Showing results by author "Donna Schlachter" in All Categories

Wherever you find Carly Turnquist, trouble is sure to follow.At least, that's what her husband Mike says.Back in Bear Cove, Carly's best friend is being courted by a smarmy stranger, and Mike's latest client is unhappy with him.When the client turns up dead and Mike is nowhere to be found, the police suspect him, and the video and paperwork they have that shows someone matching Mike's description maxed out their credit cards and cleaned out their bank accounts is compelling.But Carly knows her husband couldn't kill anybody. Could he?

1882 A poor orphan trying to make the best of a bad situation. An army engineer who wants both family and future. Is there any such thing as the perfect choice? Tina’s family is so poor they live in a covered wagon outside the brand new town of Loveland, Colorado. When her widowed mother dies in an outbreak of the influenza, Tina is left to raise her two younger sisters. Paul Burton, with the US Army Corps of Engineers, is on his way west with John Wesley Powell to survey sites for potential dam sites. He meets Tina and admires her perseverance. When her mother dies, he wants to take care...

In 1882 Snowflake, Colorado, can a young, female businessowner and a Pinkerton operative figure out who is trying to ruin her business? And will working together show them the warmth of love and the kindness of their Heavenly Father? After Ruby Wakefield inherits her father's touring business, she soon learns that not everybody thinks it right or proper that a woman should run a business normally operated by a man. However, she has no choice—she cannot give up on her father’s dream. But somebody in town is unhappy, and Ruby's business falls prey to mishaps such as broken traces, injured...

Finding a recipe for calorie-free muffins isn't as easy as it sounds. Neither is ignoring an obvious mystery in the house next door. Originally published as "Zero Calorie Muffins" in SWEET SPRINKLES CHRISTMAS MYSTERY ANTHOLOGY 2022 ISBN 979-8812903879

Fort Laramie, Wyoming, Sept 1878 Kate Benton, daughter of a saloon floozy, runs away days before her official introduction into that sordid life, straight into the arms of Tom McBride, fleeing from his outlaw brother’s past. Can these two young people, damaged and labeled by life experiences, tear down the walls of guilt and mistrust that separate them? Will they allow God to change them forever from the inside out? Or are they destined to remain alone forever? Prairie Roses Collection Book 1: SADIE by Patricia PacJac Carroll Book 2: REMI by Caryl McAdoo Book 3: HOPE by Barb Goss Book 4: ...

November 1858, Utah Territory. Edie Meredith strives to keep her temper and her tongue under control as she heads west with her brother to California. Raised in an itinerant preacher family, she promises she will never marry a man of the cloth. Tom Aiken, drover of the wagon train, longs to answer his true calling: to preach, and while he realizes not every woman would choose a preacher for a husband, he hopes to soon find his help-meet.

Contemporary cozy mysteries set in smalltown Colorado, featuring the now adult granddaughter of Carly Turnquist, forensic accountant. Margie Hansen, newly graduated and all ready to set out on her own adventures, inherits a mystery bookstore in Edgewater, Colorado when her great-aunt dies suddenly. This collection pulls together four complete novellas into one edition, each featuring a collector's edition of a vintage mystery book along with an edge-of-your-seat mystery that pits Margie against local, modern-day villains.

October 1895 John Stewart needs a wife. Mary Johannson needs a home. On her way west, Mary falls in love with another. Now both must choose between commitment and true love. Mary Johannson has scars on her body that can’t compare with the scars on her heart. She is alone in the world, with no family, no prospects, and no home. John Stewart is at his wit’s end. His wife of three years died in childbirth, leaving him with a toddler and an infant, both girls. Theirs was the love of fairy tales, and while he has no illusions about finding another like her, his children need a mother. Though...

Juliette Hart—or J.K. Hartling as her readers know her by—leaves Colorado to strike out on her own following the accidental death of her husband two years prior, after answering an advertisement in a ladies magazine for switchboard operators in Anchorage, Alaska. She knows nothing of the territory or its largest city—simply that she must get away from the suffocating grief of her mother-in-law. Once firmly ensconced in the Lawrence Boarding House for Single Ladies, she determines to use her off-time wisely and continue writing her romance novels. Someday, she hopes to write full-time ...

Catherine Malloy escapes a poor past in response to a mail order bride ad her best friend answered. However, Margaret dies before meeting the man who owns horses and property in Kansas. Benjamin Troudt works for the Hollenberg family at their way station in Kansas, and owns nothing but the clothes on his back. Unbeknownst to him, his pastor is corresponding with a potential wife from back East for him. When Catherine, now calling herself Maggie, arrives, Benjamin knows nothing of the pastor's match-making, and rejects her. However, a seriously ill pregnant woman needs tending. Perhaps ...

In 1868, Tessa, a Mennonite nurse graduates from nursing school and is assigned to the Amana Colonies in Iowa because of her expertise in treating asthma and other breathing problems. As a former student at a women's medical school, she knows more than most about respiratory diseases. She's also had her fair share of heartbreak when, upon her mentor's death, she was forced to abandon her dream of becoming a doctor. Will she be able to use her skills? Or will her gender keep her from helping those who truly need her?Seth, a widower in Amana, is still nursing a broken heart from his ...

Dead men are heavier than broken hearts—at least according to Philip Marlowe, the legendary detective. Margie Hanson discovers a copy of “The Big Sleep” in a box lot of books at an estate sale, and she snags it to sell in her bookstore, along with a spice rack and spices for her kitchen. At home, she discovers neither is what she first thought. Can she solve these two mysteries before somebody succeeds in snuffing her permanently?

An unsuitable match to satisfy a debt. Can Holly find another solution? An unsuitable calling--a man in the kitchen. Practically unheard of. Can Adam find the strength to step into his purpose in life? Or will they both resist God and make their own way?

Morganna has a secret that she's bringing with her--but which will soon make an appearance. And when another shows up, laying claim to what is hers, she must choose. And whichever choice she makes, she could still lose all. NOTE: ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED AS "MORGANA" IN THE SWITCHBOARD SISTERHOOD series, 2023 ISBN 9781943688951

A spinster sister, left behind by her four younger sisters, feels unwanted and unneeded. But when three orphans and a wounded soldier turn up on her doorstep, her life takes on new meaning. A man in search of his family—has he found them at last? But something isn’t quite right. Can God weave these five lives into something beautiful for His glory, or will half-truths and missing memories create a recipe for disaster?

Elizabeth Maddock, is a widow and a chef, wants a new start. She answers an ad for a chef who wants to serve hundreds daily, and finds herself working at a TB sanitarium in Boulder, Colorado, passing her infant son off as her brother. She comes to love the patients and wants them freed from their plight, yet the town depends on the sanitorium to remain alive and to grow. Evan Hamden, childless widower, searches for a cure for TB. While drawn to Miss Maddock, he resists falling in love, because he has a lifetime of work ahead of him and doesn’t want any distractions such as marriage or ...

She needs a man. He needs a new life. How bad could it be? A widow alone in the Wild West with children to raise and protect. Or maybe they understand more than she realizes. Escaping from a prison in Australia where he was sentenced to life for a crime he didn't commit wasn't easy. Neither was his flight for freedom to the United States. But just in time, a letter suggesting marriage. Land of his own. A new name. But who is this stranger who lands on their door, introduced by letters alone, and calling himself King? Could this offer of royalty be worth marrying for money this time? After ...

Claire Wallace flees New York in 1894--as far away from her dead father's bank robbing gang as she can. But apparently, even two thousand miles isn't far enough. Toby Gilbert, an undercover Pinkerton's operative, places an ad for a wife as part of his cover. He has no intention of falling in love for real. What happens when Claire's father's associates come looking for her, thinking she's making a deal with the government? And what happens when Toby's plans fall by the wayside? Will he love her by laying down his life? Or does God have other plans?

Missing horses. A missing Pony Express rider. A sheriff's daughter with a nose for mystery and a penchant for wearing trousers. And a Pony Express rider with a secret.

While a a midwife wasn’t mentioned in the Biblical version of The Christmas story—but then again, neither was morning sickness or labor pains, which Mary undoubtedly experienced. As such, because of the extreme young age of the mother (some experts figure she was between 14 and 18 years old), their harsh surroundings (A stable carved in a rock), and the lack of older female relatives available to assist, Joseph fetching the services of a midwife is not so difficult to imagine.