A collection of holiday tales includes Fern Michaels's "Silver Bells," in which a beautiful movie star decides to leave her glamorous life behind and return home to Apple Valley, Pennsylvania, where she encounters her old high-school boyfriend.

Glassblower Emmeline Dowell has made a home for herself among the artists of Tucson's Warehouse District. With a weakness for taking in strays from homeless dogs to extra students, Emmeline can't help befriending troubled newcomer Allison McBride. But their friendship takes a dangerous turn when Em finds Allison's husband in the studio - dead. And when the killer acts again, it's up to her to pick up the shards of Allison's life before it's too late....

On a snowy December night, twelve women meet for a cookie exchange, where they tell stories of the cookies they baked, tales that are emblematic of the year that has just passed.

Hamish Macbeth, Scotland's most laconic and low-tech policeman, investigates the death of a woman with seemingly unearthly powers.

Imagine waking up in your son's home, not remembering anything from the day before, and being accused of murder. Cantankerous octogenarian Paul Jacobson struggles with short-term memory loss. As he ends up suspiciously close to a bank robbery, a kidnapping, and a drug bust, his granddaughter helps him track down the real perpetrators. Paul juggles two girlfriends and confronts a murderer in this second in the series.

When Tucson glassblower Emmeline Dowell is asked to help out on a commission for enigmatic software mogul Peter Ferguson, she finds it hard to say no. It doesn't hurt that Peter is much better looking than the average computer nerd, or that he's giving her the opportunity to work on his multimillion-dollar stained glass collection. Em thinks she's hit the artistic jackpot -- until she finds the glass missing, and its owner dead in a pool of blood....

After rookie lawyer Jessica Monaghan meets with the First Lady, the VIP is killed in a car accident in which Jessica manages to survive. When she suspects the accident was something else and she becomes the next target, she and experienced FBI agent Mark Ryan team up to uncover the plot behind the First Lady's murder.

When her father, Petros, falls victim to a hit-and-run accident and is brutally injured, Dr. Thea Sperelakis struggles to assemble the facts regarding the accident, soon suspecting an attempt at homicide. Her father, serving as the only witness to the scene, must communicate to Thea through eye blinks, and what he reveals is horrifying.

The homeward-bound pioneers do not know that five million dollars in contraband gold is hidden beneath the false floors of their Conestogas nor that their wagon master is a rebel officer.