Showing results by author "Donna Ball" in All Categories

Dogleg Island Police Chief Aggie Malone has spent years searching for the identity of her birth father. Now, thanks to a home DNA test, she has a lead...but it’s taking her in a direction she never could have imagined, and desperately does not want to go. Because the evidence suggests that Aggie could be the daughter of the infamous Angelo, head of the deadly Ghost Syndicate crime empire. Matters become more complicated when Aggie’s canine partner, Flash, discovers an abandoned child on the beach.

Aggie Malone is a dedicated young cop who has spent her entire life just looking for a place to call home. She never thought she'd find it in a quaint Florida village called Dogleg Island, where almost nothing ever happens. Deputy Ryan Grady is an easygoing playboy who carries a surf board in the trunk of his patrol car and lives in the same rambling beach cottage his grandfather built 70 years ago. He grew up on Dogleg Island and can't imagine ever living anywhere else. It's always been the most peaceful place he has ever known.

It's Christmas Eve, and Cici, Bridget and Lindsay are busy preparing for their annual holiday party. The tree is sparkling, the turkey is roasting, the stockings are hung and the eggnog is chilled. The scene is set for the perfect Christmas...with one or two exceptions. The entire state is in the midst of a heat wave. No one can find any mistletoe. The Christmas tree lights keep exploding, and, perhaps worst of all, something has gone terribly wrong with Ida Mae's fruitcakes.

Raine Stockton knows dogs, not kids. Nonetheless, she is supremely confident in her ability to take care her fiancé’s 10-year-old daughter Melanie for a week while he is out of town. After all, how hard could it be? But things get complicated when Raine and her golden retriever Cisco rescue a dog who is locked in a hot car in a remote Smoky Mountain park and subsequently discover the owner of that car drowned in the creek only a few dozen yards away. Was it an accident, or was it murder?

A deadly explosion at an archaeological dig on Dogleg Island plunges police chief Aggie Malone and her canine partner Flash into a dark mystery from the past. On the other side of the bridge, Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady, still reeling from the brutal assassination of his ex-partner, stumbles onto the site of a mass murder. In the midst of a state-wide manhunt for a desperate fugitive, Aggie deals with a new island administrator who threatens the future of police department, while a mysterious stranger with an agenda of his own stalks Grady.

Police Chief Aggie Malone is facing her first Christmas as a married woman, and hoping for a relatively uneventful holiday in the quiet Gulf Coast community of Dogleg Island where she, along with her perspicacious border collie Flash, is in charge of keeping the peace. She is still trying to find her place in the big, boisterous Grady family, but unlike Flash - and her own husband, Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady - Aggie does not see the appeal of the holiday, and the magic of the season is completely lost on her. The old-fashioned Christmas Grady has planned for his bride begins to unravel when Aggie's investigation into a homicide hit-and-run leads to the arrest of her own brother-in-law and exposes a crime syndicate that's responsible for spreading millions in counterfeit bills throughout the southeast.

Still recovering from the traumatic events of the past year, newlyweds Aggie Malone, police chief of Dogleg Island, and Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady are looking forward to a casual day trip to Wild Horse Island, a nearby nature preserve, with their precocious - and uncannily perceptive - border collie, Flash. But when Flash discovers a body in a shallow grave on the island, and Aggie and Ryan learn of an attack on the park ranger, a tangled knot of conspiracy, murder and deception begins to unfold.

The annual Hansonville, North Carolina Founder’s Day Festival it’s a perfect opportunity to raise money for the local animal shelter for Raine Stockton...but when a stranger wanders into her fund-raising booth, the peaceful country afternoon is turned into chaos....  When the unthinkable happens and an innocent life is placed in jeopardy, Raine is forced to make a terrible choice: one that will shake her to her very core and cause her to question not only herself, but everything she has ever believed.

Hollywood has come to the scenic Smoky Mountain community of Hanover County, and dog-trainer Raine Stockton can’t resist the opportunity when her dogs are offered a chance at a role in the film. Filmmaking turns out not to be as exciting as Raine had expected, and the only upside to the long, mostly boring days is the new friend she makes on the set, a stuntwoman by the name of Dallas McKenzie. But it doesn’t take Raine long to discover Dallas is a woman of secrets and lies, and trouble seems to follow her wherever she goes. 

Raine's old boyfriend Andy Fontana is back in town...and at the top of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. With a fortune in diamonds hidden somewhere in the wilderness, several recent acts of eco-terrorism and an unsolved murder laid at Andy's door, the feds turn to Raine Stockton, with her unsurpassed knowledge of the mountains and her reputation as a wilderness tracker, to help bring Andy to justice. The only problem is that Raine still believes Andy is innocent...

It's Christmas time, and for Raine Stockton and her Search and Rescue dog, Cisco, Hansonville, North Carolina is just like a Norman Rockwell painting - except for the rash of thefts of baby Jesus figurines from nativity scenes, an abandoned box of golden retriever puppies that someone leaves beside her mailbox, and a mysterious gift from one of Cisco's a grateful admirers. Raine already has her hands full with her own misbehaving pooches, unexpected house guests, and a complicated new relationship.

As a native of the small town of Hansonville, North Carolina,and a wilderness rescue worker, Raine Stockton knows the Smoky Mountains as well as anyone could, but she gave up her Search and Rescue work after a tragic loss. Now she reluctantly returns to active duty to help find a young child who has been kidnapped and taken deep into the forest.

No one knows the mountains of North Carolina like Raine Stockton and her search and rescue dog, Cisco. When they are called in to search for an elderly man who has wandered away from home, it seems like a routine mission until Raine looks through her binoculars and sees something she wasn't supposed to see. A dead man is very much alive, a felon is walking around free, and Raine is the only person who can testify to the fact. The problem is that no one takes her claims seriously...except the person who wants her dead.

For Raine Stockton, owner and proprietor of Dog Daze Boarding and Training, August is the busiest time of year. She has all she can handle with a kennel full of dogs, a very strange new employee, and a personal life that seems to be falling apart at the seams. The last thing she needs is another complication. But when she takes in a gorgeous white golden retriever that was found covered in blood and wandering alone in a national park, the complications have only begun.

January is known as the dead season in the small Smoky mountain community of Hanover County, North Carolina. For dog trainer and wilderness expert Raine Stockton, who hasn't had a client in six month, this season has been deader than most.

Come sit on the porch a spell. Let's talk about times gone by and folks we remember, about slow summer evenings and lightning bugs in a jar. Listen to the music of a creaky swing and hand-cranked ice cream and cicadas chorusing in the sultry night air. Let's talk about how things used to be in the South - and for some of us, they way they still are. Welcome to the world of Sweet Tea and Jesus Shoes, where award winning authors Deborah Smith, Sandra Chastain, Virginia Ellis, Debra Dixon, Donna Ball and Nancy Knight come together for the first time to create this poignant, humorous collection of nostalgic tales.

The vineyard has been restored and Ladybug Farm Winery is on the verge of bottling its first vintage. Their friends Paul and Derrick are building a house next door. High school and college graduations are just around the corner for the two young people they have shepherded for the past four years. Life couldn't be more perfect. But Ladybug Farm still holds a few surprises for them all...

For dog trainer and search-and-rescue volunteer Raine Stockton, the last few months have been marked by murder, danger, and betrayal. A luxury vacation to the Caribbean resort island of St. Bart's sounds like the perfect antidote for stress, particularly since it includes three of her favorite traveling companions: her boyfriend, Miles; his daughter, Melanie; and Raine's happy-go-lucky golden retriever, Cisco. But even in paradise, trouble finds them.

Dog trainer Raine Stockton has lived all her life in the quiet community of Hansonville, North Carolina. She is the daughter of a judge, the niece of a sheriff, and the ex-wife of a deputy. She does not lead the kind of life, generally speaking, in which people get buried in her backyard. But when Cisco, Raine's mischievous golden retriever, digs up human bones beneath the site of what will soon be her new training kennel, mayhem ensues.

Paul Slater and Derrick Anderson set about opening the Hummingbird House B&B with their usual style and flair, only to find that they may have taken on more than they bargained for. Despite constant coaching from their friends Cici, Bridget and Lindsay, they don't seem to be able to do anything right. Before they know how it happened, they are at odds with their teenage housekeeper, overwhelmed by a zany spiritualist who seems determined to take over their lives, and, most horrifying of all, on the wrong side of the law.