The Haunting Of Oak Springs

Ghosts are rising at Oak Springs farm, and supernatural detective Tony Carson is facing her deepest mystery yet. Tony and her Trinidadian best friend, Jade, unravel clues searching for a woman who doesn’t want to be found. Red and Chris are the last lesbians living on the women’s land farm, oblivious to the secrets buried around them. If developers start digging before Tony finds the missing woman, Red and Chris are in trouble. When an old enemy returns to the village, will the rural community of Wooly Mill side with Oak Springs, or will homophobic history repeat itself? And while Tony and Jade are rallying the women’s group, a devious plan is spinning around them. The supernatural detective needs to watch her step. The past has long fingernails, and they’re clawing at the ground beneath Tony’s feet.

Ghosts and the past haunt the supernatural detective in a race to save the lesbians of Oak Springs farm.

This is the latest volume in a major series that describes selections of the rare books, manuscripts, and other works of art held at Oak Spring Garden Library, a collection formed by Rachel Lambert Mellon. The 111 items chosen for this volume on floral illustration since the later Middle Ages include Books of Hours, still-life and vanitas paintings, botanical prints, and books of instruction of every kind, from planting a garden to making flowers using colored papers or wax. Lucia Tongiorgi Tomasi groups the works into chapters on such topics as florilegia, women artists, tulipomania, Dutch and Flemish painting, and exotic flowers from distant lands, providing an introduction to each chapter that gives the contextual background necessary for a real understanding and appreciation of floral illustration past and present. The sheer beauty as well as extraordinary skills encountered, for example, in manuscript florilegia by Jacob Marrel and Maria Sibylla Merian, in hand-colored books by Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues and G.B. Ferrari, and in flower studies painted by John Constable, Margaret Mee, and others, are testament to the high status accorded floral illustration over the centuries. This handsome, richly illustrated volume will attract all those with an interest in rare books and the history of art as well as horticulturalists, botanists, and garden historians.

Burned-out chef Sy Travino never expected to wind up on a goat farm in rural Vermont, but that’s exactly where she lands after leaving the restaurant world to become a cheese maker. It’s a great place to flex her muscles and make a name for herself, though. Too bad the house she bought is practically unlivable. Maddie Barrow can’t believe anyone would be dumb enough to buy a house sight unseen, but she’s not about to turn down the job of renovating it, especially since her best friend just hired Sy to turn Grumpy Old Goat into the chèvre everyone is talking about. When the estimate on the house exceeds Sy’s budget, Maddie puts her to work. It doesn’t take long for Sy and Maddie to admit their chemistry is off the charts, but having fun doesn’t always lead to forever. Could it be a foundation for love or nothing but a teardown?

Piper James was given a new lease on life when she received a heart transplant. She lives in the apartment above her art supply store, Rainbow Arts, with her cat. She has all she wants, except a woman she can love for the rest of her life. Her biggest problem? The rest of her life is on borrowed time and love isn’t an option. Gillian Phillips moves into a new neighborhood for a new start after losing her wife in an accident two years ago. After taking advice to be more social, she decides on a pottery class at Rainbow Arts. There’s something about her instructor, Piper, that seems so comfortable and familiar to Gillian, but she can’t quite put her finger on it. When a tragic coincidence leads to an unexpected connection, revealing secrets neither wants to face, they realize that love never really dies.

Returning home after years of living as far from her wealthy family as she can, Lucy wants her great American road trip before she settles down. The vintage VW bus her arrogant older brother Jordan is selling off seems like the perfect vehicle for it. But the bus in question is fiercely beloved by its real owner, Emma, Jordan’s wife. She’s not ready to let the bus go, but she is ready to get out of her marriage—and isn’t above hijacking her own bus to make that happen. When Lucy’s vacation to find herself becomes Emma’s chance to remember herself, they realize that everything they’re looking for might already be sitting right next to them—if they’re willing to reach for it.

Tuesday Johnson spent her career helping the Spokane, WA, community as a probation officer and a search and rescue K9 handler. After suffering a career-ending gunshot wound, all she wants is to heal and spend quiet time with her mother during her last days of battling cancer. Instead, visions of murder disrupt her hopes for peace, and family secrets shake up everything she thought she knew. After twenty-five years of searching, private Detective Addie Caine has all but given up hope of finding her brother alive. When the last known sighting brings her to Spokane and a routine search uncovers a decades-old burial ground, the hunt for her brother means pursuing a serial killer. Tuesday and Addie, along with Tuesday’s dog, Tripper, struggle to solve a twenty-five-year-old mystery while searching for love and redemption along the way.

Nicki Russell has never been smooth. More like a bumbling, awkward mess always falling short of her dreams. Good college? She never had the money. Post-grad? She’ll get around to it someday. Happy ever after with the perfect woman? One major heartbreak is enough to have her swearing off love forever. Current life plan? Avoid all unnecessary human contact. That goes double for Carter, the hot new butch in town. Unfortunately, Carter works at the town’s pick-your-own pumpkin patch and Nicki’s niece is obsessed with Halloween. So obsessed she ropes her favorite aunt into organizing the school Halloween festival, hosted by Carter Farms. Volunteer weekends are scary enough, but Carter seems to be everywhere Nicki goes, and it’s just a matter of time before she discovers Nicki’s more likely to trip over a chair than successfully flirt. But Carter can’t seem to get enough of her company, and as their accidental encounters slowly simmer into romance, Nicki begins to believe she’s not a complete disaster after all. The date of the festival is fast approaching, and this pumpkin spice season is turning out sweeter than expected.