In this, the 12th in the Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series, Jackson's amateur sleuth goes to Maine in search of the answer to a sixty year old mystery. Rachel is anticipating some rest and relaxation in the lovely lakeside cottage where she will stay; and she hopes to spend part of her time "experiencing Maine." Her search hampers her hopes for a sabbatical and keeps her occupied; what she finds is old deceit, old betrayal, and old murder that has lain dormant for sixty years. Her own life is threatened when someone she thinks is trustworthy tries to keep her from exposing the shocking details

THE JANUS KILLERS is #4 in Annis Ward Jackson's Ellis Crawford Series. The time is sunny April in the small town of Battenburg in eastern North Carolina. But all is not dogwoods and azaleas and tulips A young boy has been kidnapped, his stepfather has been murdered, and the ransom money is missing. Chief Ellis Crawford, along with his three man and one woman police force, must investigate a crime where clues are nearly nonexistent. Blackmail rears its ugly head and offers Crawford the answer to WHY but the answer to WHO evades him until aid arrives from unexpected quarters and helps him unravel the tangled web of one of the town's wealthiest residents who has been leading a double life.

HIGH COUNTRY COVERUP is the seventh in Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series. In the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, Gurney Styles sits in the Sheppard County jail, convicted and waiting to be sentenced for the stabbing death of a wealthy retiree. Styles' Melungeon wife, Dulcie, convinces Rachel Myers that her husband is innocent and Myers interrupts her August vacation to search for what really happened. With the aid of Detective Barnett, the reluctant detective delves deep into the private life of the widow and her slain husband. Myers learns a new lesson in just what a person is willing to risk to satisfy their financial avarice, and how easily a corrupt public official can manipulate the justice system.

Annis Ward Jackson sets this novel against a backdrop of beautiful Watauga Lake in the mountains of eastern Tennessee. Violet Thurston Oliver is a descendant of pioneers and has no intention of ever vacating the land that has been in her family for nearly two hundred years. However, Violet discovers that so-called progress grinds on with little concern for personal attachments. Proud, stoic, and self-sufficient, Violet withstands an abusive marriage and forced relocation from her beloved farm in the late 1940's when the Tennessee Valley Authority covered over six thousand acres with a dam to provide electricity and recreational opportunities. The lake has been Violet's sorrow and her salvation. Her fifty-year-old secret may remain safe or it may rise from the depths and threaten the remaining years of a life of hard work, integrity and perserverance.

These two stories and a reminisence by Annis Ward Jackson make this a delightful trio of holiday shorts. THE NIGHT THE LIGHTS WENT OUT IN CHRISTMASVILLE A true cynic, Wesley Kempthorn decides he's going to throw a monkey-wrench into Christmas in the small town where he lives. He meets a mysterious stranger in the darkness who convinces him otherwise. THE LIGHT IN THE WINDOW It's World War II and residents of the little town of Bethyl in eastern North Carolina try to determine why a singular young woman has moved into a house that has been vacant for over twenty years. This is a new retelling of the Christmas story. THE LAST CHRISTMAS DOLL This is a reminiscence by the author about her most vivid Christmas memory. Learn what happens when a tomboy gets the opposite of what she wanted for Christmas.

Squidoo.com suggests this book as "a good mystery story to pass the time on the auto train." In Mountain Mourning, the sixth in Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series, the amateur sleuth receives a letter and a packet of information from a man she has only met twice and who has recently died under questionable, if not suspicious, circumstances. Grant Taylor, a teacher at a private prep school, had become curious about the mysterious disappearance thirty years before of a young female teacher at another exclusive private academy and he pleads for Rachel's help. After Myers decides to continue Taylor's search, she finds the young teacher's remains in a lonely grave off the Blue Ridge Parkway. The "reluctant" detective probes her list of suspects and unveils their motives. Then comes the task of deciding which one is the murderer. Myers has never been more challenged or more perplexed as she confronts a steadily dwindling list of suspects. The real murderer is as much a shock to Myers as it will be to the reader.

Annis Ward Jackson's EXIT HERE FOR MURDER is the third in her Elllis Crawford Murder Mystery series. Police Chief in a small town in eastern North Carolina, the young Ellis Crawford lives by the adage, There is no such thing as an ex-Marine And it takes all the experience from ten years service in the Marine Corp as a Military Policeman for Crawford to assist the county sheriff in the search for a serial rapist - despite the full knowledge that his dispatcher/officer Ruby Lea Sutton may be the next victim

In Brown Mountain Breakdown, the ninth in Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series, Myers and police detective Robby Barnett launch an effort to try and find what caused a long-time friend, a deputy sheriff, to committ suicide, or whether his death was murder. Rachel Myers unearths a disappearance and another questionable death and confronts the dangerous woman who is tied to all three. Parts of this book are based on two actual cases from the 1970's and 1980's.

HIGHLAND GAMES, number ten in Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series, finds amateur sleuth Rachel Myers tired and weary from overseeing a new wing that's being added to the retirement center where she is administrator. And she hasn't been sleeping well. Then her attention is diverted by a more disturbing problem -- her inexplicable forgetfulness The possibility of early senility or Alzhiemers occur to Myers but Detective Robert Burnett suggests that she is the victim of a stalker. Detective Burnett moves in to help Myers come to terms with the problem and identify the culprit before the plot takes a more violent turn

This is the first in Annis Ward Jackson's series, Ellis Crawford Murder Mysteries. A career Marine MP, seriously injured in a terrorist bombing, decides to try life as a police chief in a small town in eastern North Carolina. While attempting to familiarize himself with the town's crime history he finds a red envelope containing reports on four murders from four separate years, all committed around Christmas. Chief Ellis Crawford has only a few days to solve these murders and prevent the next, which he is convinced will be on Christmas Day.

PATCHWORK is a collection of short stories and essays/articles drawn for the most part from the life experience of Annis Ward Jackson who was born and grew up in the Appalachian Mountains near Boone, North Carolina during the nineteen fifties and sixties. The collection touches on family life, rough weather, mountain farming, folklore, mountain characters, long-held Appalachian traditions, wild-crafting, and some "just pure fiction " PATCHWORK has been described by a reviewer as a "good read without the stereotypes often applied to mountain people and their culture."

In this, the eleventh murder mystery in the Rachel Myers series, Annis Ward Jackson's reluctant detective begins a search for a missing relative of one of her employees. Little does she anticipate the terror that awaits her when she ties the missing woman to the death of a wealthy heiress who is staying at Finster Lodge, a remote hotel named for a nearby mountain with a sinister past. Myers' mettle is severely tested as she tries to extricate herself from a place that seems to offer only death. Some praise for this series: CleanReadingMimi.com says: "This is a great read for mystery buffs The author is really good at weaving the story and setting up the characters so you care deeply about each one of them." Readmedeadly.com says: "For nature lovers, Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers semi-cozy novellas, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia, can be as addictive as popcorn "

Annis Ward Jackson features the world-famous Appalachian Trail in this fifth book in the Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series. Convinced by a friend to join a women's hiking club for a day on the AT, Rachel has what she considers the bad luck to be the one who finds the mutilated body of a young girl that has been dumped just off the trail. Clues are practically nonexistent even after the corpse has been identified as a local high school girl who was supposed to be on spring break in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The victim's mother persuades the reluctant detective to try and find out what happened. Although she feels lost without her best friend and lover, Detective Robert Barnett, Myers ploughs ahead while she gets to know a newcomer to the area, a video ad technician. Myers becomes totally immersed in the crime and, although the motive eludes her, she soon turns up several suspects. It could be the moonshiner, the poacher, or the boyfriend. Or it could be someone much closer to Rachel Myers.

THE NEW RIVER BLUES, fourth in Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series, finds the amateur and reluctant detective plunged into an investigation with international implications. All Rachel wants is a few quiet Saturdays at home. What she gets is murder. The wild and scenic New River in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina is threatened by mysterious polluters and Rachel's friend and fellow musician makes it his mission to stop them. Friend and lover, Detective Robert Barnett, is out of town so Rachel must go it alone. Ride the rapids with Rachel Myers and enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the eastern United States while she searches for the murderer. Or will she become the victim this time?

In CHRISTMAS TREE WARS, Annis Ward Jackson's third novel in the Rachel Myers Murder Mystery Series, the reader finds Myers finally and completely settled in the small Appalachian Mountain community of Laurel Hill, North Carolina. The new retirement center where she is administrator is up and running and so is her relationship with Detective Robert Barnett. News that former lover David is married finally frees her from that relationship so she buys a quarterhorse, goes on an exciting trail ride, and comes home to find that one of her favorite people, garden designer Danny DeBord, has gone missing. As usual, Rachel observes from afar with no intention of becoming involved in the investigation until she is approached by a local woman whose son disappeared four years earlier in suspiciously similar circumstances. That's all the impetus needed for Myers to delve into the search for Danny DeBord, and in the process, embroil herself to her most dangerous predicament to date. Christmas trees figure prominently in this mystery, both from the perspective of their effects on the local environment, and their connection with the murder.

OPHELIA'S SATIRICAL DIADEM is a well-documented commentary on the meanings of the herbs in HAMLET and how they are used by Shakespeare to cleverly and almost covertly bring into relief the sexual corruption that pervades every aspect within the court of Claudius and profoundly affects Gertrude, Hamlet's mother. Almost every event that takes place in HAMLET is connected in some way to an herb or flower. Some of the meanings are simple and straightforward. Others are more difficult to interpret but with proper research in hundreds of volumes, many of them ancient herbals, the intended meaning of such obscure flowers as the Long Purple become clear and indisputable.

INTO THE TWILIGHT is based on a story mostly ignored and/or suppressed by generations of biographers of our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln. The story of Lincoln having been born in Rutherford County, North Carolina, the illegitimate son of a wealthy, educated, and respected farmer and magistrate, has stayed alive for over two hundred years because it was an undeniable part of the history of that place. The residents of the area never sought to have their county designated as Lincoln's birthplace. After all, he was not a very popular figure in the south at the time he was assassinated. There are volumes of testimonials on the subject from respected judges, teachers, ministers, attorneys, and everyday citizens going all the way back to the time when Lincoln first ran for public office. INTO THE TWILIGHT is not an attempt on the author's part to prove the story's validity. Her fascination with the legend resulted in a novel, basically how she imagined the situation to have occurred from the time Abraham Enloe left his home in Charleston, South Carolina to the time Nancy Hanks Lincoln died in 1818, leaving behind her son, Abraham, purported to be only nine years old. Enloe had battled the elements and wild animals to establish a home in the wilderness, and had fought at the Battle of King's Mountain. However, although he was married and had several children, nothing had prepared him for the overwhelming passion he came to feel for young Nancy Hanks who had entered his home as a bondservant eight years before at the age of ten. Enloe, his wife Sarah, their daughter Nancy, Lucy and Nancy Hanks, Felix Walker, and many other characters were real people. President Abraham Lincoln makes only a brief appearance at the beginning of the novel.Show more

Mahogany Rock Falls is the eighth in the Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series by Annis Ward Jackson. Fall has come to Sheppard County in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. But all is not colorful foliage and apple butter and pumpkin patches. Amateur sleuth Rachel Myers goes on the prowl to find a nurse who went missing at the same time as a doctor whose body has been found in Satan's Casket at the foot of a waterfall on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Ghosts and goblins and witches abound in Sheppard County but the scariest ordeal Myers faces has nothing to do with Halloween.

Annis Ward Jackson's second book in the Ellis Crawford Murder Mystery series, Bought and Died For, finds the young police chief up to his ears in a double murder that was planned so well that real clues are almost non-existant. At first Then the possibilities begin to unfold as the killer's mistakes become obvious. If he solves this one, Chief Crawford may have put his job on the line, or be left holding the bag - literally

BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY PLUNGE is the second in Annis Ward Jackon's Rachel Myers Murder Mystery series. Myers comes home from Arizona to where she was born in the small community of Laurel Hill in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina. She's enjoying settling into her childhood home and having plenty of space to indulge her passion for gradening while waiting for her new job to begin as administrator of an exclusive retirement center. Rachel is still in the middle of unpacking when an old family friend asks her to look into the suspicious death of his seventy-three year old friend who has been found dead at the bottom of a sheer cliff along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The coroner has ruled accident or suicide but Myers finds a murderous trail that began fifty years before and has wound its deadly path all the way to the present. The murderer has the perfect cover and the perfect weapon. Rachel Myers' only hope is that her new love, Detective Robert Barnett, will show up before it's too late.

In Blind Malice, first in a series of 10 murder mysteries set along the Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, Annis Ward Jackson introduces Rachel Myers, a native of the area who has come home from Arizona for her father's funeral. The service is barely over when questions surrounding his death and his financial affairs begin to pile up. Old friends help Myers in her quest but in the final act, she must go it alone against an opponent who has had decades to hone his desire for vengeance. Myers is not a professional detective but her natural ability for solving intricate puzzles, her tenacity, and her faith in that little spark that says she's on the right track, enable her to uncover shocking secrets from her father's past and come face to face with the menace that led to his death. Some praise for this series: CleanReadingMimi.com says: "This is a great series for mystery buffs The author is really good at weaving the story and setting up the characters so you care deeply about each of them." Readmedeadly.com says: "For nature lovers, Annis Ward Jackson's Rachel Myers series, set in the Blue Ridge mountains of Appalachia, can be as addictive as popcorn "