Nancy Pickard

Convinced of his father's innocence in the killing of Jody Linder's father, Collin Crosby returns Kansas with his ex-con father and provokes Jody to face the stunning mystery behind her tragic past, an investigation that endangers both Jody and Collin. By the author of The Virigin of Small Plains.

A Novel

The Scent of Rain and Lightning

Seventeen years after the discovery of a female murder victim near Small Plains, Kansas, the girl's grave has become the source of strange miracles and legends, until the return of prodigal son Mitch Newquist threatens to bring old secrets to light.

The Virgin of Small Plains

Jenny Cain investigates when a class of fourth graders finds the body of a formerly wealthy patron of the arts tucked into a priceless Chinese bed at the local art museum.

Generous Death

Lynn Lott

In an inspirational handbook, two successful authors outline an easy-to-follow path to creative success, following the seven stages in the writing path--Unhappiness, Wanting, Commitment, Wavering, Letting Go, Immersion, and Fulfillment. Reprint.

The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment

Seven Steps on the Writer's Path

Janet Evanovich

Mary Higgins Clark

Linda Fairstein

Lawrence Block

Walter Mosley

Carol Higgins Clark

Edna Buchanan

Nelson Demille

A host of favorite authors including Lawrence Block, Edna Buchanan, Carol Higgins Clark, and Donald Westlake contribute stories that each feature a thick fog, a thick book, and a thick steak, in an anthology that supports the efforts of Literacy Partners. Original.

The Plot Thickens

Someone is out to sink the Library Harbor restoration project.

A Jenny Cain Mystery

Say No to Murder

No body

Mémoire d'une nuit d'orage

One beautiful summer afternoon, Jody Linder receives shocking news: The man convicted of murdering her father is being released from prison and returning to the small town of Rose, Kansas. It has been twenty-three years since that stormy night when her father was shot and killed and her mother disappeared, presumed dead. Neither the protective embrace of Jody’s three uncles nor the safe haven of her grandparents’ ranch could erase the pain caused by Billy Crosby on that catastrophic night. Now Billy Crosby is free, thanks to the efforts of his son, Collin, a lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to prove his father’s innocence. Despite their long history of carefully avoiding each other in such an insular community, Jody and Collin find that they share an exclusive sense of loss. As Jody revisits old wounds, startling truths emerge about her family’s tragic past. But even through struggle and hardship, she still dares to hope for a better future—and maybe even love. BONUS: This edition contains a The Scent of Rain and Lightning discussion guide.

Fast-paced, suspenseful, and emotionally involving, Twilight is Nancy Pickard at her popular and groundbreaking best; once again she weaves her renowned fictional spell around the mysteries of the human heart.

Twilight

“Engrossing . . . beautifully written and carefully crafted . . . [a] work that explores the healing power of truth.”—The Boston Globe For seventeen years, a rural community in Kansas has faithfully tended the grave of an anonymous teenage girl christened the Virgin of Small Plains. And some claim that, perhaps owing to the girl’s intervention, strange miracles and unexplainable healings have occurred. Slowly, word of the legend spreads. But what really happened in that snow-covered field almost two decades ago, when the girl’s naked, frozen body was found? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the shocking discovery, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds, and their best friend, Rex Shellenberger? Now Mitch has returned to Small Plains, reigniting simmering tensions and awakening secrets. Never having resolved her feelings for Mitch, Abby is determined to uncover the startling truth about his departure. The three former friends must confront the ever-unfolding consequences of the night that forever changed their lives—and the life of their small town. Praise for The Virgin of Small Plains “Nancy Pickard . . . has evolved into a writer of substantial literary power. . . . [She] has fashioned a novel that accurately reflects the secrets and silences locked deep within the hearts of all small-town Midwesterners.”—The Denver Post “Tantalizing . . . Pickard writes with insight and compassion about an unresolved crime that continues to haunt a farming community.”—The New York Times Book Review “A class act . . . Pickard has a talent for adding depth to a story that conveys a sense of place and history.”—Orlando Sentinel “Crisply written, this new novel about loss of faith, trust, and innocence is utterly absorbing.”—Tucson Citizen

A collection of short detective and mystery stories involving American Presidents' wives.

The First Lady Murders

"Nancy Pickard shows us how to override our fears, bust through our excuses, and go for our dreams. Filled with relatable stories, tried-and-true teachings, tools, tips, as well as useful exercises and meditations, this book supports you in stepping out of your old definition of self and re-thinking your next chapter." - Kelley Kosow, author of The Integrity Advantage In Bigger, Better, Braver, master integrative life coach Nancy Pickard challenges us with life-altering questions: Is there something you’d love to do but haven’t found the courage? Do you want to give yourself over to the fullest possible experience of living? Do you want to take a leap toward a bigger, better, braver life? Bigger Better Braver is a proven, step-by-step guide for executing the vision you have to live the life you are meant to lead. Enhanced with inspirational client and personal stories, it shows you how to get unstuck from old behaviors and take bold steps toward something new and larger in your life. The book is a journey, as Nancy lays out time-tested tools to face and overcome, get free of your comfort zone, cultivate fear as a force for change, and discover courage to take bold steps in the future. She teaches how to be more present, use your intuition, and stop living on autopilot. Chapters include: •Uncover Your Vision •Planning Your Leap •Understand Faith and Fear •Staying the Course, and more. Ms. Pickard proves her methods work. She reinvented herself as a master life coach, and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro at 61- experiences that became her vision for your bigger life. Not everyone must climb a mountain to live larger. Your bigger life can be anything that brings elation, accomplishment, fulfillment, and connection with the spirit of who you are. Bigger Better Braver provides the pathway to uncover your personal vision and opens the door for a major life change. "Nancy’s step-by-step approach to change provides the puzzle pieces that create the inner foundation for successful outer change that is Bigger, Better and Braver. May you use this process to create the better story that your life is asking, and may that new story equip you to serve the world in the way that only you can." - Gail Larsen, author of Transformational Speaking

Conquer Your Fears, Embrace Your Courage, and Transform Your Life

Bigger Better Braver

With The Whole Truth and Ring of Truth, award-winning author Nancy Pickard introduced the intrepid Marie Lightfoot, a gutsy and charismatic true-crime writer, and kicked oV a sensational new series that sealed her reputation as one of today's top practitioners of "chilling, fast-paced, and original" thrillers (Detroit Free Press). Now Marie Lightfoot faces an unusually challenging case because this time it's personal -- painfully so, as it concerns the central mystery of her life: her parents' disappearance. My dear Marie, Do you give any thought to life after death? They say that when dead people hover around the living, it is because they are stuck at the place where they died. They can't move on. I hope for your sake that doesn't happen to you, Marie, because I don't think you'll want to linger in the place where I will kill you.... When the first E-mail arrives it seems like a joke: A man writes that he loves Marie's work and wants her to collaborate with him by becoming his victim and writing a book about her own murder right up to the moment of her death. If she doesn't cooperate, he promises, he will hurt someone close to her. Marie is merely unsettled until more threatening E-mails arrive and the young children of her lover, State Attorney Franklin DeWeese, become targets of vicious pranks. Until the police can apprehend her tormentor, Marie has no choice but to play along, following her "co-author's" instructions to write her life story and return to her birthplace, a small town in Alabama. There Marie seeks out a group of the town's most prominent citizens. Forty years ago, they worked clandestinely in the civil rights movement alongside her parents, who disappeared during the explosive summer of 1963. Trying to untangle the divided loyalties, secrets, lies, and misunderstandings that have obscured the truth about her parents, Marie races to unravel the secrets of the past and outwit a killer before she is forced to write her final page. Filled with rich characterizations, steadily escalating suspense, and a rare depth of emotion, The Truth Hurts draws readers into a mystery that spans the present day and the tense, heartbreaking early days of America's civil rights movement. In a novel as complex and captivating as her inimitable heroine, Nancy Pickard keeps readers guessing until the Wnal page is turned.

The Truth Hurts

Bright and beautiful Jenny Cain, director of the Port Frederick Civic Foundation, was dying of curiosity. A hapless visitor had slipped in the mud at the town’s historic cemetery—and fallen right into an empty grave! When Jenny discovered that all the graves were vacant, it was the beginning of murder. Someone had killed an employee of the Harbor Lights Funeral Home, and played a macabre practical joke with the body. Suddenly, everyone in town is a suspect, from the victim’s grieving widower to the spike-haired gravedigger to the unctuous director of the Harbor Lights. Now Jenny has to dig up some answers, and fast—before the killer leaves her silent as a tomb!

No Body

When one of her guests dies after eating her twenty-seven-ingredient chili con carne, Eugenia Potter makes it her quest to find the person or persons who added a twenty-eighth--and fatal--ingredient to the recipe

The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders

"Nancy Pickard pushes at the presumed limits of [crime fiction]" said the Los Angeles Times Book Review, praising the award-winning creator of the Jenny Cain mysteries. Now, Pickard blurs the line between fiction and reality in a novel of gripping intensity, and premieres a superb new heroine: true-crime author Marie Lightfoot. For her next surefire bestseller, Marie is covering the trial of a Florida killer -- a case that penetrates her own life, layer by disturbing layer. Whether real like Ted Bundy, or imagined like Hannibal Lecter, few killers of our time are in the same league as Raymond Raintree. And as he stands flanked by lawyers in a Florida courtroom, waiting to be convicted for the murder of Natalie Mae McCullen, Marie Lightfoot is taking it all in. A small, gutsy blonde renowned for her true-crime bestsellers, Marie knows the graphic and disturbing case will make her best book yet -- because Raintree's shocking crime, vile beyond imagining, is also impossible to turn away from. But there is something about the case -- and Raintree's involvement -- that bothers her. No one knows where Raintree, a man as slight and immature as a preteen boy, took Natalie after he abducted her. No one knows how Natalie -- bright, independent, and with no fear of the dark -- could be lured into a stranger's boat on a lonely waterway. And only one witness saw a man who may have been Raintree motoring along in a water taxi on the night Natalie disappeared. Even if the police can't provide answers, Marie intends to leave no loose ends. Starting with a prison meeting with Raintree, the steely-nerved writer follows a twisted path that leads to Natalie's parents, to a coincidence that doesn't quite gel, and to a place she has resisted all her life: the dark recesses of her own soul, where she hides the secrets of her own lost past. When Raymond escapes, Marie -- a curious contradiction of celebrity author and introspective loner -- becomes a sitting duck for a killer who just might be smart enough to outwit her. And evil enough to take her to hell before she dies. A masterpiece of psychological suspense, The Whole Truth is a compelling look at our fascination with the horrific crimes of our time. Nancy Pickard's characters are as close to flesh and blood as fiction can get -- and her writing is as close to perfection.

The Whole Truth

Sex, violence, evil, and betrayal -- the shocking murder case splashed across the Florida headlines has all the right elements for true-crime writer Marie Lightfoot's next bestseller. And tell the tale she does, in a book that reveals the secrets of a love affair gone fatally wrong. But there are disturbing twists, which leave Marie sensing in her gut that something does not jibe. Twist number one: the accused is a man of the cloth, who has allegedly killed his wife in collusion with his lover. Twist number two: a pair of young girls find the body in an abandoned mansion, adding the death of innocence to the magnitude of the crime. Twist number three: a shattering conviction turns the case on its ear. And the ultimate blow: for the first time in her career, Marie fails to win the the killer's confidence during a jailhouse interview. Suddenly, she knows with certainty there ia more to the story than even she realized -- and her conscience won't let her rest. Then an unexpected visitor -- a shock in itself for the reclusive writer -- confesses something that not even the police know. The revelation may he the missing piece in a terrifying puzzle -- evidence that teaches Marie a bone-chilling lesson as threatening danger slowly encircles her: to err is human, but underestimating the criminal mind can be deadly. Nancy Pickard premiered gutsy Marie Lightfoot in the national bestseller The Whole Truth, and kicked off a thrilling new series with "an intriguing story, fascinatingly told" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). Now, Pickard once again "pushes the presumed limits of [crime fiction]" (Los Angeles Times) as she sends this complex heroine into a jagged maze with one destination: the darkest realm of human nature.

Ring of Truth

When Jenny Cain investigates the cause of the lengthy illness that led to her mother's death, she finds herself the victim of a cunning murder attempt

Nancy Pickard

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