Bøger af Judy Alter

Susan Hogan is smart, pretty-and prickly. There was no other word for it. She is prickly with Jake Phillips and her Aunt Jenny, the two people who love her most in the world. And she is prickly and impatient with some of her academic colleagues and the petty jealousies in the English department at Oak Grove University. When a coed's body is found in her car and she is suspected of murder, Susan gets even more defensive. But when someone begins to stalk and threaten her-trying to run her down, killing the plants on her deck, causing a moped wreck that breaks her ankle-prickly mixes with fear. Susan decides she has to find the killer to save her reputation-and her life. What she suspects she's found on a quiet campus in Texas is so bizarre Jake doesn't believe her. Until she's almost killed. The death of one coed unravels a tale of greed, lust, and obsession.

Without formal culinary training, Judy Alter has cooked her way through life, feeling family and friends at everything from casual dinners al fresco to elaborate meals for twenty. An award-winning author and publisher, she jokes she'll come back in another life as a chef.Today Alter finds herself cooking in a four-by-six kitchen where zoning laws forbid built-ins but allow anything that plugs in. So she cooks with a hot plate, a toaster oven, and a large refrigerator/freezer. Given these limitations, she has developed a new approach to food, one that she says lets her get in touch with the food itself. By choice, she does not have an Insta-Pot, an air-fryer, a microwave. Her menu choices are dictated by her cooking facilities-and she loves it. She shares her tiny kitchen tips and recipes, developed over the past couple of years, in Gourmet on a Hot Plate.

Arson, a bad beating, and a recluse who claims someone is trying to kill her all collide in this third Blue Plate Café Mystery with Kate Chambers. Torn between trying to save David Clinkscales, her old boss and new lover, and curiosity about Edith Aldridge's story of an attempt on her life, Kate has to remind herself she has a café to run. She nurses a morose David, whose spirit has been hurt as badly as his body, and tries to placate Mrs. Aldridge, who was once accused of murdering her husband but acquitted. One by one, Mrs. Aldridge's stepchildren enter the picture. Is it coincidence that David is Edith Aldridge's lawyer? Or that she seems to rely heavily on the private investigator David hires? First the peacocks die...and then the people. Everyone is in danger, and no one knows who to suspect

Born to society and a life of privilege, Bertha Honoré married Potter Palmer, a wealthy entrepreneur who called her Cissy. Neither dreamed the direction the other's life would take. He built the Palmer House Hotel, still famed today, and became one of the major robber barons of the city, giving generously to causes of which he approved. She put philanthropy into words, going into shanty neighborhoods, inviting factory girls to her home, working at Jane Addams' settlement Hull House, supporting women's causes. It was a time of tremendous change and conflict in Chicago as the city struggled to put its swamp-water beginnings behind it and become a leading urban center. A time of the Great Fire of 1871, the Haymarket Riots, and the triumph of the Columbian Exposition. Potter and Cissy handled these events in diverse ways. Fascinating characters people these pages along with Potter and Cissy-Carter Harrison, frequent mayor of the city; Harry Collins, determined to be a loser; Henry Honoré, torn between loyalties to the South and North; Daniel Burnham, architect of the new Chicago-and many others. The Gilded Cage is a fictional exploration of the lives of these people and of the Gilded Age in Chicago history.

A college student, dead, in an empty pasture. Rifle-carrying strangers in the local grocery store. An irresistible and loveable Labrador puppy. These add up to trouble for Susan Hogan, associate professor of English at Oak Grove (Texas) University, and her partner, Jake, Chief of Campus Security. Susan's independent investigation involves a shooting, a break-in, vandalism, threats, a clandestine spy trip to the woods, and an attempted kidnapping. Throughout, she trips over-and trips up-law enforcement investigation, to Jake's ongoing frustration. Small college towns just aren't always as peaceful as they are billed.

Just when Kelly's life has calmed, she faces yet another of life's puzzles. Except the pieces in this one don't fit. First the apartment behind her house is torched, then a string of bizzare "accidents" occur to set her off-balance. Who is stalking her? Where does the disappearance of a young girl and her disreputable boyfriend fit in? And why are two men using the same name? Is the surprise inheritance another part of the puzzle? At a time when she is most vulnerable, Kelly can't make the pieces fit. Before Kelly can get the whole picture, she helps the family of a hostage, rescues a kidnap victim and attends a wild and wonderful wedding.

When four young men sign the rental contract on a Fairmount House, realtor Kelly O'Connell has no idea she has just signed a contract for chaos. But the racial tensions sweeping the country erupt in Fort Worth, and her tenants fan the flames. A young black policeman shoots an unarmed white teenage thief who charged him, the chief of police is shot by a sniper, and Kelly's husband, Mike, is appointed interim chief of police. Life changes dramatically for Kelly and her family. Protests, threats, beatings, and graffiti mark daily life in Kelly's beloved city. She must protect her infant, reassure her older daughters, and support Mike as he deals with the racism and dissension creeping through the police force and the city. How can she keep her family safe and stop the hate? Will the mayor's city-wide Celebration of Neighbors calm a city on the edge?

Judy Alter's storytelling and impeccable historical research bring the era of the old west to life while highlighting the life of Etta Place.

Judy Alter's storytelling and impeccable historical research bring the era of the old west to life while highlighting the life of Elizabeth Bacon Custer.

Judy Alter's storytelling and impeccable historical research bring the era of the old west to life while highlighting the life of Jessie Benton Fremont.

In the 19th century, Daniel Waggoner and his son, W.T. (Tom), put together an empire in North Texas that became the largest ranch under one fence in the nation. The 520,000-plus acres or 800 square miles covers six counties and sits on a large oil field in the Red River Valley of North Texas. Over the years, the estate also owned five banks, three cottonseed oil mills, and a coal company. Headquarters are in an office building in Vernon. Estimated value last quoted was $300 million.The history is colorful. Although Dan seems to have led a fairly low-profile life, W. T. moved to Fort Worth, became a bank director, built two office buildings, ran his cattle on the Big Pasture in Indian Territory (Oklahoma), hosted Teddy Roosevelt at a wolf hunt in the Big Pasture, and sent Quanah Parker to Washington, D.C., for Roosevelt’s inauguration. W. T. had three children including his daughter, Electra, the light of his life. W. T. built a mansion in Fort Worth for her—today the house, the last surviving cattle baron mansion on Fort Worth’s Silk Stocking Row, is open to the public for tours and events. Electra, an international celebrity and extravagant shopper (she once spent $10,000 in one day at Neiman Marcus), died at the age of forty-three. W.T.’s brother Guy had nine wives; his brother E. Paul, partier and horse breeder, was married to the same woman for fifty years and had one daughter, Electra II. Electra II was a both a celebrity and a talented sculptor, best known for a heroic-size state of Will Rogers on his horse, Soapsuds, as well as busts of two presidents and various movie stars. She is said to once have been involved with Cary Grant. After marriage to an executive she settled in a mansion at the ranch and raised two daughters.This book tells the story of the Wagonner women and their need to do something with the restless energy they possessed. The women did not have—or did not choose—ranching as an outlet for their strong personalities. The story is also about the juxtaposition of a love of the land versus the self-indulgent love of money—a common theme among ranch families that led to the dissolution of many.

By 1900, the tale of the 300 Texians who died in the 1836 battle of the Alamo had already become legend. But to corporate interests in the growing City of San Antonio, the land where that blood was shed was merely a desirable plot of land across the street from new restaurants and hotels, with only a few remaining crumbling buildings to tell the tale. When two women, Adina Emilia De Zavala, the granddaughter of the first vice-president of the Texas Republic, and Clara Driscoll, the daughter of one of Texas¿s most prominent ranch families and first bankers, learned of the plans, they hatched a plan to preserve the site¿and in so doing, they reinvigorated both the legend and lore of the Alamo and cemented the site¿s status as hallowed ground. But the story of the battle the two women started with each other reverberates to this day. These two strong-willed, pioneering women were very different, but the story of how they banded together and how the Alamo became what it is today despite those differences, is compelling reading for those interested in Texas history and Texas¿s larger-than-life personality.

Texans love to eat, and one dish they can't get enough of is chili - so much so that chili con carne is Texas's state meal. This seemingly simple staple of Texan identity proves to be anything but, however. Texas Is Chili Country is a brief look at the favoured fare - its colourful history, its many incarnations, and the ways it has spread both across the country and the world.

In Texas, ""chef"" covers a wide range of cooking styles. This book studies chefs, who represent the styles of food available to the discriminating diner.

Texas just may be the state in the Union with the strongest masculine image. Heroes, from cowboys to the Alamo to Stephen F Austin and Sam Houston, have always been men. But there have also always been women with gumption. This book presents Texas women who have made history in a variety of ways - some outrageous, some inventive, most courageous.

Fourteen-year-old Cat Jennings takes off on horseback to ride across South Texas to urge volunteers to join Sam Houston's army after she learns her father and brother have died at the Alamo. This story is fiction based on historical research.

Written for young people ages eight to twelve, this book tells readers what meteorites are, where they come from, what kinds there are, how to look for them, and what to look for if you find a rock you think might be a meteorite. It also tells the story of Fort Worth lawyer Oscar Monnig who became known as the ""Meteorite Man from Texas.