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You know, maybe life isn’t like a box of Tampax. Perhaps it’s more like a Goodwill store. There are useless items all over the place, but you never know when you’ll uncover a treasure.

A special excerpt of
In Stereo Where Available
by Becky Anderson

IN STEREO
WHERE
AVAILABLE

Oh be-yootiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of guh-rain …

I took a few kernels from the bowl of popcorn and slowly put them in my mouth, crunching delicately, my gaze fixed on the TV. The blonde with the microphone gestured soulfully to the smirking crowd, wet-eyed, the bronzing powder a little too heavy around her cleavage. Her strappy high heels glittered. The shoes were important. Your legs are only as good as your shoes. I glanced at my cell phone beside me on the sofa, checking once again to be sure I’d turned it on. The name across the bottom of my TV screen was “Grace Kassner.”

For purple mountain ma-hajesties
Above the fuh-ruited plain!

The note went flat and I quickly turned down the volume. Camera angles shifted; the judges winced, their pens tapping against the table. I hit the “mute” button and picked up my cell phone. Less than two minutes later, it rang.

“Hi, Madison.”

“Phoebe.” I could hear her sobbing, muted, as though she were pressing a tissue against her mouth. “I got eliminated.”

“I know. You were
great
, though. Those judges don’t know anything.”

“The one guy said I sounded like a seventh-grader doing karaoke at a sleepover party.”

“That guy says stuff like that to everyone.
I
heard you, Maddie. You sounded wonderful. And the crowd loved you.”

“Did they really?”

“They did. If they went by crowd response, you’d definitely have made it. That’s just one little show, it’s nothing. You’re just paying your dues. You’ll have your chance yet, and then you’ll be able to say you earned it.”

She sniffled. “You think?”

“Absolutely. Anyway, can you see the other girls?”

“No. I’m backstage.”

“Well, I’m watching it right now, and the girl who’s up there is a cow. She’s wearing this scarf shirt, totally trashy, and
flats
, Maddie. Flats.” I was speaking her language, for her sake. I didn’t like cutting people down, but Madison needed this. “Those judges are going to be so sorry they eliminated you. I can’t even turn the sound on. She sounds like those dolls that sing when you go through the ‘It’s a Small World’ ride at Disney World.”

Madison laughed in relief. “Thanks. Look, Mom’s trying to call through. I’ll be back in town tomorrow, okay? I’ll call you then.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

I set my cell phone down and sighed. Madison’s little white dog, Pepper, was sitting on my lap, nuzzling her nose down into the cushions in search of dropped popcorn. Clicking off the TV, I stared at the stack of uncorrected crayoned math papers in a file folder on my desk. Tomorrow was Friday; they needed to go home in the responsibility folders, along with the handwriting sheets beneath them. I scooted Pepper over and forced myself off the sofa, reaching for the folder from beside the computer. It knocked the mouse, making the aquarium-fish screen saver vanish. And in an instant, there it was. The e-mail.

Dear Phoebe, it began
.

Regarding dinner at your parents’ place this Saturday, I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. I know you’ve been looking forward to them meeting me, but to be perfectly honest with you, I feel like it’s almost a little deceptive when the fact is, I don’t really have time for a serious relationship right now. I’ve been thinking maybe we ought to cool it a little, just sort of keep it casual. I think you’re a great girl, and I don’t want to stop seeing you, but I’m not really in a place right now where I can do the whole meet-the-parents thing. Take care
.

Bill

“Read between the lines,” Madison had said when I had called her the day before, mystified. “He’s saying he wants to get rid of the relationship and keep the sex. You ought to dump his sleazy butt straight-out.”

“Really?” I’d asked, disappointed. I’d never even actually gotten that far with Bill. I’d hoped there was some kind of miracle thing that Madison would tell me to say, something that would get him over the hump and on toward producing a ring. I was twenty-nine, after all. It was about time.

“Really. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, because I’m your sister and I love you, but that’s exactly what he’s saying right there. When a man says ‘keep it casual,’ that only means one thing. Sorry, Fee.”

I minimized the window and took the folder of apple-printed math worksheets over to the sofa, curling my legs up beneath me. I’d kicked off the school year with an apple theme—apple stories for reading, apple crafts for art, apple graphs for science. If you cut an apple horizontally, the seeds flared out in a star. You could dry the halves with a napkin and make prints, pressing the smooth white sides into red tempera paint that oozed up around the edges. Three days into the school year and already a parent had written me a note saying I was encouraging devil worship, promoting the use of pentagrams like that. I had written a quick apology at the bottom and sent the note back home. A lot of teaching was about turning the other cheek. That was something I could do. I’ve always been better at that than my sister. She’s the competitive twin and I’m the sweet one, so says our mother. It’s better to have only one competitive twin. I realized that early in life, and I guess she didn’t. I’m also the smart one.

Confessions writer Amanda Crosby put her life on hold for the last seven years after the disappearance of her husband, Dan.

   In writing for True Lies Magazine, guilt-ridden Amy takes on the abilities her fictional characters confess to, like the time she thought she was psychic after researching clairvoyants. With fatalistic acceptance of the craziness in her life, she uses humor to cope.

   The home Dan bought for them is about to be foreclosed on, and her only answer is his life insurance policy. There’s just enough time to have him declared legally dead and receive the funds to save her home. Her home is safe—that is, until she receives a blackmail note.

   Is it possible her missing husband is still alive?

Kathy Carmichael
ISBN#9781605420950
Trade Paperback / Fiction
US $15.95 / CDN $8.95
FEBRUARY 2010
www.kathycarmichael.com

Leggy, karaoke-singing Allegra Thome spends her days teaching dysfunctional teens and her nights with wealthy new boyfriend, Michael. The rough patch following Allegra’s divorce is over, and life is grand. But when Allegra lands in the middle of a drug bust and meets Sloan, a rough-around-the edges DEA agent and, later that day, a throwaway kid from her class disappears, things quickly head south. Sloan, who has the tact of a roadside bomb, is attracted to Allegra and alienates Michael. To make matters worse, nobody seems to care that Allegra’s student, Sara Stepanek, is missing.

Add to the mix a rural Washington State town under the spell of a charismatic minister who doesn’t hesitate to use secrets of the rich and powerful to keep them in line, even while withholding his own dark past, and Allegra’s search for Sara becomes a race against time with dead bodies piling up and her own life in peril. Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising things come to a head at the WWJD (What Would Jesus Drink) Winery.

Marilee Brothers
ISBN#9781934755464
Trade Paperback / Suspense
US $15.95 / CDN $17.95
OCTOBER 2009
www.marileebrothers.com

DEA agent Necie Bramhall thinks she knows a thing or two about revenge. She’s devoted her life to bringing down the drug lord father who abandoned her. When she finally captures him, she thinks she’ll be able to put her painful past behind her. What she doesn’t realize is that she’s created a brand new enemy. A deadly enemy
.

Maria Barnes is beautiful, ruthless, and driven by a lifelong jealousy of the half-sister she’s never known — the daughter their father could never forget. Her hatred for Necie spirals out of control following their father’s arrest, and Maria vows to destroy everything Necie holds dear … starting with her marriage and her family
.

When her daughter is kidnapped, new revelations reveal the man she always perceived as her greatest enemy might be the only one who can save her from her half-sister’s wrath. And now her father is behind bars …

ISBN#9781933836003
US $7.95 / CDN $9.95
Romantic Suspense
Available Now
www.michelleperry.com