Laura Levine

When the neighborhood Scrooge, former child star Scotty Parker, is murdered, freelance writer Jaine Austen, who was helping him stage a comeback, finds herself on the list of suspects and must find the real killer.

When Jaine Austen is hired by nerdy Howard Murdoch to pen a love letter to gorgeous aerobics instructor Stacy Lawrence, she gets caught up in a murder investigation when Stacy is found beaten to death and Howard is accused of the crime.

While working on a reality TV show in the tropics, freelance writer Jaine Austen finds murder entering the script when one of the finalists dies in a freak accident, forcing Jaine to join the investigation before any of the other contestants suffer the same fate.

On the front lines of the battle of the bulge, otherwise known as trying on bathing suits in the communal dressing room at Loehmann's, Jaine makes a new friend--a wanna-be actress named Pam--and gets a new job: sprucing up Pam's bare-bones resume. Their feeling of connection is mutual, so Pam invites Jaine to join The PMS Club--a women's support group that meets once a week over guacamole and margaritas to commiserate about love and life. But joining...

If clothes make the man, then what do Jaine Austen's elastic-waist pants and T-shirts make her? A fashion nightmare, according to her neighbor, Lance. She doesn't expect Lance-who works in the designer shoe department at Nieman Marcus-to understand . . . which is how she ends up visiting his favorite boutique, Passions. While the couture is definitely not for Jaine, the staff's gossip is. Tiny orange-haired clerk Becky starts complaining about her...

Hannah Swensen of the Cookie Jar in Lake Eden, Minn., discovers her neighbor's head bashed in; Jaine Austen's holiday stay at her parents' home in the Tampa Vistas retirement community is enlivened by the murder of elderly lothario; and, Maine reporter Lucy Stone investigates a four-year-old boy's disappearance. Includes recipes.