Showing results by author "Susan McBride" in All Categories

Website designer and high-society rebel Andrea Kendricks would never have gotten involved with ego-in-pumps lifestyle hostess Marilee Mabry if it weren't for the underhanded machinations of Andy's upper-crust mama. But thanks to Mother Cissy, Andy's donning designer duds to attend a launch party at the intolerable domestic diva's new Dallas TV studio - and she's on hand to witness the celebration site go up in flames!

When Milton Grone turns up dead in tiny River Bend, Illinois, nearly all the would-be suspects have the perfect alibi: attending Thursday night's town meeting. And as Milton was hardly beloved, plenty of folks had a reason to do him in . . . Grone's next-door neighbor was furious about a fence that encroached on her property, among other wicked deeds. A pair of zealous tree huggers wanted Grone's hide for selling a parcel of pristine land to a water park.

When a teenager’s body is found at the base of the old water tower, Detective Jo Larsen is one of the first on the scene. Tragically, it appears to be a clear case of suicide. But the more Jo learns about Kelly Amster, the more she finds herself needing to understand why the high school sophomore would take that fatal plunge. As they interview family and friends, Jo and her partner, Hank Phelps, begin to fit together the pieces of a dark puzzle. Something happened to Kelly in their small town of Plainfield, Texas - and it sent the young girl straight over the edge.

When Patrick Dielman shows up at Detective Jo Larsen's desk insisting that his wife, Jenny, is missing, Jo wonders if it's a case of a bored housewife running away. But as she digs deeper into Jenny's life, Jo learns that Dielman keeps a stranglehold on the family finances, down to the last nickel, and that Jenny's first marriage dissolved following the death of her young son.

Renegade rich girl Andy Kendricks isn't the belle of any Dallas ball - and that's just the way the debutante dropout likes it! She's got a good life and a great man: her defense attorney boyfriend, Brian Malone. Brian's such a straight arrow that he had to be dragged kicking and screaming to a close friend's bachelor party at a sleazy local "gentlemen's club".

They call them "pretty parties", and they're the latest rage among Dallas debutantes - get-togethers with light refreshments, heavy gossip, and Dr. Sonja and her magic Botox needles. Former socialite Andy Kendricks normally wouldn't be caught dead at such an event, but she's attending as a favor to her friend Janet, a society reporter in search of a juicy story. And, boy, does she find one when aging beauty queen Miranda DuBois bursts into the room - drunk, disorderly, and packing a pistol.

A lie that Gretchen Brink told 40 years ago comes back to haunt her when a tornado brings together Sam, a mysterious man who can’t remember anything, and Abby, her newly pregnant daughter who is convinced Sam is her long-lost father. Though decades old, when Gretchen’s secrets are revealed, the ramifications will affect them all in ways they never could have imagined. A mesmerizing study of family and love, The Truth About Love and Lightning is touching and observant, reminding us that we never know when our lives are on the precipice of change.

Antonia Ashton has worked hard to build a thriving career and a committed relationship, but she realizes her life has gone off track. Forced to return home to Blue Hills when her mother, Evie, suffers a massive stroke, Toni finds the old Victorian where she grew up as crammed full of secrets as it is with clutter. Now she must put her mother’s house in order - and uncover long-buried truths about Evie and her aunt, Anna, who vanished fifty years earlier on the eve of her wedding.

Debutante dropout Andrea Kendricks is beyond done with big hair, big gowns, and big egos - so being dragged to a high-society Texas wedding by her socialite mama, Cissy, gives her a bad case of déjà vu. As does running into her old prep-school bully, Olivia La Belle, the wedding planner, who's graduated to berating people for a living on her reality TV show. But for all the times Andy wished her dead, nobody deserves Olivia's fate: lying in a pool of blood, a cake knife in her throat - but did the angry baker do it?

When eighty-year-old Eleanora Duncan is found dead on her kitchen floor, Sheriff Frank Biddle suspects it isn't from natural causes. Eleanora wasn't exactly your average senior citizen. She was a widow worth millions, although all her money couldn't buy her happiness-not after losing both her husband and son.

When tiny River Bend, Illinois, is hit by a string of burglaries even Sheriff Frank Biddle can't solve, the clients of LaVyrle's Cut 'n' Curl can hardly talk of anything but. There are no signs of forced entry and no fingerprints, and valuables are missing from secret hiding places, as if the thief knew what he wanted and just where to look. Helen Evans wonders what the world has come to if even their once-quiet town isn't safe anymore.

Spring has sprung, the river is rising, and when Luann Dupree, the head of River Bend's Historical Society, vanishes into the night, everyone in town is convinced she's run off with her Internet Romeo. But her lifelong friend, Sarah Biddle, is convinced Luann is the victim of foul play. No one believes her—not even her husband, the local sheriff, so she turns to Helen Evans for help.