Showing results by narrator "Andrea Bates" in All Categories

The islands of Caldera are a shining jewel in a rather bleak world. A terrible calamity in the past had blanketed much of the world with a toxic "fug". Those who survived were forced to take to the mountains and the skies in wondrous airships. Life has since been a struggle, with only the most ruthless and crafty able to survive. To spare themselves the same fate, the Calderans erected a battery of guns to fend off the airships of the mainland. They isolated themselves from the madness of the world, choosing instead to focus on the pursuits of art and creativity.

Now that Samantha Sweet has a contract to provide her special handmade chocolates for the wealthy jet-set clients of Book It Travel, Sweet’s Sweets bakery is taking on a whole new dimension. It’s almost Halloween, and her pastry shop is bursting at the seams. She needs extra employees, but there is no place to put them. Right before the witching day, she comes upon a large Victorian house she can adapt for the business, but the mysterious, spooky noises at night are way more than the normal creaks and groans of an old building. Something else is going on.

It has taken some adjustment, but Nita Graus has made quite a home for herself among the crew of the Wind Breaker. Under her skillful care it has become one of the only airships to stay aloft without the continuous repair and oversight of the vile and manipulative fug folk. Word of her adventures with Captain Mack, Gunner, Lil, Cooper, and Wink has made the whole crew into living legends among the residents of the mountain towns of Rim.

Ever since Nita Graus left her homeland and joined the crew of the Wind Breaker, the reputation of the airship and its crew has been growing. The destruction of the mighty dreadnought, the escape from the legendary Skykeep, and the inexplicable ability to remain hidden from the ever-watchful eye of the Fug Folk have combined to make her and her fellow crew the stuff of legend. Alas, legendary heroes cannot exist for long without attracting a worthy villain. Luscious P. Alabaster strives to be just that foe.

For John Carver, a simple Celtic woodworker, life is a struggle to feed his family. Then one summer day, as he walks past a near-dead alder tree, lightning strikes. With the shattered tree lying all around him, Carver pulls himself up and decides to make the best of it - he takes the usable pieces to his workshop. From the shards of that dead tree John creates three boxes. Then the unexplained happens - shortly after handling one of them, John's touch brings his young son back from the brink of death.

Two things are weighing on Samantha Sweet's mind this summer - organizing the Sweet Somethings chocolate festival and tracking down information on the mystical carved wooden box that came into her life nearly two years ago, changing her forever. At last she believes she has located the person who can give the answers.

Revenge is often a cold dish, but in the tiny northern New Mexico town of Sembramos emotions are running decidedly hot. When two men convicted of murdering a local girl are released from prison after serving only a few years, their convictions overturned, the town's old pain rises to the surface and tempers flare. Samantha Sweet has her hands full with Easter at Sweet's Sweets, while her husband, Taos County Sheriff Beau Cardwell, is charged with keeping order among the two hundred residents of Sembramos.

When a woman walks into Samantha Sweet’s pastry shop, claiming to have amnesia, it’s a puzzle that seems to have nothing to do with Sam’s new commission for a fantastic one-of-a-kind order of chocolates, although "Jane Doe" seems to know a lot about that. Sam calls Sheriff Beau to solve the mystery of who this stranger is and where she belongs. But Beau’s attention is occupied by other things: nearly his entire force is out sick with some kind of flu bug, and now a murder far from Taos requires his full attention. “Jane’s” forgotten memories become vitally important....

Samantha Sweet learns that an Irish great-uncle left her an inheritance, so she and Beau change their honeymoon plans and go to the Emerald Isle. Will the gift be something lavish and wonderful? Or is there no pot of gold waiting for Sam? Meanwhile, before Sam fully has the answers to her questions, a new mystery presents itself when a local charter boat is found adrift near the rocky Irish coast, its occupants missing. The family of the captain wants answers and when it looks like a group of Americans might be implicated, the Galway homicide detective in charge of the case enlists Beau’s help.

Samantha Sweet and Beau Cardwell are getting ready for their September wedding, with the whole Sweet clan about to show up for the celebration.

Dealing with her mother may turn out to be the least of Sam’s problems when an unwelcome visitor walks into her pastry shop - Sam’s old heartthrob, the charmer Jake Calendar. Jake wants money for a Hollywood get-rich-quick scheme and he wants Sam to finance the deal. Can Sam convince him that the answer is "no"? Or will he sabotage the plans for her wedding?

Things are crazy at the bakery, as Sam tries to replicate the magical chocolates that the quirky Romanian chocolatier introduced at Christmas-time. Meanwhile, there are lots of weddings, in addition to her own, and other pastry shop demands during this romantic holiday week. While Sam tries to keep up with it all, another mystery comes her way. Marla Fresques needs to find her missing son. The woman is dying and wants her son home to raise the daughter he left behind.

Is there a serial killer in Taos? It’s the height of the wedding season at Sweet’s Sweets and Sam has all she can do to stay ahead of the rush of bakery orders. Plus, her side job - breaking into houses - isn’t allowing much summer time off either. Not to mention that her mother is pressuring Sam and Beau to set a wedding date. When Sam encounters two older women who then die suddenly, it appears that there may be a serial killer on the loose.

Samantha Sweet breaks into houses for a living - all perfectly legal as a caretaker for the USDA. But her real dream is to open her own pastry shop, 'Sweet's Sweets.' Life is a little crazy for Sam right now. At one of her break-in properties, a dying woman insists that she take a small wooden box. Sam doesn't realize that the old woman was known locally as a 'bruja,' a witch, until she begins to feel some strange effects from the box.

Samantha Sweet's life is a little crazy right now, beginning with her daughter's wedding, which coincides with Sam's receiving a huge new contract for her chocolate factory. The day after the wedding, someone takes a shot at Sam, and she discovers the bad guys are back.

It's a freezing January day when Samantha Sweet finds herself facing the unpleasant task of going back to her old job of breaking into houses. Meanwhile, a customer who's just a little bit too nice seems to be worming her way into Jen's confidence. Sheriff Beau, on the other hand, is dealing with a car-crash-turned-murder, and somehow it all seems to tie together in a great big sticky situation.

Sam is working hard to get her new pastry shop, Sweet's Sweets, open for business. Just when she's really got her hands full with that, she's assigned a new property to take care of as part of her contract with the USDA. The place is a hoarder's delight and Sam is feeling more than a little bit overwhelmed as she begins cleaning with a vengeance. When a blood-soaked garment turns up among some things Sam has dropped off at the thrift shop, Sam recommends that they call the Sheriff's office.

It's Christmas and a chocolatier shows up at Sweet's Sweets, offering to create a special line of hand-dipped chocolates for Sam's customers. He says he will work for no pay, just to prove himself. But she learns that he has connections to the wooden box that seems to give Sam her mystical powers, and discovers that certain evil people will do just about anything to take it away from her.

Several months have passed since Nita’s last adventure in the fug, and though she has spent them back in her native Caldera, she has never been busier. After countless debates and discussion, she has finally convinced her people to give the Wind Breaker and its crew safe harbor on the shores of her idyllic homeland. Now she is looking forward to introducing Captain Mack, Lil, Coop, and the rest of the crew to the land of her birth.

When her cover is blown in a criminal operation to apprehend a human trafficker, FBI Special Agent Mallory Burke is put in a car destined for a mountain cabin to be tortured and killed. But a snow storm results in an accident that leaves all but Mallory dead and she finds herself in the midst of the raging storm and in the care of Police Captain Gage Broderick. Mallory's relief that Gage is a cop is short lived. He has secrets of his own. Gage is haunted by an incident in his recent past.

It’s Spring Break, and a trio of California college kids head out, not to the beach, but to the mountains of New Mexico, where they plan on a week of snowboarding, beer, and fun. But the instructions to reach their vacation rental are less than precise, and it’s late and snowy when they arrive at Taos Ski Valley. Days later, Casey’s sister is calling the only friend she knows in Taos—Kelly Sweet—hoping to get word to her brother that their mother’s condition has worsened and she doesn’t have long to live. No one has heard from Casey, and she urgently needs to reach him.