Best-Laid Plants


Book Description

A trip to the English countryside turns into a brush with death for Pru Parke, the only gardener whose holiday wouldn’t be complete without a murder to solve. Pru and her husband, former Detective Chief Inspector Christopher Pearse, are long overdue for a getaway. So when Pru is invited to redesign an Arts and Crafts garden in the picturesque Cotswolds, she and Christopher jump at the chance. Unfortunately, their B&B is more ramshackle than charming, and the once thriving garden, with its lovely Thyme Walk, has fallen into heartbreaking neglect. With the garden’s owner and designer, Batsford Bede, under the weather, Pru tackles the renovation alone. But just as she’s starting to make headway, she stumbles upon Batsford’s body in the garden—dead and pinned beneath one of his limestone statues. With such a small police force in the area, Christopher is called upon to lead the investigation. Pru can’t imagine anyone murdering Batsford Bede, a gentle man who preferred to spend his time in quiet contemplation, surrounded by nature. But as her work on the garden turns up one ominous clue after another, Pru discovers that the scenery is more dangerous than she or Christopher could have anticipated. Marty Wingate’s captivating mysteries can be enjoyed together or separately, in any order: The Potting Shed series: THE GARDEN PLOT | THE RED BOOK OF PRIMROSE HOUSE | BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE | THE SKELETON GARDEN | THE BLUEBONNET BETRAYAL | BEST-LAID PLANTS The Birds of a Feather series: THE RHYME OF THE MAGPIE | EMPTY NEST | EVERY TRICK IN THE ROOK | FAREWELL, MY CUCKOO Praise for Marty Wingate “Marty Wingate plants clever clues with a dash of romantic spice to satisfy any hungry mystery reader.”—Mary Daheim, bestselling author of the Emma Lord series “Pru Parke is one of my favorite cozy mystery heroines.”—Michelle’s Romantic Tangle




Best Laid Plans


Book Description

This intriguing and informative probe into the dynamics of unintended consequences reveal the real reasons our best laid plans often go askew in our political, business, and personal lives. Historian and author Daniel Boorstin noted, "The unintended consequences of man's enterprises have and will always be more potent, more widespread, and more influential than those he intended." Today, a Google web search for "unintended consequences" summons nearly two million pages citing the unexpected impacts of government policies, new technologies, management decisions, and the actions of individuals. Unfortunate unintended consequences are becoming increasingly problematic as our world becomes globally and electronically interconnected, causing the results of our decisions to resonate across the globe. In Best Laid Plans, the author examines how any action can have cascading impacts across time, place, and sector, explaining the eight social mechanisms of unintended consequences that complicate matters and often defeat best laid plans. This book will be of great interest to managers, analysts, researchers, or other employees working for businesses, governments, and not-for-profit organizations, as well as general nonfiction readers who delight in learning about how the world works.




The Best Laid Plans


Book Description

High school senior Keely Collins takes on firsts, lasts, and everything in between in this sweet, sex-positive rom-com for fans of Meg Cabot and Jenny Han. It seemed like a good plan at first. When the only other virgin in her group of friends loses it at Keely's own eighteenth birthday party, she's inspired to take things into her own hands. She wants to have that experience too (well, not exactly like that--but with someone she trusts and actually likes), so she's going to need to find the guy, and fast. Problem is, she's known all the boys in her small high school forever, and it's kinda hard to be into a guy when you watched him eat crayons in kindergarten. So she can't believe her luck when she meets a ridiculously hot new guy named Dean. Not only does he look like he's fallen out of a classic movie poster, but he drives a motorcycle, flirts with ease, and might actually be into her. But Dean's already in college, and Keely is convinced he'll drop her if he finds out how inexperienced she is. That's when she talks herself into a new plan: her lifelong best friend, Andrew, would never hurt or betray her, and he's clearly been with enough girls that he can show her the ropes before she goes all the way with Dean. Of course, the plan only works if Andrew and Keely stay friends--just friends--so things are about to get complicated. Cameron Lund's delightful debut is a hilarious and heartfelt story of first loves, first friends, and first times--and how making them your own is all that really matters.




Best Laid Plans


Book Description

"Bonus short story: meet Maxine Revere in Maximum exposure"--Cover.




The Best Laid Plans


Book Description

From Lynn Schnurnberger, bestselling co-author of Mine Are Spectacular! and The Botox Diaries, comes a novel of big secrets, family ties, and a reminder that sometimes The Best Laid Plans can lead to delightful surprises. Tru Newman is one of the Upper East Side “M&Ms”—the wealthy stay-at-home moms who are into personal Maintenance and Mothering. Having been raised by a beauty queen mother who constantly picked on her, Tru loves looking after her investment banker husband, Peter, and their twin teen daughters. But her perfect world spins off its axis the night Tru throws a charity benefit and discovers that Peter’s been out of work for three months. Even worse, the family’s been living on a house of cards—specifically, Visa and Amex—that’s about to collapse. Suze Orman tells Tru to “Get a job!” But doing what? When Tru’s best friend, Sienna Post, loses her position as an anchor on the local nightly news, the two hatch a profitable if illegal plan: They’ll open an escort service with “working girls” all over the age of forty. Modeling themselves on Carla Bruni (“after she married the president of France, not before, when she was dating Mick Jagger”), their smart, sexy, seasoned escorts become a big hit with a roster of thirty-year-old clients. If only Tru’s legit life could fall so easily into place: Her husband’s new job has him working side by side with a flirtatious neighbor, her fourteen-year-old twins are competing over a two-timing, Clearasil-using Casanova, and after suffering a heart attack in her bodybuilding class, Tru’s hypercritical mother moves in with her. Not to mention that the gossip columns get wind that Tru and Sienna’s “temp agency” isn’t on the up-and-up—and the DA is on their case. But for the savvy and spirited Tru, these new obstacles bring unexpected benefits—from Geisha facials, to massage toys that are “better than chocolate,” to the realization that at midlife, she’s more comfortable than ever before in her own skin and more grateful for all that she has. By turns touching and laugh-out-loud funny, this is a must-read for every woman who knows it’s never too late to make a fresh start.




Best Laid Plans


Book Description

Major Lori and Captain Gladriel are mistakenly identified as the stars of the "Space Sarlings" video series. Confusion, Intrigue, and Action abound when governmental orders send them undercover as Engertainers. "Romance, Adventure, and Danger provide the reader with a delightful romp as the Space Darlings encounter Fun, fear, and Perilous situations. When the Best Laid Plans go astray, the Space Darlings are in the thick of the action."--Alva Underwood, author of "Star Trek Reader's Reference to the Novels." YouTube trailer: Best Laid Plans Space Darlings




Mann of My Dreams Book 6: The Best-Laid Plans


Book Description

Plans. Everyone has them. Rush Dalton and Tad Jackson plan to live happily ever after. January Stephens plans to ease the hurt of a declined marriage proposal with alcohol. Josh Cooper's plan is to conceal his feelings for Mopp. And Mopp? He simply plans to hold tight to Josh's friendship. Meanwhile, Eric Jameson arrives from DC with plans of his own. He intends to elicit information from Jan in an effort to find Babe, the woman who’s taken refuge with her son at the big house called the ranch. Babe plans to stay away from anyone who might try to take her little boy away from her and return him to the mysterious Dr. Pandora Gautier. Deuce Pettigrew’s only plan is to keep the man he treasures safe and in one piece. But the thing about plans is -- sometimes they just don’t work out the way you expect them to




The Best Laid Plans


Book Description

He wanted power; she wanted revenge. The magnificent novel by the internationally bestselling author of The Other Side of Midnight and Morning, Noon and Night.




Best Laid Plans


Book Description

We see it all the time: organizations strive to persuade the public to change beliefs or behavior through expensive, expansive media campaigns. Designers painstakingly craft clear, resonant, and culturally sensitive messaging that will motivate people to buy a product, support a cause, vote for a candidate, or take active steps to improve their health. But once these campaigns leave the controlled environments of focus groups, advertising agencies, and stakeholder meetings to circulate, the public interprets and distorts the campaigns in ways their designers never intended or dreamed. In Best Laid Plans, Terence E. McDonnell explains why these attempts at mass persuasion often fail so badly. McDonnell argues that these well-designed campaigns are undergoing “cultural entropy”: the process through which the intended meanings and uses of cultural objects fracture into alternative meanings, new practices, failed interactions, and blatant disregard. Using AIDS media campaigns in Accra, Ghana, as its central case study, the book walks readers through best-practice, evidence-based media campaigns that fall totally flat. Female condoms are turned into bracelets, AIDS posters become home decorations, red ribbons fade into pink under the sun—to name a few failures. These damaging cultural misfires are not random. Rather, McDonnell makes the case that these disruptions are patterned, widespread, and inevitable—indicative of a broader process of cultural entropy.




Best Laid Plants


Book Description

The host of a restaurant makeover show is found dead in his trailer.