A Gift for Christmas

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 16 Dec 2011

A treat for Olivia Stowe fans - a Christmas Short story (2,000 words only) about Charlotte and Brenda's second Christmas Eve together.

Click on cover image to read more or download.

In the fifth Charlotte Diamond mystery, the retired FBI investigator and her significant other, glamorous senior movie star Brenda Brandon (aka Boynton), return from a murder- and gem-theft-punctuated Christmas cruise down the Rhine River to confusion and catastrophe in their usually quiet retirement village of Hopewell on the Choptank in Maryland. The wooded lot next door to Brenda’s historical mansion, a lot that Brenda thought she owned, is being bulldozed by a New York construction firm for a mystery development. All of the homes and land from Charlotte’s own riverside cottage to the end of their road are being leveled as well, including Charlotte’s neighbors’ house, and she has no idea where their dog sitter may have gone with their beloved dogs, Rocket and Sam.

In 1973 James’s seventeen-year-old sister, Maria, disappeared while on her way home from school. Her disappearance not only shattered her family, it had strange, far-reaching repercussions for her ten-year-old brother. He was too young to fully understand what had happened but was left to cope alone while his parents struggled to deal with his sister’s disappearance.

Over thirty years later the police arrive on James’s doorstep to tell him that Maria’s remains have been found outside Broken Hill, an isolated mining town nearly half way across Australia from where she was last seen. But it is a town that had strong connections with his family back when his sister went missing.

Savannah Series by Olivia Stowe

Savannah Series Book 1

Chatham Square by Olivia Stowe

Inspirational, Romance, Mystery/Suspense

This charming and inspirational story reflects perfectly what makes the beautifully designed and peopled southern city of Savannah the special place that it is.  

It is seemingly a coincidence that master doll maker Ginny Standler inherits a co-op apartment fronting on the Chatham Square of Savannah, Georgia, from her Aunt Marie while simultaneously being offered an interim teaching position at Savannah’s College of Art and Design. Both circumstances enable and propel her to escape the Fan district of Richmond, Virginia, and its constant reminders of a romance having gone disturbingly sour and giving Ginny pause to question her value system and relationships with others.

Dropped unceremoniously in the quirky charm of Savannah’s park-laced historical district—and most significantly into contact with the people who live and thrive in that environment—Ginny quickly becomes entwined with a grouchy recluse; a sour, erratic, and sometimes irrational bag lady; a young girl direly in need of  healing; a young waiter laughing through his tears; a bitter poet; and a possible new love interest . . .

Savannah Series Book 2

Savannah Time by Olivia Stowe

Inspirational, Romance,

Savannah Time is a story of human caring, loyalty, inevitable change, bittersweet heartbreak, and hope, set in the lovely garden that is historic Savannah.

In this follow-on to Chatham Square, the eclectic collection of residents of one of Savannah’s original residential squares have moved along in the almost-glacial “Savannah time” pace of this southern city, although, for some, the concern is that the pace is going too fast—that inevitable unwanted change is in the air.

Samantha, the little black girl with the deformed leg of the previous book, has grown to nearly her eighteenth birthday. The residents of the square who rallied to ensure she had the reconstructive operations she needed are, for the most part, now in need of nurturing attention themselves, and Samantha is providing the “Florence Nightingale” support they need. But Samantha is at a cross-roads in her life. She has long said she wanted to become a doctor, but as the time approaches for her to leave home in pursuit of that dream, she feels the pull to remain in Chatham Square to help her friends.

Conflicted between what they want and what Samantha needs, her friends on the square fight to conquer their own fear of change for Samantha’s sake. The doll maker, Ginny, who is the emotional “glue” for the residents of the square and employs Samantha as her assistant; Rose, the matriarch “queen of the square”; Arnie, the irascible but kindly super of Ginny and Samantha’s apartment house; and the ailing bookstore pair, Tom and Edward, all have to bow to inevitable changes if Samantha is going to be set free.

Added to the mix are two young men vying for Samantha’s attention and a new resident to the square, a novelist on a mysterious mission.

 Click on cover image to read more or buy.