I only wanted to protect you…

Luke Garrison is a hometown hero, a member of the National Guard ready to deploy again. He’s strong, sexy, broody. The last thing he’s looking for is a woman to ruin his solitude. When the wildly beautiful Harper stumbles into his life, though, he realizes that she’s the perfect decoy. A fake girlfriend to keep his family off his back until he’s deployed.

So what if kissing her sends his mind to wicked places? He can control himself. Can’t he?

Harper was on her way to starting a new life… again. But something about Luke makes her want to settle down in this small town and make his house a home. When she’s in his arms, she finally knows what it’s like to feel safe. Protected.

Little by little, stop after stop, three-year-old Danny Becker wanders further from his inattentive, overworked dad on a San Francisco subway car. In the rush of people stepping onto and off the train Danny is bumped to the platform when the doors close behind him. Strange, strong hands carry him away.

As the train leaves the station, Danny’s frantic father searches the moving car in vain.

Danny Becker’s abduction evokes the unsolved murder of a toddler, Tanita Donner, the previous year, resurrecting the city’s anguish.

Tom Reed, a disgraced reporter with The San Francisco Star, pursues the new abduction. But he is tormented by the fear that he may have caused the suicide of an innocent man suspected of murdering Tanita Donner a year ago. His editor wants him fired. His wife has left him to wrestle with his demons. His life coming apart, the Danny Becker story is Reed’s last chance at redemption.

Millie Sanders’ happily ever after is suddenly destroyed when her husband of 35 years comes home one day and informs her that he is leaving her for another woman. To make matters worse, the other woman happens to be her “friend” and hairdresser, Delilah Osborne!

After months of mourning and moping around the house, she stumbles upon a help wanted ad in the newspaper for the perfect job as an assistant cruise ship director. Before Millie can talk herself out of it, she fills out the application and mails it in. Much to her surprise, not only does the company contact her, they hire her!

Determined to start a new life and new career, Millie boards the ship, ready for a new adventure. She isn’t on board the massive floating city – her new home – more than 10 minutes when a dead body is discovered near the atrium bar.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to focus on spell casting with Jingle Bells running in your head?

Hard. Trust me on that.

Still, this was my favorite part, despite the subject and content, the endless chatter around me trying to pull my focus, scent of pumpkin spice and pine dominating the air thanks to the real, live Christmas tree someone donated to the police department. Maybe that meant something about me, how enjoying the process of uncovering things people thought hidden through the power inside brought me joy and peace, far more than carols or the holiday season or eggnog lattes.

And maybe it just meant I was good at what I did.

Am I pretty?

Imagine being asked that question standing face to face with a killer. What would you answer?

While her life is going from bad to worse, journalist Mary Mills receives a disturbing phone call from her father. Her brother was arrested, charged with murder.

Mary decides to go back to her hometown of Cocoa Beach, Florida, which she left twenty years back and has never visited since.

Working with her old friends in from High School, she tracks down the most disturbing and surprising killer this town has ever faced before a shocking conclusion turns everything upside down for them.

Determined to solve the murder and to have her brother acquitted, Mary is forced to face demons from her past she never thought she would have to again.

They know what you like, who your friends are.
They know where you go, what you think.
They know the risk you pose . . .
And you know nothing.

A fugitive billionaire and a former spy stumble onto an ominous program where everything about our modern lives is dissected, processed, and packaged, not to sell us things, but to sell us ideas, to control us, to make sure we don’t shatter the illusion. Chase and Wen face the worst dangers of their lives when the most malicious organizations in the world see them as a critical risk.