The Rapids

Fun and a little hard work. That's all Tess Haviland had in mind when Ike Grantham paid her for her graphic design work with the run-down, nineteenth-century carriage house on Boston's North Shore.

Then Ike disappeared, and now Tess finds herself with much more than a simple weekend project to get her out of the city. It's not just the rumors that the carriage house is haunted-it's the neighbors: six-year-old Dolly Thorne, her reclusive babysitter, Harley Beckett…and especially Dolly's father, Andrew Thorne, who has his own ideas about why Tess has turned up next door.

But when Tess discovers a human skeleton in her dirt cellar, she begins to ask questions about the history of the carriage house, the untimely death of Andrew's wife…and Ike's disappearance. Questions a desperate killer wants to silence before the truth reveals that someone got away with murder.

Kara Galway thought moving home to Texas after years in New England would put her life back in perspective. An up-and-coming defense attorney, she intends to concentrate on her career and on spending time with her Texas Ranger brother, Jack, and his wife, Susanna. But fate has something else in store.

First, Kara's good friend and mentor, Connecticut governor Mike Parisi, dies under suspicious circumstances. Then the children of the new governor, Kara's best friend, Allyson Stockwell, show up unannounced at Kara's home in Austin. It's clear the children are scared out of their wits-and hiding something. Something connected to their mother's new role as governor and to Mike's death. And then there's Sam Temple, the Texas Ranger she can't believe she's fallen head over heels in love with.

Now Kara has to return to Allyson's home, Stonebrook Cottage, with the children to unravel what exactly is going on. Are the children really in danger? What secrets is Allyson hiding? And what is she going to do about Sam Temple, who has followed her to Connecticut and has no intention of leaving without her?

Texas Ranger Jack Galway knows his wife Susanna loves him, so when their marriage hits a rough patch, he supports her decision to take their teenaged daughters to Boston for a break. But now a couple of weeks has turned into several months and Jack has had enough. He wants his family back.

Ex-convict Alice Parker left a mess back in Texas, and she'll never forgive Jack Galway for killing her dream of ever becoming a Texas Ranger herself. Now, guided by greed and vengeance, she's got her sights set on his family.

Packing up the girls and her grandmother, Susanna heads to a cabin in the Adirondacks, trying to escape her fears, her secrets…and maybe even the man she loves. Little does she realize they are being followed, only this time by her husband…and a murderer.

Deputy U.S. Marshal Juliet Longstreet has made her share of enemies, and now one of them is out of prison and threatening to kill her. Her mission: find him first.

But hot on her suspect's trail is Special Forces officer Ethan Brooker, who has a way of dropping into Juliet's life without warning. Haunted by his wife's death, Ethan is a man Juliet knows she should avoid. And now he's focused on a related mission of his own and can't-or won't-give Juliet any details.

When she finds her doorman dead and her New York apartment ransacked, Juliet tracks down Ethan-this time she wants answers. They agree to team up, and as they fight their growing attraction to each other, their race to stop a ruthless killer takes them north to Juliet's family in Vermont…and into the heart of a dangerous web of lies, greed, deceit-and murder.

On what is supposed to be a quiet long weekend in New Hampshire, Deputy U.S. Marshal Mackenzie Stewart is viciously attacked at the lakefront cottage of her friend, federal judge Bernadette Peacham. Mackenzie fends off her attacker, but he manages to escape. Everything suggests he's a deranged drifter—until FBI special agent Andrew Rook arrives.

With Rook, Mackenzie broke her own rule not to get involved with anyone in law enforcement, but she knows he isn't up from Washington, D.C., to set things straight between them. He's on a case.

As the hunt for the mysterious attacker continues, the case takes an unexpected turn when Mackenzie follows Rook back to Washington and finds that Bernadette's former mentor, a once-powerful, now-disgraced judge who has been providing Rook with information, has gone missing. Mackenzie and Rook realize the stakes are higher than either had imagined, and a master criminal with nothing left to lose is prepared to gamble everything.