Крузи Дженифер

For Nina Askew, turing forty means freedom—from the ex-husband whose career always came first, from their stuffy suburban home. Freedom to have her own apartment in the city, freedom to focus on what she wants for a change. And what she wants is something her ex always vetoed—a puppy. A bouncy puppy to cheer her up. Instead she gets…Fred.
Overweight, smelly and obviously suffering from some kind of doggy depression, Fred is light years from perky. But for all his faults, he does manage to put Nina face-to-face with Alex Moore, her gorgeous, younger downstairs neighbor.
Alex looks great on paper—a sexy, seemingly sane, surprisingly single E.R. doctor who shares Fred’s abiding love for Oreos—but a ten-year difference in age, despite his devastating smile, is too wide a gap for Nina to handle. Ignoring her insistent best friend, some interfering do-gooders and the ubiquitous Fred—not to mention her suddenly raging hormones—Nina thinks anyone but Alex would be a better bet for a relationship. But with every silver-haired stiff she dates, the more she suspects it’s the young dog-loving doctor she wants to sit and stay!

Lucy Savage is finally getting rid of Bradley—and his hideous green recliner. Bradley is out of her life for good. Or so she thinks. Turns out Officer Zack Warren wants to arrest the very same Bradley for embezzlement and figures the lovely Lucy can lead him straight to his target.

Good thing there’s a cop around. Because someone shoots at Lucy and then blows up her car. Zack insists she needs twenty-four-hour protection. What does he think her three dogs and attack cat are for? Still, he insists on moving right in to Lucy’s house.

Now there’s danger lurking outside and in her own kitchen, bathroom—and bedroom. Or maybe Zack is just what Lucy needs.…

Kate Svenson may be a dynamite businesswoman—but after three failed engagements, she’s decided she’s hopeless at romance. What she needs is a Business Plan to help her find Mr. Right. The Cabins resort is ripe with eligible bachelors, all rich and ambitious—just her type. But they’re dropping like flies, and after fishing Kate’s latest reject out of the swimming pool Jake Templeton is convinced that Kate is nothing but trouble. Especially for him. A man who’s sworn off ambition and a woman hanging from the top of the corporate ladder don’t have much in common. But in that unpredictable territory known as the heart, anything can happen…

Tess Newhart knows her ex-boyfriend Nick Jamieson isn’t the right guy for her. He’s caviar and champagne; she’s take-out Chinese pot stickers. He’s an uptight Republican lawyer; she was raised in a commune. He wants to get ahead in business; she just wants…him. But there’s no way Tess will play second fiddle to his job.

Yet somehow she finds herself agreeing to play his fiancée on a weekend business trip that could make or break Nick’s career. And while he’s trying to convince Tess that he needs her in his respectable world, Tess is doing her best to keep her opinions to herself and her hands off Nick.

Mitch Peabody was learning pretty fast that the life of a private detective was nothing like the movies. He’d envisioned a world of tough-talking detectives and smart-mouthed, stunning dames. Instead he saw case after case of cheating husbands, suspicious wives and unsuspecting mistresses…until she walked through the door.

Right down to her stilettos, Mae Sullivan was a knockout with a lethal body—and a lethal family to go with it. There was something not quite on the up-and-up about her, but she came with a case he couldn’t afford to refuse…and left him with a case of lust he hadn’t had since high school. It didn’t take long for him to fall for her, hook, line and sinker. But was Mae interested only in catching the double-crossing crooks who murdered her uncle…or did the lady want to catch him?

Dumped by her boyfriend and demoted from WBBB’s prime-time spot, radio producer Allie McGuffey has nowhere to go but up. She plans to make her comeback by turning temporary DJ Charlie Tenniel into a household name. And if he’s willing to help her cure her breakup blues with a rebound fling, that’s an added bonus.

Charlie just wants to kick back, play good tunes and eat Chinese food. He’s not interested in becoming famous. But he is interested in Allie. And after all, what harm is a little chemistry between friends?

But suddenly their one-night stand has become a four-week addiction. Night after night on the airwaves, his voice seduces her…and all the other women in town. He’s a hit. It looks as if Charlie’s solved all Allie’s problems…except one. What is she going to do when he leaves?

Maddie Faraday’s life would be perfect if it weren’t for her nosy neighbors, her interfering mother, her unhappy best friend, her worried little girl, her cheating husband, and that guy she lost her virginity to twenty years ago who just showed up on her front porch. But things keep taking a turn for the worse (and worse than that) and pretty soon she’s up to her eyes in gossip, blackmail, murder, and brownies, not to mention some flashbacks to a past that’s just as steamy in the present.

Writing Note: I’ve always wanted to write a hotel farce, a story with lots of characters and slamming doors and mistaken identities along the lines of the great screwball comedies of the 40s. I ended up with seven point of view characters and two subplots I wasn’t expecting along with two main plots and an ending that took me completely by surprise so it wasn’t in the proposal. Fortunately, my editor Beth de Guzman was open-minded.

Animal Note: There are no animals. The story takes place in a hotel. There was no way an animal would work in this plot. They can’t all have animals. Do not write me about this.

Character Note: I started out thinking this was Dennie and Alec’s book. When I revised it, I began to think it was Victoria and Harry’s book. Now I think it belongs to all four of them, the first time I’ve had two romance plots instead of one plot and one subplot. I couldn’t help it. Victoria and Harry were too much fun.

Lucy Armstrong has come to Savannah to finish the last four days of filming on a romantic action movie called Don’t Look Down. What should be an easy shoot is made a lot more difficult by the stunt coordinator (Lucy’s ex-husband, Connor Nash), the script supervisor (Lucy’s very unhappy sister, Daisy), an inquisitive five-year-old (Lucy’s niece, Pepper), the backer (a sinister Irishman named Finnegan), and one strong and silent stunt man (J. T. Wilder, the stuff Lucy’s dreams are made of). Then she starts to look beneath the surface and realizes that, unless she finds out what’s going on fast, the movie isn’t going to be the only thing that’s finished in four days.

J. T. Wilder has come to Savannah to make some quick money as a stunt double while on leave from the Army (he’s a Green Beret). What should be an easy job is made a lot more difficult by the star he’s doubling for (goofball Bryce McKay), the starlet who’s intent on seducing him (Althea Bergdorf, not that he’s putting up much of a fight), his skirt-chasing best friend (gonzo-pilot Rene LaFavre), an eagle-eyed five-year-old (binocular-toting Pepper Armstrong), and a tough, exasperated director (Lucy Armstrong, the stuff Wilder’s dreams are starting to be made of). Then the CIA calls and Wilder realizes that somebody is taking “shooting a movie” much too literally.

Throw in Wonder Woman, High Noon, Pre-Columbian porn, non-stop action, and fast-paced dialogue, and you’ve got Don’t Look Down, romantic adventure at its best.

If you can’t stand the heat…

Agnes Crandall’s problems are roiling to a boil. First, a dog-napper invades her kitchen, seriously hampering her attempts to put on a wedding that’s she’s staked her entire net worth on. Then a man climbs through her bedroom window to save her. “Shane” (no last name) may be Agnes’s hero, but he’s also a professional hitman–so he’s no stranger to trouble himself…

Get out of the kitchen.

Between a rival who wants to take him out and an uncle who may have lost five million bucks in Agnes’s basement, Shane’s plate is plenty full. Soon Agnes and Shane are tangled up with the lowlifes after the money, a gang of Southern mob wedding guests, a dog named Rhett, and–most dangerous of all–each other.

Mary Alice Brannigan doesn’t believe in demons. She does believe in saving Dreamland, the decaying amusement park in her home town that she’s been hired to restore. But when odd things begin to happen in the park, she investigates and discovers that Dreamland is a prison for the Untouchables, the five most powerful demons in the history of the world. And if that wasn’t enough to deal with, there’s a guy she’s falling hard for, and there’s something about him that’s not quite . . . right. But rocky romances and demented demons aren’t Mab’s only problems: she’s also coping with a crooked politician, a supernatural raven, a secret government agency, an inexperienced sorceress, an unsettling inheritance, and some mind-boggling revelations from her past. As her personal demons wreck her newfound relationship and real demons wreck the park, Mab faces down immortal evil and discovers what everybody who’s ever been to an amusement park knows: the end of the ride is the wildest.

What happens when the goddess within comes out?

Abby has just arrived in Summerville, Ohio, with her placid Newfoundland, Bowser. She’s reluctantly inherited her grandmother’s coffee shop, but it’s not long before she’s brewing up trouble in the form of magical baked goods and steaming up her life with an exasperating college professor.

And then there is Daisy, a Web code writer, and her hyperactive Jack Russell, Bailey. Her tightly would world spins out of control when she discovers the chaos within and meets a mysterious dog trainer whose teaching style is definitely hands-on.

Finally there Shar, professor of ancient history at Summerville College, who wakes up one morning to find her neurotic dachshund, Wolfie, snarling at an implacable god sitting at her kitchen table, the first thing in her life she hasn’t been able to footnote.

What on earth is going on in the unearthly little town? It’s up to Abby, Daisy, and Shar to find out before an ancient goddess take over southern Ohio, and they all end up in the apocalypic doghouse…

You’re invited to spend the weekend with three extraordinary sisters…

When she was sixteen, Dee Fortune kidnapped her two younger sisters and ran from danger. Now, twenty-nine, she’s still trying to control her shape-shifting power — no easy task when Danny James shows up one Friday morning with his deadly smile and dangerous questions about the past.

Lizzie is deturmined to save her family from financial ruin by turning straw into gold; now, if she could only stop turning forks into bunnies. The Rlric, a sorcerer, appears one Friday — annoyed with the chaos Lizzie is creating in the universe and his heart…

The youngest Miss Fortune, Mare, towers above her sisters but her telekinetic power is dwarfed by their gifts. She spends her days at Value Video!! and her nights contemplating the futility of her existence. But then a gorgeous Value Video!! VP and Mare’s long-lost love turn up…and they all turn up the heat on a weekend that no Fortune will soon forget!