Borrow My Books

Okay, so you don't live physically near enough to me to do that. But Kindle Unlimited is a fee-based Amazon program that lets you borrow lots of books for the monthly subscription price ($9.99). There are more than one million titles in the program, and you can keep up to ten books at a time, with no return date.

Think of KU as a library. We buy books we know we will reread or perhaps books of favorite authors, but others will only be enjoyed once. Authors get paid based on the number of pages KU borrowers read. If you don't have a Kindle, download to your computer or phone.

The Frannie Shoemaker Campground Mysteries

the blue coyote

Frannie and Larry Shoemaker love taking their grandchildren, Sabet and Joe, camping with them. But at Bluffs State Park, Frannie finds herself worrying more than usual about their safety, and when another young girl disappears from the campground in broad daylight, her fears increase. The fun of a bike ride, a flea market, marshmallow guns, and a storyteller are quickly overshadowed. Accusations against Larry and her add to the cloud over their heads. Frannie begins to puzzle out the mystery:

to cache a killer

Geocaching isn't supposed to be about finding dead bodies. But when retiree, Frannie Shoemaker go camping, standard definitions don't apply. A weekend in a beautiful state park in Iowa buzzes with fund-raising events, a search for Ninja turtles, a bevy of suspects, and lots of great food. But are the campers in the wrong place at the wrong time once too often?

real actors, not people

Frannie Shoemaker and her friends go camping to get away from the real world. So they are surprised and dismayed to find their wilderness campground the production site of a new 'reality' show--Celebrity Campout. Reality intrudes on their week in the form of accidents, nature, and even murder. They handle the situation with their usual humor, compassion, and mystery solving, because...camping can be murder.

Happy Camper Tips and Recipes

A collection of recipes, camping hints, and campground descriptions from the award-winning Frannie Shoemaker cozy campground mysteries.

peete and repeat

An IndieBRAG Medallion Honoree. A biking and camping trip to southeastern Minnesota turns into double trouble for Frannie Shoemaker and her friends as she deals with a canoeing mishap and a couple of bodies. Strange happenings in the campground, the nearby nature learning center, and an old power plant complicate the suspect pool and Frannie tries to stay out of it--really--but what can she do?

a campy christmas

A Holiday novella. The Shoemakers and Ferraros plan to spend Christmas in Texas with Larry and Jane Ann’s brother and then take a camping trip through the Southwest. But those plans are stopped cold when they hit a rogue ice storm in Missouri and they end up snowbound in a campground. And that’s just the beginning. Includes recipes and winter camping tips.

corpse of discovery

Over two hundred years ago, famed explorer Meriwether Lewis died on the Natchez Trace under mysterious circumstances. Historians still argue whether it was suicide or murder. That shouldn't affect a weekend campout in present day for Frannie Shoemaker and her friends, but it does. They meet interesting characters at a mountain man rendezvous and get mixed up as usual with the strange goings on. Because camping can be murder!

the lady of the lake

 An IndieBRAG Medallion Honoree. A trip down memory lane is fine if you don’t stumble on a body. Frannie Shoemaker and her friends camp  near one of Donna Nowak’s childhood homes. They take in the county fair, reminisce at a Fifties-Sixties dance, and check out old hangouts. But the present intrudes when a body surfaces. Donna becomes the focus of the investigation and Frannie wonders if the police shouldn’t be looking closer at the victim’s many enemies.

the space invader

A cozy/thriller mystery! The starry skies over New Mexico, the "Land of Enchantment," may hold secrets of their own. The Shoemakers and the Ferraros, on an extended camping trip, find themselves picking up a souvenir they don't want and taking sidetrips they didn't plan on.



mask of death

During the pandemic, camping was supposed to be a fairly safe activity. That's only if you don't camp with Frannie Shoemaker. Frannie and her husband Larry commit in the fall of 2019 to take on a campground hosting job in the spring of 2020. In that time, the world turned upside down and their job came with a whole new set of challenges. But of course, where Frannie's involved, other trouble can't be far behind!

The Time Travel Trailer Series

The Time Travel Trailer

A 1937 vintage camper trailer half hidden in weeds catches Lynne McBriar’s eye when she is visiting an elderly friend Ben. Ben eagerly sells it to her. But after each remodel, sleeping in the trailer lands Lynne and her daughter Dinah in a previous decade—exciting, yet frightening. When Dinah makes a trip on her own, separating herself from her mother by decades, Lynne has never known such fear. It is a trip that may upset the future if Lynne and her estranged husband can't team up to bring their daughter back.

Trailer on the Fly

Trailer, Get Your Kicks!
How many of us have wished at some time or other we could go back in time and change an action or a decision or just take back something that was said? But it is what it is. There is no rewind, reboot, delete key or any other trick to change the past, right?
Lynne McBriar can. She bought a 1937 camper that turned out to be a time portal. And when she meets a young woman who suffers from serious depression over the loss of a close friend ten years earlier, she has the power to do something about it. And there is no reason not to use that power.
Right?
Lynne McBriar swore her vintage trailer would stay in a museum where it would be safe from further time travel. But when a museum in Texas wants to borrow it, she determines that she must deliver it herself. Her husband Kurt convinces her to take it along Route 66 for research he is doing. What starts out as a family vacation soon turns deadly. Travel can be dangerous any time, but when your trip involves the Time Travel Trailer, who knows where (or when) you will end up? The family encounters early restaurants and motels along the Mother Road and even runs into a little romance.

The Mystery Sisters Series

Reunion and Revenge

Maxine Berra and Lillian Garrett, sisters in their seventies, travel together to visit friends and relatives in Max's 1950 red Studebaker with her Irish Setter, Rosie. Does that mean they are amicable companions? Not at all. But when, during a family reunion, the murder of a family friend throws suspicion on their shiftless younger brother, they put their heads together to try to save him.

Foliage and Fatality

Seventy-something sisters, Max and Lil, visit western Pennsylvania, partly to see Lil's son Terry and his family, and partly to enjoy to colorful fall foliage. The sisters volunteer to help staff a fund-raiser haunted house. The house has amazing special effects and a haunted garden. It is hugely popular and should bring in a lot of money for the new school auditorium. What could go wrong?

Double Dutch Death

Sometimes tiptoeing through the tulips can lead to murder! Max and Lil, seventy-something sisters, visit their cousin Bess in the middle of the Tulip Fest. But things don't turn out so rosy for a couple of Bess' acquaintances who end up pushing up daisies.