Daydream Retriever


Book Description

To Lisa Lowell, it seems like her life is defined by all the things she isn't anymore. She's not a world-class skier, not a wife, not a full-time mother, and not even a patient striving to get well. So who is she now? When her brother asks Lisa to help her family, she can't find an excuse not to flee her empty nest and return to her hometown of Alpine Grove. Tasked with remodeling her parents bizarre old house and preparing it for sale, Lisa confronts personal failures and memories she's avoided for years. At the local ski resort, Lisa ends up on a collision course with Pete Harmon, a retired cop fighting his own battles with the past. As Lisa contends with a disobedient foster dog, aggravating contractors, and the demands of her nutty great aunt Betty, she discovers that being accident-prone may not be the only thing she has in common with Pete.




Celebrate Every Day


Book Description

A warm, inviting, and heartfelt collection of recipes and celebrations to re-create and share with your own family. A few years ago, Jaime Richardson did what a lot of young, articulate, creative women were doing: she launched a blog (sophistimom.com) where she could reach out to other young mothers and share ideas about feeding and raising healthy, happy children. What started out as a place to express herself quickly grew to a destination of choice for those eager for fresh ideas and creative inspiration for their own families, garnering the attention of The Pioneer Woman, Glamour Magazine, and Babble.com, where she has been named one of the Top 100 Mommy Food bloggers for three years running. She is also part of Martha’s Circle, a small group of lifestyle bloggers, hand picked by the editors at Martha Stewart. In this cookbook, Jaime focuses on the heart and soul of her blog: recipes for making the most of special moments with your family. According to Jaime, celebrating really isn’t about the events but about the moments. And big or small, these are to be enjoyed with great food and lovely, simple touches of sophistication that everyone in the family can appreciate. Featuring twenty unexpected, wonderful celebrations that any family can enjoy, the book offers original ideas for making the most of time spent with children, including suggestions for activities, books, and music that go along each theme. Some 150 full-color photographs showcase the approximately 100 finished recipes as well as the author’s three adorable children. Organized by season, the book offers ideas for such gatherings as: Welcome Spring Brunch, Berry Picking Party, Back to School Breakfast, Fireside Supper, and a Rainy Afternoon Feast.




A Mid-Summer's Daydream


Book Description

What we have here is a failure to communicate. A misguided attempt to discover something about myself. Something genuine worth smiling for. It may be convoluted. It may be conspicuous. Hell, it might not even make any sense, but that's for you to decide upon and for me to not care about. In the end, I'm only 23, and this is just a jumble of writings and typings, every so often in the moment, and I'm proud of it. Tha year was 2010, and I'd recently graduated.




Dream Sequence


Book Description

Sara Barnes thought her life was perfectly ordinary – until the night she began stepping into other people’s dreams. Follow Sara as she learns to cope with this extraordinary gift (or curse) in the first three books of the Dream Doctor Mysteries: DREAM STUDENT It’s bad enough that, thanks to her supernatural talent, Sara is learning more than she ever needed to know about her friends and classmates, watching their most secret fantasies whether she wants to or not. Much worse are the other dreams, the ones she sees nearly every night, featuring a strange, terrifying man who commits unspeakable crimes. Now Sara wonders if she’s the only witness to a serial killer – and the only one who knows when and where he’s going to strike next. DREAM DOCTOR Medical school and life as a newlywed would be enough by themselves for anybody to handle. But Sara’s got another problem – her dreams have started up again. Almost everyone at the medical school is dreaming about the death of the school’s least popular teacher, Dr. Morris, and once again, Sara finds herself in the role of unwilling witness to a murder before it happens. But this time, there are too many suspects to count, and it doesn’t help matters that she hates Dr. Morris every bit as much as any of his would-be murderers do. DREAM CHILD Sara thought she had made peace with her dreaming talent, but she’s got a surprise coming: her four-year-old daughter has inherited it, too. Unraveling a mystery with lives on the line is difficult enough under the best of circumstances. But when Sara has to view all the evidence through the eyes – and dreams - of a toddler, it may be an impossible task.




Dream Child


Book Description

Dr. Sara Alderson can deal with eighty-hour workweeks as a resident at Children’s Hospital. Dealing with crises in the Emergency Room or the OR is second nature to her. But now she faces a challenge that all of her training and experience hasn’t prepared her for: Lizzie, her four-year-old daughter, has inherited her ability to see other people’s dreams. After Lizzie befriends a young boy on a trip to Washington, DC, and then wakes up in a panic that night because of a “bad funny dream,” Sara knows exactly what it means: her daughter is visiting the boy’s dreams. Complicating matters is the fact that the boy’s father is a Congressman, and he’s dreaming about a “scary man in a big black car” threatening his Daddy. Unraveling a case of political corruption and blackmail would be hard enough for Sara under the best of circumstances. But when she has to view everything through the eyes of a toddler, it may be an impossible task. Dream Child is the second book of the Dream Doctor Mysteries.




The Hound of Music


Book Description

Tess Mitchell would love to give her regards to Broadway, but so far that plan isn't working out. After bungling countless auditions, Tess returns to her home town of Alpine Grove where her only fans are her cats: John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Although selling advertising may not satisfy her thespian aspirations, it pays the rent--if only she could find a place willing to accept the Fab Four. While careening down a dirt road, Tess almost slams into a massive road grader. The driver is none other than Luke Bennett with his dog Barney riding shotgun. Tess hasn't spoken to Luke since he broke her best friend's heart, but in a small town, you always seem to run into the last person you want to see. Luke has a solution to her housing problem if Tess is willing to put up with a few inconveniences like squirrel-obsessed squatters who have cut holes in the walls. When Tess learns that the beloved Grove Theater is destined for the wrecking ball, she joins the crusade to preserve the historic icon. While working to save the theater, Tess learns more about Luke and the talents he's forsaken. Could saving the theater salvage both of their dreams for the future?




Who's Afraid of Virginia's Woof?


Book Description

Tori Merrill detests Halloween. All the fake blood, creepy crawlies, and ghastly ghoulies make her squeamish. But as a partner in a new candy business, Halloween is a holiday she can't ignore. When her partners encourage her to attend the local Haunted Barn event and hand out candy samples to trick-or-treaters, against her better judgment, she agrees. But first, she has to convince someone to care for her spoiled, cranky dog, Ginny--preferably someone who has never heard Ginny bark. Scarred by long-ago events, Dale Holbrook has made a point of avoiding anything to do with his family's toy business with two exceptions: he voices the company mascot, Harvey the Penguin, and he helps with the Haunted Barn because it benefits his family's charitable foundation. Decked out in a grotesquely pink Little Bo Peep outfit at the Haunted Barn, Tori crashes headlong into Robin Hood, Zorro, and Holbrook family dramas. Amid grisly gnomes, creepy clowns, chainsaw-wielding zombies, and barfing dragons, Tori confronts her long-held beliefs about Halloween, hoop skirts, truth, and love.




Sensing Others


Book Description

BOOK 4 The worst thing about vacations? They end. Meg Jennings, Riley O'Shea, and their fluffy dog Zelda are enjoying a much-deserved vacation on an idyllic private island until their tropical respite is disrupted by a suspicious fire nearby. An even more suspicious case of food poisoning compels them to flee to the mainland. The retreat where Meg and Riley went undercover is now a refuge for people having difficulty adapting to their abnormal sensory abilities. When manager Shannon Soloman disappears, Meg and Riley succumb to parental pressure and return to the retreat to help find her. There they meet two secretive agents aiding in the search for Shannon. The agents have no sense of humor and even less fashion sense. They also are inexplicably fixated on the necklace Meg is wearing and have a disturbing habit of turning up everywhere. From rain-soaked forests to the sun-drenched deserts of the southwest, following the clues to finding Shannon and clearing her name takes Meg and Riley from roller rinks to rodeos. Ferreting out the truth will require trusting their instincts and special skills, along with more than a little luck. Sensing Others is a full-length novel (280 pages/70,000 words) that is Book 4 of Jennings & O'Shea series. The correct reading order is: 1. Sensing Trouble 2. Sensing Secrets 3. Sensing Truth 4. Sensing Others




The Last Train to Barksville


Book Description

Carly Buchanan's "happily ever after" takes a nosedive when, after fifteen years of un-wedded devotion to the man now nicknamed "Captain Prickard," he boots her from their home so his new girlfriend can move in. At least Carly still has her sweet dog, Trixie. In need of moral support, Carly invites her sister and two college friends to join her at a lake house near the small town of Alpine Grove. The tranquil escape turns complex when Carly and her friends discover a stray dog that's just had puppies. After enlisting the help of reluctant next-door neighbor, Brent Michaelson, the women set out to rescue the pups. Brent has retreated to his family's lake cabin to overcome a creative block that threatens to derail his art career. The last thing he needs is his refuge to be overrun by a rambunctious litter of noisy, spotted puppies. But who can resist puppies in need? As secrets are revealed, Carly's summer vacation might not be the self-reflective interlude she expected, but maybe a little furry chaos, intrigue, and romance is exactly what she needs.




Fuzzy Logic


Book Description

Librarian Jan Carpenter likes things just so. Nestled in her tidy little cottage on the outskirts of the small hamlet of Alpine Grove, she enjoys her quiet life with her friendly, rotund black lab, Rosa. Jan's orderly life is turned upside down when she attends her mother's latest wedding in San Diego. (Number six...or maybe seven, but who's counting?) There, Jan encounters Michael Lawson, the obnoxious neighbor kid from twenty years ago. He's still irritating, but not as annoying as his dog who has a habit of eating...everything. The last thing Jan wants to do is risk heartache on a vacation fling with a smooth-talking serial dater, even if he is sinfully gorgeous and finds her unusual ability to remember obscure facts fascinating. Amidst wardrobe destruction, canine digestive indiscretions, and episodes of extreme mortification, Jan's desire to avoid drama may put the brakes on her fiery attraction to Michael. But maybe being cautious and responsible isn't all it's cracked up to be.