the setup… Water…Earth…Fire…Air. These four elements are used to provide illustrative perspectives in four interconnected stories about aspects of crime, originally published as separate novellas. The enabler is about a woman fleeing from her husband’s scandal, wondering about her possible complicity, with the water element having a strong influence. The accomplice is a young man searching for love and identity who becomes a famous soccer player, the last thing he wanted to be, with a connection to the earth element. The perpetrator is a woman who weaponizes her own trauma, fire being the element with which she best embraces.

the setup… Maggie McCabe, a former combat and humanitarian surgeon, is highly skilled and was equally regarded until she lost her license because of a tragic accident. Now she and her genius sister Sharon are drowning in debt and a financially crippling lawsuit…until she’s offered a lifeline from an old mentor. It’s shrouded in secrecy and she can’t tell anyone about the details, which aren’t even shared with her. Maggie's off to a secret location to operate on an anonymous client that will result in a financial windfall. But things get dicey and suddenly she’s on the run for her life and doesn’t know why, traversing the globe from Russia, to Dubai and the French Bordeaux region.

We’ve come to the end-of-year, and it’s time to share your results for the 2025 Audiobook Challenge hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer and That’s What I’m Talking About. Did you meet your goals?

It’s a cold, harsh Christmas Eve in London and Ebenezer Scrooge hates the season. He’s a crotchety old (and wealthy) miser who has just turned away two men asking for donations to help the poor (Scrooge could easily help), and turned down an invitation to dinner from his nephew Fred. He grudgingly let his put upon clerk, Bob Cratchit, have the day off with pay. That night, he’s visited by the spirit of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, who died seven years ago and is wandering the earth bound in the chains of his greed and love of money from when he was alive.

the setup… Isabella (Izzy) Russo is a high-end department store manager and in a relationship with Evan, a man who treats her shabbily and constantly harps about her weight. One night when they were dining out, Izzy looks up and sees a man watching her intently. She wasn’t unnerved, just felt “seen.” She later learns he’s Callahan Knight, just hired on as her store’s security head. Yes, Izzy’s strangely drawn to the man but her feelings are reciprocated…and how! See, Callahan knows that she will be his and when he connects to the store system, he also links to Izzy’s phone…watching and tracking.

the setup… It’s 1997 and in the space of thirty days, Michelle Cadell’s life has turned upside down. She’s always had an orderly and well planned life in Seattle and now the thirty-year old advertising manager is divorced, owner of her ex’s border collie-with-attitude Rocket and managing her recently deceased mother’s bed & breakfast (Bird & Breakfast) in Copper Run, Vermont. Michelle has taken an extended leave from her job until December when her younger sister Sara will take over. Michelle is like a fish out of water in this quaint town but next door neighbor Cliff Burke, the handsome single father of two daughters and the town’s baker, is ready and willing to lend a hand…and his heart.

the setup… Petra is a reporter from Chicago, dispatched to New Orleans to track down some of the supernatural urban legends surrounding the city. One in particular involves Dax Rousseau, owner of the tattoo parlor House of Ink and Blood who has a cat named Lucifer. Sources say his body is covered with tattoos…but they’re not inked and he was born with them. And, as one of the male line of Rousseaus, he’s living with a curse that originated in an earlier generation. Petra’s pretty cynical so when she experiences an unexplained connection and phenomena, she becomes a believer of this sexy specimen.

the setup… Clara Davenport returns to her home in New York from a special assignment for Davenport Innovation Creative, her family’s toy business. Instead of settling in, she walks into the middle of a PR crisis of their own creation in the town of Fraser Falls. Clara is dispatched there to “fix” the problem and learns that the town is upset because her colleague stole their latest doll design from the town’s toy maker. She sets out on a charm offensive and makes it her mission to bring tourists back to their town.

When this was first released, I got the audiobook right away. But when I learned it was based on her own current experience, something made me pause. It was if I somehow delayed listening to her most autobiographical work of fiction, I could deny reality. Madeleine Sophie Wickham, aka Sophie Kinsella, lost her battle with glioblastoma on December 10, an aggressive form of brain cancer, first diagnosed in 2022. I finally had the courage to pick up this story, somewhat her story, and listen to it in tribute to the woman, the writer whose stories made me laugh out loud.

the setup… It’s been a tough time for Chris McKenna and his two daughters, 15-year old Kayla and 7-year old Emma. His wife and their mother Lexie died from breast 6-months after her diagnosis and Emma hasn’t spoken a word since. He plans to move them from Boston to Denver and has planned this backpacking trip to the Colorado Flat Tops as a way to start repairing his relationship with Kayla and to break the news about the move. Things go sideways when Emma wanders away and gets seriously injured. As they look for shelter in the middle of a torrential rain, they come upon the home of recluse Clara Carver and her son Billy.

the setup… Airline pilot Claire Winslow is putting her life back together again following a nasty divorce, a breakdown, rehab and custody issues with her ex over their five-year old daughter. Best friend Becca convinces her to try online dating so she agrees to dinner with a man named Evan. When he exhibits anger issues early on, Claire ends the date amicably and hurries home, thankful she’s dodged the proverbial bullet…but has she? Claire starts to see Evan everywhere…outside her house, at her daughter’s school and at her hotel during an overnight cross country flight.

the setup… Riley Thorn isn’t living her best life. Divorced, money strapped and working in a dead end job, she’s also living in an aging mansion with equally aging roommates. The owners are senior twin brother and sister, illegally renting out rooms but calling the quirky residents “family.” Riley has her own quirk…see, she hears voices and sees the future, though she tries to hide it. But when she has a vision of the man across the hall being murdered, she takes it seriously. Enter Nick Santiago, a sexy private investigator who is on a mission to find the killer, keep Riley safe…and at a distance.

the setup… Detective Josie Quinn is spending quality time with her family and friends when her colleague, Detective Finn Mettner, shows up asking for her help. He fears Amber Watts, their press liaison and his girlfriend, is missing and Finn only wants Josie’s help for now. After checking out Amber’s house, it’s clear she’s not there though all of her belongings are. Josie finds a cryptic message on her car’s windshield that leads them to Russell Haven dam. When they arrive they see a red-haired woman lying between boulders, clearly in distress but alive and about to be washed away by released water from the dam.

the setup… It’s the week of Christmas but the holiday season isn’t any reason for Paige, a professional assassin, to slack off on the job. But when she enters the home of her target, she’s surprised to find his young daughter there with him. Paige makes a judgment call and aborts the op, knowing she’s putting her own life at risk with her “employer.” She bargains for another try the next night on Christmas Eve, unsure of whether the “kill clause” in her contract will be invoked. the heart of the story…

the setup… Tom and Alice Bell are on their way from Seattle to the 1976 Montreal Olympics, leisurely traveling cross country in their Winnebago. They’re both recovering from a recent tragedy but Alice has been struggling. While at a campground in Hope, they meet a young couple who are hitchhiking in their direction. Tom offers “Ocean” and “Blue” shelter near their RV for the night and a ride in the morning. Little did they know that their trip of a lifetime would be far different from the one they’d planned as these hitchikers weren’t even close to the innocents they pretended to be.

the setup… What do a gorgeous black-haired woman with blue tips, an old dog, two precocious pre-teens and football have in common? It’s Barrett King, head coach of Buffalo’s NFL team and single father to son Bryce and daughter Maggie. He’s trying to manage it all with his typical stoicism but all is not well. He can’t seem to keep a nanny during the season and with two critical games to go, he needs to focus, especially as his talented but undisciplined star rookie quarterback is out of control. Enter Lily Townsend, the new house sitter next door with an ancient dog named Larry.

the setup… Grant and Avery Wilson decide to go hiking in a remote but beautiful location near Durango, Colorado. Before they leave the car, she surprises him with the news she’s pregnant. He’s the happiest, most content he’s ever been…until all hell breaks loose. As they get out of the car, a van with armed mask men approach and abduct Avery. He’s ordered to go home and wait for instructions. And this begins a confounding and horrible game to get his wife back. the heart of the story… Whoa! I thought I knew what was going on and then enters what feels like a subplot.

the setup… Our narrator begins her story when she was a senior in college where she meets two young men in her 17th Century Lit Class. Sam and Yash are house sitting in a grand home owned by a professor on sabbatical. Sam takes her out and invites her into their world of smart conversation, made up card playing and academia. They give her the nickname Jordan and thus begins the tangled relationships that will have a lifelong impact. the heart of the story… As with most literary fiction, it’s complicated.

the setup… It’s been a few months since FBI Agent Nikki Hunt almost lost her life capturing the Frost killer and suffered other tragic losses in the process. She’s returning to work when she’s called to a scene by boyfriend Rory Todd after he and his construction crew discovered a body during an excavation. The body was in a trunk buried deep in the ground and Rory later tells her he believes it’s his high school ex-girlfriend Becky Anderson who went missing in 1997. Nikki knows she’ll need to take a backseat to the investigation as Rory will be a person of interest.

the setup… Juniper (June) Perry is a marketing assistant working with her best friend Avery Banks whose family owns the company. Both are children of privilege but June’s parents have been MIA since their divorce when she was twelve and she’s literally lived with the Banks family since. But there’s one problem…she’s had a crush on Avery’s big brother Beau for a decade, which she’s kept secret from everybody. Now she’s got an even bigger secret. She’s the anonymous woman who’s been “chatting” with him every night on the Midnight app they’re developing a marketing campaign pitch for.

the setup… It’s been six months since Sonya MacTavish left her home in Boston and moved into the grand manor built by Arthur Poole in Poole’s Bay, Maine. Her best friend Cleo Fabares joined her and together they are not only living their best lives with new career directions, but are in relationships with two wonderful men, Oliver (Trey) Doyle and Owen Poole who is Sonya’s first cousin. Overshadowing the joy is a malevolent ghost named Hester Dobbs who cursed the manor when she killed Astrid Poole in 1806 and six brides thereafter.

the setup… Lucy Sawyer goes on a hiking trip with her jerk of a boyfriend who abandons her halfway up. She tries to descend, stumbles and finds herself in a dream of a town with lots of charming, delectable men who are all vying for her attention. Trouble is, she’s gotten the attention of an ancient shapeshifter who is determined to make her his priestess. the heart of the story… What would you do if all of your romantic dreams start to materialize before your eyes? Of course Lucy gets swept up in Hemlock’s creations and at some point begins to think all that glitters isn’t gold.

the setup… Walter Nash is a respected high level executive with Sybaritic Investments, happily married and father to their twenty year old daughter who hasn’t yet left the nest. He’s content with his comfortable life until his estranged father dies and a series of events upsets his professional and personal existence. Nash is approached by the FBI to work with them to help bring down Sybaritic because the company is part of an international criminal enterprise. Not given much of a choice, he agrees and then has his life completely implode, forcing him into hiding and later emerging as a very different man.

the setup… Sabina Turpin made the gut wrenching decision seventeen years ago to give up her newborn daughter Andrea for adoption. She was only sixteen years old and thought she was making the best decision for her child at the time. Now she’s been notified that Andrea Beaumont is missing and Sabina leaves the comfort of her home in Oregon to travel to Ogden, Utah in search for answers and her daughter. Andrea’s adoptive parents, Bunny and Dennis Beaumont, give her cause for alarm, making her question if she’s really missing or met a worse outcome.