Showing results by author "Amanda McKinney" in All Categories

They told him he’d been given a second chance at life. Told him to count his lucky stars, to stop and smell the roses. Kind of hard to do when your body is bound by chains and cuffs. That’s what it felt like, anyway, when Phoenix Steele woke up from his coma to a life full of restrictions. Once known around town as the fearless, indomitable heir to the Steele fortune, the former Marine was suddenly labeled unstable, short-tempered, and loose cannon. Unwilling to accept his issues, Phoenix instantly clashes with his assertive therapist - the town’s most eligible bachelorette.

Cocky, reckless, and die-hard playboy are just a few of the names Gage Steele has been called since he left the Marines and moved back to the small, southern town of Berry Springs to take over his fathers security firm. On the one-year anniversary of his father's death, Gage has only two things in mind—endless whiskey and endless women. What he got was a battered, bruised spitfire stumbling through woods in the middle of the night.

When Aria, a young girl with autism, goes missing, search and rescue expert Beckett Stolle ventures into the swamplands of Texas to track her down. When he finds the girl, she is alive, sitting next to a corpse painted in blood. Accusations fly, including suspicion that Aria was involved in the macabre murder. Beckett, however, fears this is the work of a notorious serial killer, turning his rescue mission into a hunt for a murderer.

My husband is lying. The minute he came home with alcohol on his breath and unable to look me in the eyes I knew it. We used to be in love–the intense ‘I can’t be without you for a second’ kind. Where it hurts deep to be apart. But now, we’re the couple that keep secrets from each other. We hide the truth. He thought I wouldn’t find out. I’m a detective–it’s literally my job to uncover clues and solve mysteries. I know what he did. And now I’m sitting here, in a police interview, being asked the question ‘did you kill her?’ to which I utter one life-shattering word: ‘yes.’

In the swamps of East Texas, alligators aren’t the only danger lurking in the shadows. After a young woman is brutally attacked on a popular hiking trail, the evidence points to the notorious Black Cat Stalker. The town of Skull Hollow enlists Dr. Mia Frost to provide a psychological profile and assist in the investigation. When another person goes missing, Mia partners with Easton Crew, former marine and current CEO of a tactical tracking company. Both Mia and Easton are stubborn, strong-willed, and independent, but neither can deny the smoldering attraction between them.

Hidden deep in the remote mountains of Berry Springs is a private security firm where some go to escape, and others find exactly what they’ve been looking for. Welcome to cabin one, cabin two, cabin three. Always be prepared - that was Axel Steele’s motto. While his brothers were throwing down at the local bar, Ax was the guy in the background devising the getaway plan. Dubbed “the smart one”, the former special-ops Marine believed in structure and routine, a way of life the universe seemed hellbent on challenging.

Businessman. CEO. Head of household. Three titles worst suited for Gunner Steele, the short tempered, reticent former Marine and rebel of the infamous Steele brothers. After an evening searching the mountains for his missing office manager, Gunner finds an undercover agent at his front door demanding protection — and that anyone but him be her bodyguard. Usually, Gunner didn’t give a damn if someone disliked him, but this particular curvy vixen had information about the man who killed his father and maimed his brother.

Feared just as much on the streets as at a crime scene, homicide detective Max Jagger has dedicated his life to one thing: speaking for the dead. Everyone and everything else be damned, including his own demons. During one of the most oppressive heat waves to hit the small, southern town of Berry Springs, the former Navy SEAL is called to a scene where a real estate heiress is found standing over a dead body, holding the murder weapon.

When American schoolteacher Samantha Greene goes missing in Mexico, the US government calls on private military firm, Astor Stone Inc., to assist in finding her. Former soldier Roman Thieves volunteers for the case, seizing the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

At three in the morning, Detective Ame Bassette receives a panicked call from her sister Delphine who has just killed her drug-dealing boyfriend. Ame makes a snap decision—to risk everything to save her sister from spending life behind bars. Together, they go on the run, but quickly discover that some secrets will follow wherever you go.

Life is full of surprises, rescue swimmer Owen Grayson knows that better than anyone, especially when he’s forced to take an indefinite military leave and return home to pick up the pieces of his dad’s latest mistake. As Owen struggles to settle back into his roots, he is called to a remote cave where he's pulled into a mystery that hits a little too close to home. As the clues begin to unravel, it becomes apparent that the cave is hiding secrets worth killing for…and everyone on site has a target on their back.

Photographer by day, Ben and Jerry’s enthusiast by night, Louise Sloane isn’t known for her organizational skills or obsession to detail. But when someone from her past goes missing, she makes it her mission to solve the case - especially when the mystery becomes linked to the notorious serial killer, the String Strangler.

Former Marine-turned-ballistics expert, Wesley Cross is known around town for two things, his rugged good looks and cocky attitude - until he finds his ex-girlfriend lying in a puddle of blood in his basement. The scene screams setup, but the discovery of a rare gem and a puzzling autopsy suggests the murder goes much deeper than that. Wesley will do whatever it takes to clear his name, including calling in a notoriously headstrong - and sexy - scientist.

Owner of Archer and Archer, Inc., a prestigious New York private investigative firm, Colette Archer embodies effortless perfection in her couture suits and trademark chignon. But this private investigator has a secret. When night falls, Colette slips on her wig and into the persona of a tequila-guzzling hustler who occasionally fancies two men instead of one.

Antiques dealer by day, painter by night, Rory Flanagan arrives home to find a man, battered and bruised, sprawled out on her newly upholstered Victorian sofa. The brash, six-foot-four stranger takes an unusual interest in Rory's vintage gold pendant given to Rory by her mother the day she was killed. They say Christian Locke is a loner, an orphan, a mysterious cowboy the small-town gossips deem an outsider. They tell her to stay away. But Rory can't ignore the connection she feels to the mulish recluse, or the interest he has in the cursed necklace she wears around her neck.

After leaving her posh NYC life behind, fashion editor Grey Dalton escapes to the small, southern town of Berry Springs to pick up the broken pieces of her life. On impulse, she purchases a rumored-to-be-haunted house where she finds herself thrown into a decade-old murder mystery, and onto the rocky road of recovery and self-discovery. Men are the last thing on her mind—until she meets a tattooed cowboy and a dashing businessman. One will steal her heart, the other, her soul.

A gruesome murder linking to a famous painting sends FBI Criminal Profiler Eli Archer down a path of lies, deceit...and infatuation. Eli Archer has been called many things at the Bureau, but carefree and light-hearted aren’t two of them. As one of the FBI’s top criminal profilers, Eli spends his days inside the minds of sadistic serial killers, and he’s got the brooding eyes and permanently packed suitcase to prove it. Days, murderers, and dead bodies blend together until he gets a call about a homicide that’s shockingly similar to a case that haunts him.

When DNA evidence links Lieutenant Quinn Colson’s brother to the scene of a grisly murder, Quinn realizes he'll do anything to keep his brother from returning to prison, even if it costs him his job...and the woman who’s stolen his heart. Shooting range owner by day, yoga instructor by night, Bobbi Cross is as ironic as her two businesses - she’s an independent, tough-as-nails woman, except when she’s meditating away the discontentment she feels inside.

At 2:00 a.m. Sylvia Stone awakens to a letter on her doorstep suggesting the handsome carpenter, Rhett Cohen, who was convicted of murdering her mother twenty years earlier, is innocent. The anonymous letters continue, each one revealing details only the true killer would know, making Sylvia question her testimony years ago.

On a frigid winter night, Daniel Klein was stabbed to death in his penthouse suite by his wife, Julia. At least that’s what the police report reads. The truth, however, is far more sinister. After relocating to a remote cabin in the middle of the mountains, Julia’s only goal in life is to piece together her broken past. But questions about that fateful night arise when Logan, Julia’s brother-in-law, shows up on her doorstep—with evidence that things are not as they appear.