1. Catch Your Breath As kids they steered clear of one another. That was then—this is now. As a dedicated reporter, Moira O'Leary has access to Chicago's swankiest affairs. With her confidence and style, she blends right in with the elite crowd. But when her childhood crush starts popping up at posh events, she struggles to keep her cool. Undercover cop Jimmy O'Malley has always tried to avoid his best friend's little sister. Something about Moira spelled trouble. Just as their chemistry ignites, Moira gets dangerously close to his investigation. Now, it's up to Jimmy to keep her safe. Can childhood crushes lead to breathless desire? 2. Just a Taste Grief brought them together. Will love seal the deal? Still reeling from her father’s death, Carmen Delgado has no idea what it means to have dreams of her own. But when sexy Liam O’Leary inherits a share in her dad’s successful food truck, Carmen is suddenly free to explore her life—never expecting Liam to provide a tempting path. His Irish charm can be irresistible. After just a taste, will Carmen find what she didn’t realize she needs? 3. Hold Me Close Taming a spirited, fun-loving O'Leary may be harder than he realized... After more than a year in Ireland, Maggie O'Leary is finally coming back to Chicago with a plan for her future. Confronting the tragedy that destroyed her is her first step. Luckily, her best friend, Shane Callahan, is her biggest support—and lovable in a way she doesn’t remember. Shane will do anything to protect Maggie. But when Maggie boldly tells him that she wants him to help her conquer her final fear—sex—Shane knows a single night together won't be possible. The idea of a spirited Maggie in his bed is everything, but will she believe he wants her heart, too?

This box set includes the first 3 O'Learys books: 1. More Than This A sexy bartender stirs up a daily lesson plan for an adventurous teacher... With a list of challenges, Quinn embarks on some life-altering fun. After a few disastrous attempts, Quinn’s ready to give up—until sexy bartender Ryan O’Leary offers his assistance. Will the bartender quench Quinn’s thirst by mixing up more than she ever imagined? 2. A Good Time Can freedom mean forever? Freedom is paramount for Indy Adams. The last thing she needs is to be tied down. Griffin Walker’s reputation as a ladies’ man has put him in a bad light as he tries to get his charitable foundation off the ground. An unplanned pregnancy may lead them both to a life they never expected. Will Griffin get his chance to show Indy more than a good time? 3. Something to Prove Business...and pleasure Determined to show her father she’s capable of running the family business, Elizabeth Brannigan sets out to save a failing Chicago bar. Colin O’Leary wants to show his family that they can count on him and that he’s responsible enough to own a bar of his own. And Elizabeth just might be the saving grace he’s always needed. Can they mix a little business and pleasure or will the merger destroy everything?

"Great suspense and action, and wonderful world-building. Such a thrilling read." Books 4-6 in the addictive Hoskins & Fletcher crime series are now available as a 3-Book Collection, starting with the gripping cold case thriller, Missing Piece: Sometimes to defeat the monster… You have to become the monster In the summer of 1985 an eight-year-old boy vanishes near his home and is never seen again. Five years later, in the fall of 1990, a nine-year-old missing girl reappears after six months. She is enlightened, she says, and has been with Jehovah in the Garden of Eden. She changes her name to Eve. And thirty years later, she still stands by her story. The two cases couldn’t be more different – the children were from different districts, different schools, different ages and social status, one child returned, the other never did. Only their shared religion offers the faintest of connections. But that doesn’t stop private investigator Cass Fletcher. She knows that for her and her partner to find out what happened to the missing boy before his mother loses her fight with a terminal illness, they’re going to have to look in the places no one else has. They’re going to have to take a leap of faith. Though while her partner’s concerns about the thirty-five-year-old case grow with every passing minute, and the boy’s mother deteriorates, Fletcher refuses to back down. She knows what it's like to live with injustice, she’s been doing just that for the last nineteen years. And with the reappearance in her life of an old adversary, she’s more determined than ever to settle the scores of past hurts, no matter what it takes. But at what cost? Because facing your enemies is deadly. More so when the greatest enemy of all is yourself. "If you are looking for a series to keep you totally absorbed and wanting more, this is it."

Why would an alcoholic Chicago homicide detective question the motives of a drummer from a freshly signed rock-blues band? Why does he keep interviewing an elderly widower with dementia? What are an identity-concealing stripper, a bisexual kleptomaniac, a suicidal hot dog cart vendor, a Catholic priest, a well-traveled bluesman with the world's most horrific stutter, and a leggy bartender with a crescent-shaped scar on her pretty face hiding from him? These are the people Detective Carter Woodbine must drink in to solve the mystery in Mrs. O'Leary's Cow. The gumshoe searches for answers at an Irish pub where he sifts through the grit of its patrons and occasionally finding flecks of gold. Among his digging for truths, he unearths enigmas buried deeply within the soil of these people of interest, and even some of his own. But will all the digging and dirt lead to somewhere other than his own grave? Mrs. O'Leary's Cow is much more than a detective quest; it's a reflection of the great city of Chicago and its people during the two days leading up to Christmas.

The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 swallowed up more than three square miles in two days, leaving thousands homeless and 300 dead. Throughout history, the fire has been attributed to Mrs. O'Leary, an immigrant Irish milkmaid, and her cow. On one level, the tale of Mrs. O'Leary's cow is merely the quintessential urban legend. But the story also represents a means by which the upper classes of Chicago could blame the fire's chaos on a member of the working poor. Although that fire destroyed the official county documents, some land tract records were saved. Using this and other primary source information, Richard F. Bales created a scale drawing that reconstructed the O'Leary neighborhood. Next he turned to the transcripts--more than 1,100 handwritten pages--from an investigation conducted by the Board of Police and Fire Commissioners, which interviewed 50 people over the course of 12 days. The board's final report, published in the Chicago newspapers on December 12, 1871, indicates that commissioners were unable to determine the cause of the fire. And yet, by analyzing the 50 witnesses' testimonies, the author concludes that the commissioners could have determined the cause of the fire had they desired to do so. Being more concerned with saving their own reputation from post-fire reports of incompetence, drunkenness and bribery, the commissioners failed to press forward for an answer. The author has uncovered solid evidence as to what really caused the Great Chicago Fire.

Over the span of forty years, Professor Raphael Dorman OLeary labored tirelessly to make his students understand the importance of originality and of apt expression in English composition. He especially loved words well chosen and dared his students to put beauty and smoothness and sinew into their sentences. He tried passionately to make them feel the dignity and the majesty of the English language at its best. When he died after a short illness in 1936, his personal effects passed among descendants until finally coming to rest with Dennis OLeary and his spouse, Margaret, who discovered them in a poor condition while restoring a family house. Amid Professor OLearys papers was his handwritten journal from the year 1914 to 1915. The journal displays the full measure of R. D. OLeary in his myriad academic, social, political, and religious experiences at the University of Kansas atop Mount Oread; in the adjacent city of Lawrence, Kansas; and while traveling to rural Kansas during the summer months and to Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the dead of winter. Throughout his journal, Professor OLeary portrays with humor and pathos his encounters with students, colleagues, his spouse, his three sons, his mother, shopkeepers, religious zealots, pro-German zealots, anti-German zealots, drayers, Pullman conductors, bankers, politicians, publishers, educated spinsters, and garden wasps, while vividly describing cold classrooms, interminable whist parties, trilling sopranos, Kansas football games, and Lawrence seed stores. R. D. OLeary (18661936): Notes from Mount Oread 19141915 is a fascinating glimpse into the life and times of a revered English professor, half way through his forty years of teaching at the University of Kansas.