China Women

For more than 20 years, Susan Wittig Albert has been delivering "some of the best-plotted mysteries on the market" ( Houston Chronicle). In Bittersweet, China is hoping to spend a peaceful Thanksgiving in Pecan Springs. But the holiday turns treacherous after a deadly accident. And when a local vet is shot, China and game warden Mack Chambers suspect a connection to fawns stolen from a nearby ranch.

Asian American private investigator Lydia Chin knows New York City's Chinatown, its people, and its ways as no outsider ever could. It's a city within a city, a rich melange of smells, sounds, dark shops, and close-knit families - a world all its own. And in all of Chinatown, there is no one like Lydia, who has a nose for trouble, a disapproving Chinese mother, and a partner named Bill Smith who's been living above a bar for 16 years. Hired to find some precious stolen porcelain, Lydia follows a trail of clues from highbrow art dealers into a world of Chinese gangs.

Ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles is investigating the mystery of a retired Texas Ranger shot dead with his wife’s gun...while also trying to sort out some mysteries about her own relationship after she overhears a suspicious phone conversation.

In search of respite, China takes off to St. Theresa's Monastery with her friend Maggie, a former nun. The goal is a brief, tranquil retreat—but there's a conflict at the convent. The Mother Superior has recently died, and a battle over the future of St. Theresa's suggests that her sudden demise might not have been accidental. Now, China's quest for a replenished spirit takes second place to a more earthbound pursuit: catching a killer.

China Bayles's herb shop in Pecan Springs wasn't a big business, but it kept her busy. So she brought her taxes to Rosemary Robbins, an accountant who reminded China a bit of her former self—preoccupied, distracted, maybe a bit overstressed. Still, Rosemary always seemed pleasant, and China wished she could get to know her better. Now, though, the chance is gone.

In a small Texas town, what starts as a little festive Halloween fun ends in a brutal murder. And lawyer-turned-herbalist China Bayles is even more shocked when her friend Ruby, a New Age expert in tarot and astrology, becomes the prime suspect after a minister accuses her of witchcraft. Now it’s up to China to unmask the real killer.

Sepp Amsel, a fabulously successful gambling hall and saloonkeeper entrepreneur, is about to become the bridegroom in the most public wedding ever to take place in wild and woolly Spokane, Washington. He wants to engage China's detective services when his fiancée’s sister is kidnapped and a substantial ransom demanded. There's just one problem. The client thinks it's possible he's being bamboozled because things don't quite add up.

Smart and sassy 1890s bookkeeper-turned-sleuth China Bohannon is a magnet for danger. Assigned to office duties in the Doyle & Howe detective agency, she lands smack in the middle of the detective’s latest murder case when a suspicious character tries to bribe her - and she takes the bribe! In an adventure that is destined to go downhill from there, China is thrown overboard from a steamboat into Coeur d’Alene Lake to drown. Escaping that, while hot on the trail of the murderer, she’s arrested on charges of prostitution in the wild mining town of Wallace, Idaho.

The gay 1890s aren't always. Gay that is. Sometimes life is dangerous, especially if you're next on someone's murder list. In 1896, there aren't many career choices for a young lady. China Bohannon has fled one bad situation, and is looking to start her life over as a strong, independent woman in the wild and woolly town of Spokane, Washington. Convincing Gratton Doyle to take her seriously as a bookkeeper is hard enough, and when it comes to working as an investigator in the Doyle & Howe Detective Agency, it's well - nigh impossible.

China Bohannon may be a modern 1890s' career woman, but her uncle, Montgomery Howe, and his partner, Gratton Doyle haven't turned her loose on an investigative case of her own just yet. With her name newly added to the roster - though in small print - China is champing at the bit. China's friend Porter Anderson hires the agency saying his uncle has disappeared and a Johnny-come-lately timber baron claimed the family homestead. What's more, he has a bill of sale for it that Porter knows his uncle didn't sign. The problem is proving it - or so it would seem.

The Japanese army's brutal occupation of the city of Nanking during the 1937 Sino-Japanese War is known, for good reason, as the rape of Nanking. As they slaughtered an estimated 300,000 people, the invading soldiers raped more than 20,000 women - some estimates run as high as 80,000. Hua-ling Hu presents here the amazing untold story of the American missionary Minnie Vautrin, whose unswerving defiance of the Japanese protected 10,000 Chinese women and children.

China Bohannon, 1890s bookkeeper turned sleuth, is branching out…. Although still working with her uncle's detective agency, Doyle & Howe Investigations, she's almost given up on becoming a partner and is turning to providing security services, something her uncle, Montgomery Howe, and his partner, Gratton Doyle, aren't interested in.

This is the story of the women who took part in the Long March, seen through the biographies of three key players. Lee and Wiles trace the womens' stories in three time periods: the Long March itself, a decade later at liberation and then 40 years on. Drawing on published and unpublished sources, including interviews, this is the moving story of one of the great events of 20th-century history.

It is Sunday afternoon, and Theodosia and Drayton are catering a formal tea at a hot-air-balloon rally. But as the sky turns gray and the clouds start to boil up, a strange object zooms out of nowhere. It is a drone, and it appears to be buzzing around the balloons, checking them out. As Theodosia and Drayton watch, the drone, hovering like some angry, mechanized insect, deliberately crashes into the balloon next to them. An enormous, fiery explosion erupts, and everyone watches in horror as the balloon plummets to the earth, killing all three of its passengers.

From a talented emerging writer comes a brave, honest, unforgettable memoir about mental illness, which breaks the silence and shatters the taboos to give hope to all those struggling to find their way through. One day Sophie Hardcastle realised the joy she’d always known had disappeared. She was constantly tired, with no energy, no motivation and no sense of enjoyment for surfing, friends, conversations, movies, parties, family - for anything. Her hours became empty.

China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual ''Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop", always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder.

While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender.... Soon, strange happenings start to occur in Thyme and Seasons: misplaced items, a ringing bell, and the appearance of lavender sprigs in odd places. When a customer mentions seeing a mysterious woman picking flowers nearby and then suddenly disappearing, China must finally admit what Ruby has always known - their building is haunted. But by whom?

In Bloodroot, best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert transports listeners to a haunted house oozing with family secrets.

When a man dies soon after her Great Aunt Tullie bashes his head with her cane, China's estranged mother frantically calls for her daughter's help. Rushing to her family's Mississippi plantation, China must determine if Tullie is guilty of homicide. She must also face the possibility of developing the same terrifying disease that tortures Tullie.

As the Christmas decorating season approaches, Thyme & Seasons proprietor China Bayles feels overwhelmed. While she tries to balance her new roles of wife and step-mom with the demands of her thriving herbal shop, her business partner and best friend, Ruby, mysteriously disappears. Soon China's cantankerous mistletoe supplier Carl turns up dead. With Ruby missing and friends suspected of murder, China must investigate before tragedy strikes again.

When Casey Ford threatens to sell his property to a strip mining company, the townsfolk fear that Indigo will be lost forever. Protecting the town is important - so important that someone is willing to kill Casey to keep their home from being ruined. Now, in addition to running the town's cultural crusade, China Bayles must find Casey's murderer.