Showing results by author "Alyssa Helton" in All Categories

Charlotte Ritter is a survivor and so much more. As a highly caffeinated go-getter busy raising three teenage kids on her own while juggling a full-time job at a family law practice, Charlotte has always dealt with things one day and one cup of coffee at a time. It’s not always easy, especially with a highly autistic teenager and a new, snarky paralegal that was recently hired at the firm, but she manages. Then one day her average but hectic life gets turned upside down when her boss asks her to do some simple research for an adoption case. Charlotte’s talent for connecting dots that ...

It’s warm in Florida at Christmastime but someone is spending lots of cold cash at several businesses. The only problem is… it’s fake! An obnoxious entrepreneur is throwing money around town like it’s going out of style, and to nobody’s surprise, this eventually catches Charlotte’s attention. She wonders if the young man is making his money from hard work or perhaps just ‘making’ it in his garage. A bizarre couple who owns a local laundromat may have key information that could help put a new spin on the case, but they aren’t in a talking mood. In the meantime, Bianca the ...

Something is burning! Charlotte gets a phone call in the middle of the night with the news that the law firm where she works is on fire. Once at the scene of the blaze she spots a former client who is apparently a fireman. He disappears suddenly when she calls out to him. Was it a simple case of mistaken identity or is something strange going on? This spark lights the flame of Charlotte’s detective brain and as she pokes her nose into places it doesn’t belong, the hotter things start to get. Much to his chagrin, Cole knows Charlotte well enough to realize she won’t let go until the ...

Amara and Nea head off to the Gulf Coast Seafood Festival in Mangrove Bay, a nearby town, to cheer Bo and Cora Dawson on during a cooking competition. However, what starts out as a fun day of good food, friends, and some much-needed R & R quickly turns into a hunt for a possible killer when our girls learn the former mayor of the town is dead just hours after judging one of the cook-offs. Could the culprit be a simple case of heart failure? Mayor Tracy Hartfield of Gulf Breeze isn’t buying it, so he hires the two ladies to do some detective work for him. They head back to the festival and...

Ho, ho, ho! Charlotte Ritter is back, and Santa Claus is coming to town! Actually… hundreds of them. Yes, your favorite amateur sleuth has finally made it to the Surfing Santas event and it’s even more fun than she and her family expected. Unfortunately, the yuletide cheer nearly comes to a screeching halt when a friend of her son Joseph gets sent to the hospital after using some deadly, fentanyl laced pot. When Carrie informs her mother that a lot of the kids at school have been buying the same stuff too, Charlotte sets out to find out who the supplier is and bring them down. All the ...

A frantic phone call on Christmas day from her snarky coworker starts the ball rolling on Charlotte's next detective case! This time it's a hit and run. Did Ginny actually kill one of her husband Chad's colleagues in a jealous rage or can our favorite part-time sleuth find much needed evidence to the contrary? When our resident drama queen is arrested and faces a criminal trial, the stakes get higher and higher at top speed. Plus, Charlotte has a new detective with an attitude to deal with while trying to get to the truth. Better fasten your seatbelts because this may prove to be her ...

She's up the creek without a paddle and only half a cup of coffee! Charlotte Ritter is stunned when the number one suspect in a murder is...Cole! Her close friend and colleague is arrested after a man is found dead at a local kayak rental business and all the evidence points to his guilt. Snarky coworker Ginny doesn't discount the possibility that he did it, but Charlotte is dogged in her quest to prove him innocent. To top it all off, Cole isn't happy one bit when she teams up with the charming, British globetrotter Ian, in her search for the truth. Charlotte paddles headlong into danger ...

Nea and Amara have reached the halfway point on their renovations of Gulf Breeze Bungalows. They’ve got people with reservations set to arrive in a few weeks. Andy, the contractor, is letting his interest in Nea be known, but she has reservations about entering a relationship while he’s working for her. When a stranger shows up dead in the local bookstore, the town’s secrets rise to the surface. But, Nea has some serious reservations about trusting decades old gossip. Still, there’s a murder to be solved, a tumultuous history to be revealed, and a friend’s name to be cleared. Can ...

Halloween ruined?! Not if our girl can help it. A pickpocket is wrecking local charity events and Charlotte gets fed up with her friends and family being targets. So naturally she decides to launch her own investigation. As if that weren’t enough to deal with, Cole has a date to their boss’ costume party with...someone else?! This much excitement calls for lots of extra coffee, and this time of year calls for pumpkin spice! Grab your favorite cup of caffeinated delight (or decaf if you must) and join this amateur sleuth as she attempts to calm the chaos and catch the crook without ...

A STORM IS COMING! Despite a hurricane approaching her East Coast Florida town, Charlotte Ritter insists on tracking down the long-lost great uncle of a boy whose adoption trial is coming up soon. Without her former tagalong partner, Cole, to help her, she reluctantly resorts to taking her other coworker Ginny with her to check out the uncle's last known address a couple of cities away. After careening off the road in a deluge of rain, the duo take refuge in the man's creepy and filthy house. Luck doesn't seem to be on their side as the storm knocks out power, and their cell phones have no ...

Elvis has entered the building! Charlotte and Cole’s first actual date gets interrupted by a man dressed as the King of Rock n Roll...and he’s carrying an unconscious woman. Our girl has a suspicious mind and delves deeper into the man’s sketchy story. Back at her ‘real’ job, Mr. Baker has her helping a desperate family searching for a loved one. After some digging, Charlotte thinks there may be a link to the between the missing drug addict and the unconscious woman. Cole reluctantly lends a hand in the search for an eyewitness that can expose the truth as they both suspect the ...

Charlotte’s new cat needs a checkup, but Dr. Scotsman never shows for the appointment. Her staff thinks she just forgot and headed out on vacation, but our part time detective isn’t convinced. After enlisting her sidekick Cole in the search for any clues into her whereabouts, they find that they’ll have to scratch more than the surface to uncover the truth. While working the ‘case’ Charlotte and Cole also agree to chaperone a Valentine’s dance that each of her kids has a date for. She and Cole, on the other hand, haven’t made any plans for the romantic holiday and our girl ...

Mermaids are real! At least Charlotte’s son Tommy thinks so and a family vacation to Weeki Wachee Springs does little to change his mind. Back at the office, Ginny is practically inconsolable when the woman who does her manicures dies unexpectedly from natural causes. Our favorite moonlighting detective dives into danger again when she snoops into the woman’s death and thinks something fishy is going on. Cole tags along to try his best to keep her out of too much trouble but Charlotte always seems to find a way. If she doesn’t nail the killer, she may end up being the next victim. ...

Picking up right where our last escapade left off, Nea, Amara, and the gang at the Gulf Breeze Bungalows go underground to explore the nearly sixty-year-old bunker beneath the lobby. What they find blows their minds. After a young man who is close to them does a podcast from inside the old fallout shelter, gawkers, newspeople, and conspiracy theorists. come out of the woodwork to find out more about what is down there. Everyone is excited about it except for the town's matriarch, Prudence Saunders. She believes you should let sleeping dogs lie. After threatening the girls to stop snooping ...

Charlotte Ritter needs her coffee and when a small shop called The Blessed Bean opens across from her daughter's high school, she is super excited. That is until the place gets broken into and burglarized. Not one to let things go, Charlotte decides to enlist Cole's help to discover who the culprit is before they spoil a good thing. With next to no clues to go on, the duo is definitely going to have a tough time solving this one. To give Charlotte even more to think about, her friend and local motel owner, Bianca the blonde beekeeper, suggests she start her own brand of coffee. On top of ...

Nea Campbell is a thirty-seven year old, successful real estate agent in Florida who spends her days driving her ‘89 Mustang convertible, showing million dollar homes, and taking her Jack Russell terrier, CJ, on walks on the beach. Along with her best friend, Amara Baros, a half-Greek goddess and interior designer, Nea has found the perfect real estate investment. Twelve, cute bungalows make up a boutique hotel property on the Gulf Coast that Nea and Amara are ready to fix-up and make a tourist hot spot. But, when surprise repairs are needed, and a body is found in a bungalow; well, ...

Writer Michael Tallen is burnt out. He’s been trying to write a novel his whole life but to no avail and is now reduced to churning out ‘fluff piece’ articles for a small-time local paper. Things take an odd turn when Katz, his boss, sends him on a new assignment. For some unknown reason, an elderly woman in town asks for Michael specifically to help her pen a book about her life. Caught off guard and hesitant by this request, his curiosity is piqued when Ruth starts to share her story of growing up in the circus during the 1930’s. He agrees to write her book but soon realizes there...

Fidel Castro is Dead! A party erupts in Little Havana, in Miami. Michael Tallen’s editor sends him to get to the heart of the story from the people there. Michael wants to be working on his second novel, but he has a bad case of writer’s block. Hoping a change of scenery might get his muse going again, he heads to south Florida on Bonnie, his vintage Triumph motorcycle. After a chance meeting with a local restaurant owner named Abelardo who used to play major league baseball in Cuba, the writer is reenergized. Sparks fly when he starts falling for the man’s gorgeous, fiery, and oh so ...

While helping with the census, a young nurse, Doris, happens upon the Crawford family who live in an area of East Tennessee known as Dogwood Alley. When she discovers they’ve had a total of 25 children she is astonished and soon convinces, Bert, a charming newspaperman, to do a story on them. It isn’t long before all of their lives become forever intertwined. Through good times and bad they all rely on unwavering faith in God and the goodness of others to help weather every storm that comes their way. Even a Great Depression and a World War can’t shake their grit and determination.

With WWII and the Korean War now distant memories, life in America in 1955 seems idyllic. However, appearances can be deceiving as everyone finds they must choose a side in the fight for Civil Rights. The Crawford family and everyone else in East Tennessee are no exception. Fights, riots and shootings have the whole city on edge as Pastor Fred Crawford does his best to bring everyone together. Bert pitches in at the paper and prints his opinion pieces but to some he is a trader to his race. If that’s not bad enough, now there’s a hip shaking, white singer down in Memphis who sings black...