Short Stories/Novellas

There is no joy on Christmas Eve in Houston in 2001. On November 29, the mighty Enron corporation collapsed in an explosion of fraud, scandal and chicanery. Ben Scroggs has no use for his fellow man, or woman, or the Christmas season, but he was just an accountant, an isolated, lonely man. Then, of course, the three ghosts descend on him like bloodhounds, and by the end of that momentous night, he’s not only found a lost soul . . . his own. . . but has uncovered a murderer.

"sheer joy!"--January magazine review Meet Alice Roosevelt Longworth, the “other Washington Monument,” in this short story from a mystery anthology edited by Nancy Pickard. (BONUS: A free sample of a legal thriller by Carole Nelson Douglas's former student assistant, Diane Castle, is included.) Teddy Roosevelt said of his firstborn: “I can either run the country or I can control Alice, but I cannot possibly do both.” When the twentieth century was infantile, Theodore Roosevelt’s irrepressible daughter was a lovely Gibson-girl debutante, America’s Princess Alice, married in her father’s White House. She traveled, campaigned, smoked and played poker with her father’s cronies. A cousin of Franklin Delano—and a closer cousin of Eleanor—Roosevelt, Alice survived the betrayals many women married to political men faced during her long era, took on rearing her orphaned 11-year-old granddaughter at age 73, and lived to be 96. She died at the brink of the Reagan White House, remaining to the bittersweet end America’s tart-tongued girl-turned-grande dame, a Washington Institution as venerable, varied and surprising as the Smithsonian itself. In later years she had an embroidered sofa pillow that read: "If you haven't got anything good to say about anybody, come sit next to me." And she's surfaced in a new bestselling political novel: “Watergate also [features] Alice Longworth, the eldest child of Theodore Roosevelt and the snarky grand dame of Washington at the time of the scandal. She is a scene-gnawing hoot, and the moment between her and Nixon just after his resignation speech is one of the novel’s most affecting.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram review of Thomas Mallon's 2012 novel, Watergate. About the Black Oil, Red Blood excerpt included: author Diane Castle is the pseudonym of a Texas attorney whose practice experience includes assisting plaintiffs with wrongful death and personal injury cases against Big Oil giants. Prior to her career as an attorney, Diane Castle was Carole Nelson Douglas’s personal assistant and a staff writer for the Dallas Morning News. Diane has been honored with two awards for humor and satire and one award for literary criticism.

Caught between Heaven and Hell, Regency rake Adrian Ashworth must find an angel to save him by Christmas, only four days and a world away . . . . Will humor and heart and true love win him away from wealth and self-indulgence? "this gem of a love story shines with a brilliance that will dazzle your heart . . . a radiant tale of love, redemption and ineffable joy.”—RT Book Reviews "Carole Nelson Douglas writes one of the most unusual of these well-crafted tales in one of the best and most memorable collections of the season."--Library Journal on the Angel Christmas anthology Read the sequel, "Miss Merriweather's Christmas Follies," in the Christmas Ghosts anthology edited by Kristine Grayson! “Carole Nelson Douglas is known more for her fantasy fiction and mysteries than romance . . . original and well-written . . . easy to read and enjoyable.” —retroredux, Amazon.com