Karen MacInerney Livres

Life gets interesting quickly for Margie Peterson when the stay-at-home mother-turned-private investigator finds her own contact information in a dead transvestite's phone.

"Sophie Garou is a master at taming her inner beast, which comes in handy since she's a werewolf. With a big promotion at work and a supersexy boyfriend, Heath (whom she recently spotted leaving a jewelry store with a beguiling ring box), she's one happy girl. But when Heath starts spending long nights at the office with his new associate--a dead-ringer for Career Day Barbie--Sophie smells trouble. And when her professional relationship with her big new client--who also happens to be Texas's brilliantly blue-eyes most eligible bachelor--begins to sizzle, she wonders if her animal instincts are leading her in the wrong direction. Just when it seems that things can't get any more complicated, they do. The Houston werewolf pack has sniffed Sophie out, and their message is chillingly clear: you're either with us or against us. And unless she can prove that she's with them, the next full moon may just be her last." ---- From Back cover

When Houston reporter Lucy Resnick cashes in her retirement to buy her grandmother’s farm in Buttercup, Texas, she’s looking forward to a simple life as a homesteader. But Lucy has barely finished putting up her first batch of Killer Dewberry Jam when an oil exploration truck rolls up to the farm and announces plans to replace her broccoli patch with an oil derrick. Two days later, Nettie Kocurek, the woman who ordered the drilling, turns up dead at the Founders’ Day Festival with a bratwurst skewer through her heart and one of Lucy’s jam jars beside her…and the sheriff fingers Lucy as the prime suspect. Horrified, Lucy begins to talk to Nettie’s neighbors, but the more she gets to know the townspeople, the more she realizes she’s not the only one who had a beef with Nettie. Can she clear her name, or will her dream life turn into a nightmare?

Amidst wedding preparations and her mother-in-law's new romance, Natalie Barnes stumbles upon a murder mystery when she discovers a young man's body in a dinghy, accompanied by a note hinting at a secret meeting. As she investigates, Natalie grapples with suspicions surrounding a local fisherman she believes is innocent, exploring whether the crime stems from a lover's quarrel or a dispute among lobstermen. The narrative features picturesque settings and includes recipes, enhancing the charm of this engaging mystery.

Lucy Resnick's nerves are as tight as a tea cozy. Her new goats, Hot Lips and Gidget, keep making a break for the town square, her truck is dying, and her boyfriend's gorgeous ex-wife is in town for the holidays. Worse, someone's digging holes on her land...and uprooting her peach orchard and dewberry patch in the process. Lucy needs additional holiday stress like she needs a blow to the head--which she receives one night, courtesy of the mystery digger. When the dim-witted sheriff arrests one of Lucy's best friends, the former reporter puts her own problems on the back burner and starts investigating. What she finds is a patchwork of clues--an injured puppy, a sapphire necklace gone missing, and a string of poison-pen letters--that draws her deep into a web of small-town secrets. Word travels fast in Buttercup. When the killer learns Lucy's on the trail, Lucy finds she needs more than her reporting skills to save her friend--she needs a Christmas miracle.