At nineteen, Leena left home to escape constant pressure from her mother and older sister. They want her to be a lawyer just like them.
They never bothered to look for Leena, she hasn't heard from them in three years.
Then comes a surprise call from her sister, Georgia. She's on the run and desperate for help after her husband was brutally murdered. The police suspect her. She needs a safe place to hide until the real killer is found, a place no one will think to look. Leena takes her in and sets out to prove Georgia's innocence.
But every piece of evidence she uncovers points in Georgia's direction.
Published by Orca Book Publishers
When I was young my mom and her friends often reflected on life during World War II. Not battles won or lost, but boys from their high school who hurried off to war and never returned. Girls who lost their fiancés. But whispered conversations ended if they suspected I was listening, so I pretended not to hear when they talked about girls who "got themselves in trouble."
Being pregnant 'out of wedlock' brought shame to the unmarried mother and her family. Girls left town to visit their aunt , often a euphemism for entering a home for unwed mothers. These homes were often run by nuns who treated them as criminals. Their babies were whisked away at birth.
Out of sight but never out of mind.
Bones in the Backyard explores a dysfunctional mother/daughter relationship that begins to make sense when Laura's elderly and terminally ill mother, Kathleen, talks, for the first time ever, about a baby girl named Sarah.
Is Sarah real or a figment of Kathleen's confusion as she struggles with pain and dementia? If real, where is she?
Laura decides to find out.
What she uncovers about her mother's life as a young woman during WWII in Nova Scotia changes everything.
I have temporarily put Bones in the Backyard on hold while I work on my Out to Lunch Investigations books.
Inge is bubbling with her news. She has a new man in her life and he's madly in love with her. But Darla and Maureen have heard this story too many times and it never ends well. When Inge admits Don is a much younger man she met online, her friends warn her not to lend him money. Inge is furious and refuses to listen.
Something needs to be done. Maureen, a retired police officer, does a background check. What she finds convinces retired drama teacher, Darla, to go undercover and meet "Ace Johnson," one of "Don Johns" several aliases. They devise a scheme to bring down a career scammer who has been taking advantage of lonely, vulnerable women for decades.
A Most Delicious Scam launches Out to Lunch Investigations. Darla and Maureen go on to help other seniors when no one else will.
The Butcher Knife is a complete rewrite of a story I wrote years ago and almost forgot about. It now fits neatly into the Out to Lunch series and paves the way for Unlawful Confessions to explore what happens after The Butcher Knife ends.
In The Butcher Knife, Petra's husband, Chris, a successful lawyer and respected member of the community, is running for political office. Everyone loves him. Chris is such a nice guy!
Only Petra knows the real Chris, the violent man who threatens to take their four old daughter if Petra tries to leave him. She has no one to turn to, even her own mother can't believe Chris would ever hurt her. It must be Petra's own fault.
Petra sees only one way out. But is she strong enough? Quick enough? Will she get caught?
Petra's mother, Maarta, confessed to stabbing her son-in-law and faces life in prison. But Maarta's cousin, Inge, doesn't believe it. Although she had motive and opportunity, Maarta abhors violence, always has. She would never hurt another living creature.
Recalling the way Darla and Maureen helped her when she needed it most, Inge asks the Out to Lunch Investigators to uncover the truth and prove who really stabbed Petra's husband to death.