Ghosts: A Boxed Set

A Note from the Author:

Ghosts. Some people believe in them, some people don't. Some people just aren't sure. Put me in the last camp. I never believed in them until one midnight, I bolted awake to see a figure dressed like a court jester in olive-green velvet appear at the foot of our bed. More than a heart-thumping experience, it was a baffling one. What did I know about ghosts -- or court jesters, for that matter? My close encounter was many years ago, but it's stayed with me. And so has the vintage film "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir." I'm a fan of vintage films, and that one was one of my mother's favorites. The movie inspired me to write EMILY'S GHOST, a lighthearted tale with moments of fear and peril. TIME AFTER TIME is another ghost story with a light touch. BEYOND MIDNIGHT, on the other hand, treats the idea of otherworldiness more seriously. If you believe, if you don't, if you're not sure -- there will be something in this collection for you. Enjoy.

TIME AFTER TIME: In Gilded Age Newport, an upstairs-downstairs romance between a well-born son and a humble maid is cut short of marriage. A hundred years later, the descendants of that ill-fated union seem destined to repeat history.

Or not. Liz Coppersmith, a party planner, hopes to move beyond kids' parties at Chuck E. Cheese to planning premier events among the upper crust in Newport, Rhode Island. Her first upscale client is confirmed bachelor Jack Eastman, a party pooper who's struggling to keep the family empire afloat and would be just fine with Chuck E. Cheese.

Jack is also juggling an untrained puppy, two illegitimate toddlers, a runaway mother and an aging Casanova father. But it's not all sweetness and light for Liz, either: she finds herself in the middle of an historic mystery, with an amnesiac friend, a thief on the loose and a recurring apparition that may or may not be her imagination.

EMILY'S GHOST: Emily Bowditch is a skeptical, tightfisted Boston reporter who's determined to expose aristocratic Senator Lee Alden's fascination with psychic events and his willingness to waste taxpayer dollars to fund research in it. Plan A is to gain his confidence by convincing him that she has psychic powers. That flops. Plan B is to accompany the sexy, widowed young senator to a séance and write an exposé about it. As séances go, not much happens, despite the disturbing, electrifying tension in the room. It's not until Emily is back in her tiny Boston condo that she realizes she hasn't come home alone. Fergus O'Malley, a handsome 19th century scoundrel hanged for a murder he swears he didn't commit, needs someone to clear him of the crime. Emily, apparently, is it.

BEYOND MIDNIGHT: Three centuries after the infamous witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Helen Evett, owner of a prestigious preschool there, finds her family and life's work threatened because of her sudden desire to protect the three-year-old daughter of a man who knows a lot about finance but little about fathering. Helen's feelings toward Katie's dad are decidedly mixed, and it will take more than knocks in the night, perfumed air, and bone-chilling cold to convince her otherwise.

Nathaniel Byrne is just as ambivalent about Helen. Recently widowed, tormented by the circumstances, and at sea about being a single parent, Nat is not inclined to hand over his daughter to this singularly pushy woman. The London-trained nanny who cares for his daughter agrees.

And the nanny herself? Peaches Bartholemew is as clever as she is beautiful, as efficient as she is soothing. Peaches can do anything. The trick, for Nat's dead wife, will be to keep her from doing it.