The Russell House

When Roxanne Russell's mother dies, her father is away on a business trip. The young military widow leaves dozens of messages for her father but receives no response. Looking for a copy of her mother's obituary, Roxie reads an article in the newspaper and discovers her entire life is a web of lies, secrets, and deceit. The story sends her off in search of the truth about the man she idolized. She drives to her father's birthplace-Manhattan, Kansas-and moves into her grandmother's huge, three-story, hundred-and-fifty-year-old house. It's been vacant for decades, but Roxie begins to believe she's not the only occupant. She doesn't know if there's an intruder or if the spirit of her grandmother is watching over her. In only a matter of days, someone has made several attempts on her life. She calls in her best friend, Janice Tallchief-retired on a disability from the Kansas City Police Department-to act as her bodyguard. Can Jan and Roxie unravel the mystery before the killer succeeds?

A Michigan native who studied writing in school, Donna first came to Vegas to make costumes and soon was weaving the stories she heard in the back of the girl’s dressing room into her first novel. Now she is the author of ＂The Alexandra Merritt Mysteries,＂ which include ’The Last Two Aces in Las Vegas, ’ ’The Las Vegas Desert Flower, ’ ’The Las Vegas Special, ’ ’Rough Ride in Vegas’, ’M.I.A. Las Vegas’ and the recently published ’The Las Vegas Sophisticate’. She also has several thrillers, ’Desperate Ambition, ’ about a political assassination, ’The Right Society, ’ about a devout Christian family that moves into a religious community and finds it’s easier to get in than it is to get out, and ’The Other Hand, ’ about a famous athlete who leaves his family for a young, virginal girl. Shortly after they divorce, she winds up slaughtered. He is the primary suspect, but not the only one. Donna has a popular series of historical romances, ＂The Manhattan Stories＂, ’Jessica’, ’Pillsbury Crossing’, ’The Cabin’, ’Kimimela’ and ’D’Arcy Curran’. A 6th and 7th in the series is in progress. A light-hearted work, ’Conversations With Skip, ’ is the story of a shelter dog adopted by a young woman having trouble sleeping after her divorce. With his unusual ability to communicate, he is soon running her life, arranging her romances, and teaching her to laugh again. She has also written three screenplays, a stage play, poetry, short stories, and a deeply personal account of her grandmother’s life titled ’Maude’ which spent more than 16 weeks running on the Wall Street journal’s best-sellers list, has been translated and published in Italy, with Russian, German and Slovak translations soon to follow. Donna stills takes occasional classes at UNLV and at writer’s conferences and is an active member of the Anthem Author’s in Henderson, NV.