Bøker av Karen Hulene Bartell

Heights terrify Ava. When a stranger saves her from plunging down a mountain, he diverts her fears with tales of Japanese kitsune-shapeshifting foxes-and she begins a journey into the supernatural. She's attracted to Chase, both physically and metaphysically, yet primal instincts urge caution when shadows suggest more than meets the eye. She's t...

Everyone is gifted, but some never open their package.Spirits are everywhere for those privileged to see. Angela Maria Brannon, the adopted baby from Sacred Choices, has a sacred gift. Her connection with the Aztec goddess Tonantzin and Our Lady of Guadalupe empowers her to see ghosts. At first, people think her having 'imaginary friends' is cute, but at school she's branded 'different' and learns to conceal her special skill. On her eighteenth birthday, Angela opens herself to communication with the afterlife. Using her sacred gift, Angela spurs those around her to recognize their potential by resolving deep-rooted pain. Traveling San Antonio's River Walk and Mission Trail she encounters eerie apparitions and wraiths. Kissed by the divine and grazed by the ungodly, Angela is proof there's "more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of."

Maeve Jackson is starting over after a broken engagement-and mustering out of the Army. No job and no prospects, she spins out on black ice and totals her car. When struggling vintner Luke Kaylor stops to help, they discover they're distantly related. On a shoestring budget to convert his vineyard into a winery, he makes her a deal: prune grapevines in exchange for room and board. But forgotten diaries and a haunted cabin kickstart a five-generational mystery with ancestors that have bones to pick. As carnal urges propel them into each other's arms, they wonder: Is their attraction physical...or metaphysical?

Follow your star or follow the herd?Sheer Christmas magic, Belize Navidad is a fusion of Dickens's A Christmas Carol and O. Henry's Gift of the Magi. Set in tropical Belize during the Christmas season, BelizeNavidad warms the heart as it chills the spine.Enter into the soul-searching journey of a young career woman as she leaves behind all that's familiar in Manhattan, follows her star to her destiny, and finds romance. A heartwarming story that encapsulates the Christmas spirit, Belize Navidad is as saturated with the supernatural as it is blessed with the divine. Feliz Navidad!On a mission, Carole Kennedy flies from the icicle constructs of her Manhattan PR world to the sun-kissed beaches of Ambergris Caye, Belize. For two years, she and Nick had maintained a long-distance relationship. Now, as Christmas approaches, Carole decides to settle the issue once and for all. Marry, or move on.Carole soon learns moonlit beaches with starry nights on the Mexican Riviera don't compensate for the days' challenges. Video shoots at Mayan ruins mixed with corporate intrigue, a stalker, and a paranormal revelation keep Carole's Christmas suspenseful.

Water and love are the sources of life, but what happens when the wells run dry?Enthralled by a charismatic corporate lawyer, college student Tulah finds herself entangled in a water-rights conspiracy. But soon the water source for her family's winery in Texas is in grave jeopardy. Tulah is torn between her childhood sweetheart, who was the love of her life, and the gorgeous go-getter on the fast track. Her choice will dictate whether she can block the corporation's underhanded scheme. With the community's groundwater at risk, should she thwart the plot and end the drought's danger in time to save her family's beloved winery and livelihood?In a choice between love and water, who will she abandon?

Deep in the heart of Texas, the miracle of Christmas brings hope, but darkness threatens this joyful season.As December 25th nears, San Antonio prepares with twinkling lights, riverboat caroling, and frosty nights. The air is fragrant with Mexican hot chocolate and homemade tamales. But Maria, seven months pregnant, abandoned, and losing hope, encounters a darker force in the air. Recently released from jail, her boyfriend Mal wants her back in his life, but he doesn't travel alone. Latched onto him are a dark angel seeking revenge and a demon destroying him with meth. When she meets José-considerate, spiritual, and protective-he's a gift, the answer to her needs. But is he the answer to her prayers? Obsessed with Mal, can Maria escape his grip and fight off the evil forces at work? Will this Christmas be a celebration of life for Maria-or a deadly failure?

An inspirational love story centered on self-growth, Sacred Choices weaves together the lives of three resilient women.Ceren is a newly-married and pregnant professor who learns her husband is a bigamist who urges abortion. Judith, Ceren's colleague - an older, more worldly professor and pro-choice advocate - provides counsel based on her experiences. Judith's sister Pastora, a nun, provides the voice of reason. Sacred Choices is Ceren's journey - from her positive pregnancy test, through her decision whether or not to have an abortion - to an uncanny conclusion.Sacred Choices has an offbeat charm steeped in the supernatural. The protagonists' search for the answer to whether it is the Aztec goddess Tonantzin or Our Lady of Guadalupe who has been revered for the past 500 years is interrupted by a giggling, young girl, who appears only to Judith. Is she a figment of Judith's imagination, a vision - or could she be an angel, as Pastora believes? Set near Mexico City and incorporating present-day Hispanic and ancient Aztec beliefs, culture, and cuisine, Sacred Choices deeply celebrates the triumph of the spirit.Read reviews at Maureen's Books (http: //maureensbooks.blogspot.nl/2014/04/review-sacred-choices-by-karen-hulene.html) and Reading Shy (http: //readingshy.blogspot.com/2014/04/sacred-choices-by-karen-hulene-bartell.html?m=

True love is like a ghost. Many believe in it, but few encounter it.Chloe Clark stumbles on both but, burned by romance and riddled with low self-esteem, she's unable to recognize true love when it finds her. Agreeing to care for her great-aunt Edwina, she travels to Door County, Wisconsin. There she meets Hud, a charismatic Menominee Indian man, who initiates her in sunset cruises on Lake Michigan, the aurora borealis, his tribe's Wolf clan, and the importance of faith, family, and love. At her great-aunt's antiquated house, Chloe learns of her family's roles in the tragic Peshtigo Fire of 1871 and the miracles at the Our Lady of Good Help Shrine. Things get frightening when she accidentally summons the spirits of two restless relatives who begin manipulating her emotions. Faced with the still-unsolved murder of her great-aunt's sister at age fourteen, an ongoing family feud from six decades before, and a vengeful phantom, Chloe must help her ancestors find peace to be freed of their grasp. Can she realize that peace and find true love with Hud?

A simple trek through Spain becomes a life-changing journey through fear and hope.A daddy's girl born on Father's Day, Gwen Alton lost faith in men when her father emotionally abandoned her. Despite her impending marriage, she has doubts. A spiritual orphan with trust issues, Gwen lets no one crack her shell of self-reliance. When the young photojournalist sets out on her family's pipedream of walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage through Spain, she has no real faith in the divine or supernatural. But along the Way, her deceased father haunts her and she meets a mysterious man with violet-blue eyes who bewilders her.Can she resolve issues with her father-figure fiancé? Will she choose the familiar, well-worn path of emotional rejection or blaze a new and exciting trail? Through a series of divine signs along the Way, Gwen takes the first steps on a life-long pilgrimage.

Hours after arriving in the Florida Keys to help her cousin Keya create a turtle preserve, Ruth discovers a washed-up body and not one, but two apparitions-Maita, the angry victim's spirit, and Bart, a swashbuckling ghost. Ruth's curious ability to connect with the ghosts may help them move on, but how? Keya is in a probate battle over her turtle-nesting beach. Land-hungry relatives want it bulldozed and developed. Like Ruth, she has a special gift-she can talk to animals. Between Ruth's help and Keya's unique ability, they work to save the property, but is it too late? Can Keya save her beloved turtles? Can Ruth find Maita's murderer or help Bart solve his 400-year-old mystery? There's more than meets the eye to Keya's land. Add in a dashing sailor who believes in her, and Keya may have more than she bargained for...