - that and the fact that no one saw her for days when she was working on her jigsaw puzzles. Ettie knew if she recreated Deena's last days, the murderer would be revealed.

Octavian takes Barbara on a seniors’ cruise for her 71st birthday, but the vacation is not all piña coladas and shuffleboard. Barbara makes a frenemy in Georgina Branch, queen bee to a group of equally conniving girlfriends. Barbara is sure one or all of them killed the passenger, who accidentally fell overboard early in the trip. Barbara and Octavian are stuck on a ship with a murderer, but at least, the cruise has plenty of booze.

Ettie's sister, Florence Lapp, is in trouble. Her house has burned down, and her gun is missing. When Florence announces she's staying with Ettie and Elsa-May until the case is solved, Ettie is spurred on to make that happen, and fast. Events take a more serious turn when the gun shows up and is linked to a murder. Ettie finds out that Florence has some odd friends, and one of them has been charged over the shooting. Florence insists her friend is innocent even though the DNA evidence proves otherwise.

When Ettie and her sister Elsa-May find a dead body, they discover it is the third victim of a serial killer. Evidence found at the scene suggests the killer is Amish. To clear her friends in the community, Ettie sets out to investigate. Her estranged daughter Myra, determined to make a career for herself as a true crime novelist, joins her on her mission, stirring up strife in the process.

Octogenarian sleuth Ettie Smith doesn't go looking for trouble. Trouble finds her! Mysteriously, Amish buggies have been disappearing. Worse, the biggest vendor of Amish buggies was found murdered. Can Ettie pick up the pace of her sleuthing to rein in the killer?

When elderly Amish widow Ettie Smith was invited to the local fair to help judge the cookie contest, the last thing she expected was to find a murdered woman in the quilting tent. With so many people bobbin' about, Ettie didn't want anyone to cotton on to what had happened, so she quickly covered the body with an Amish quilt. Ettie forced her sister to inform the local detective, knowing he would only needle her about finding another murder victim.

In the face of danger, just how close can Ettie tread to the scarecrow slayer without finding herself under his ominous gaze? Is she about to make a blunder that could cost more than a bountiful harvest? Prepare for a story that's more chilling than a midnight encounter with a field of scarecrows. Grab your copy now, and join Ettie in unearthing a mystery that will keep you guessing until the last stalk of corn is counted.

First published in 1733 as Ecole de Cavalerie by François Robichon de la Guérinière, this book is considered as the beginning of modern equitation. The book is most famous for its introduction of the shoulder-in. The theories in this book provide the basis for all modern equitation, and it is probably the most important work on the subject ever written. It was translated from the French to English by Tracy Boucher.

High in the mountains of central Japan, there's a town that makes it official business to invite in a host of spirits every summer. Helen's twin sister has drowned. After 60 years of relying on each other, Helen must now learn to not only work through her grief, but to embrace a life without the only person who ever mattered.

In the Greek legend, a sculptor, Pygmalion, created a statue of a woman so beautiful that he fell in love with it. Later the goddess Aphrodite responded to his earnest prayers and brought the statue, named Galatea, to life. Shaw's Pygmalion is a fussy unmarried professor of phonetics, Henry Higgins, who claims that he could train an uneducated person off the street to speak so that he or she could pass as a member of the aristocracy. His Galatea is Eliza Doolittle, who sells flowers at Covent Garden and whose father is a dissipated but cunning vagrant.

When a hotel manager's dead body closes the main road to Willow's new tea shop, none of her customers can get through to celebrate her opening day. On a mission to investigate the closure, she instead becomes embroiled in the case. But Willow isn't the only person to raise the local sheriff's suspicions. There's the janitor last seen fighting with the manager as he handed in his resignation. Not to mention a pair of teenage boys, who might have taken a prank too far.

What are the strange lights in the Strongbergs' barn at night? Are they related to the recent murders of two Amish men? Thomas Strongberg's death was said to be accidental. They said he'd fallen off a ladder, but what is the explanation for the second death? Police have proof that Amish girl Thea Hersh is connected to the crime, but Thea refuses to talk to anyone but Ettie Smith.

With her home conservatory being noisily transformed into a tea room, Willow has quite enough on her plate. The last thing she needs is for her head builder to turn up dead in the nearby river. To make matters even worse, the local sheriff is certain that Willow's conspiracy-laden friend Reg is the murderer. Between her fears that the dream of owning her own business will now collapse and fighting to keep her friend out of jail, Willow is just about at her wit's end. Throw a gregarious British builder into the mix, and this might be a case that even Miss Walsham Investigates would have trouble cracking.

Queen Marguerite de Navarre was one of the most powerful women of her age. Her masterpiece, The Heptameron, is a collection of some 72 stories told by five gentlemen and five ladies who find themselves stranded in an abbey. Proposed as an edifying way of passing the time while a bridge is being repaired, the tale-telling - as well as the conversations that follow each story - quickly becomes a battle of wits between the sexes, with tales concerning illicit lovers, romantic conquests, lecherous monks, manly honor, and women's virtue.

Jane Eyre is a plain orphan girl, unloved and abused by her Aunt Reed, who is sent away to boarding school. Strong of heart and craving independence, Jane embarks upon a life of governess to a young French girl named Adele, the benefactor of the mysterious Mr. Rochester. Life at Thornfield Hall proves just as mysterious as its owner with haunting laughter and a dark secret living in the attic.

First published in 1909, A Girl of the Limberlost is a novel by American writer and naturalist Gene Stratton-Porter. This classic of Indiana literature is a sequel to Stratton-Porter's earlier novel Freckles. Wholesome, sensible, and beautiful, the heroine, Elnora, is also compassionate, self-reliant, and intelligent. Neglected by her mother, Elnora reaches through this hardship toward education, friendship, and love. There are no shortcuts and her hard work brings joy to herself and all those she loves.

Anne McCarty Braden (1924-2006) rejected her segregationist, privileged past to become one of the Civil Rights Movement's staunchest white allies. In 1954, she was charged with sedition by McCarthyist politicians who played on fears of communism to preserve Southern segregation. Though Braden remained controversial - even within the Civil Rights Movement - in 1963 she became one of only five white Southerners whose contributions to the movement were commended by Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famed "Letter from Birmingham Jail".

When a big Hollywood film production comes to Cheerville, the town goes into a tizzy over action star Cliff Armstrong. But when his stunt double is killed on set, Barbara quickly deduces it was no accident and Cliff was meant to be the target. To hunt the killer, Barbara infiltrates the movie set as an extra, but she quickly lands a speaking role against the handsome Cliff Armstrong himself. Can she protect Cliff from a dangerous murderer lurking on set, prevent the town from going up in smoke, and star in Hollywood’s next blockbuster without blowing her cover?

The parish, the lowest level of hierarchy in the medieval church, was the shared responsibility of the laity and the clergy. Most Christians were baptized, went to confession, were married, and were buried in the parish church or churchyard; in addition, business, legal settlements, sociability, and entertainment brought people to the church, uniting secular and sacred concerns.