Jessica Thorpe novels Series

A former lover, the president of a Swiss bottling company, comes for Jessica. He proposes, and she travels with him to Dubai to be his wife and to help set up a new branch of the company. But she is not the only woman who wants him. Tricked into visiting a desert village, she is held while the other woman plots to take her fiancée. Jessica must get free before her man is lost to her forever. Her route to freedom may run through a man of the desert.

After her husband is killed, Jessica retreats to her resort in Galena, Illinois. While she is deep in mourning, a Hollywood film company comes to the resort and invites her to join them making a film about Narcissa Whitman, the woman who helped create the Oregon Trail. Jessica travels with the film company supplying food and transportation, but also working as an extra. They travel the entire Oregon Trail from Kansas City to Portland, learning more about Narcissa Whitman as they go. The work is hard, but as Jessica travels the Trail, she finds new love, and new direction in her life.

It begins with a chance meeting. Jessica is inspecting one of her hotels. There sits Jim Thomas - a Hollywood cinematographer scouting film locations on the North Shore of Lake Superior. Dinner leads to a field trip, then several days together, then a plan for a new movie. Six women, all Iraq War veterans, will take canoes along the route used by Jolliet and Marquette as they discovered the Mississippi River. By September a director is found and filming begins. As they paddle hundreds of miles, the women reflect on their time in Iraq and their lives after their return. And Jessica finds love.

When the local water bottling plant – the only significant business in town – is threatened with closure, Jessica flies to Switzerland to meet with the owners. She discovers the local plant is just a pawn in a fight for control over a huge Swiss corporation. After a hike through the Alps to see a melting glacier, Jessica joins the fight, and in the process gains a new husband, a castle, and a new direction in her life. But this is a battle that will be fought mostly over social media, and mostly with hidden foes. She has to fight in Switzerland, across northern Wisconsin, and in her home town – and much more is at stake than one company.

When a Swiss company builds a water bottling plant in northern Wisconsin, it appears to be a great opportunity. It will bring dozens of jobs to an area that has been losing jobs for decades. But a group of local women wonder what impact large scale pumping will have on the local water supply. Their concerns put them in opposition to most of the town. Jessica likes the idea of jobs, but is concerned too about how some families might be impacted. When the bottling company president brings her to Switzerland to consult on the project, she doesn’t know if she is his prisoner, or his lover. Back in Wisconsin, arguments over the bottling plant get violent. Women protesters are attacked, and shots are fired into one of their homes. Jessica and the women protesters try to calm the situation, but tensions are high when the project is stopped, and then sold to a new company. It is up to Jessica to get the project restarted, and to help locals about to lose their water supply.

Book 7: Southern Africa has been enduring drought for three years. The World Bank asks Jessica to help with an exploration project. Can water be found under the Kalahari Desert? Jessica agrees to help. It is her chance to explore Africa and do some good. She helps put in 90 wells. The project is a huge success. Then she loses everything, and must restart her life. She returns to Wisconsin and to her family as she tries to rebuild her company and rebuild her life.

Book 8: Jessica’s new love brings her to Europe. A geology professor, he will help her place her water wells where they can best aid a world getting hotter, and drier. But it is a ploy to get her help. Her late husband’s family company is being attacked by a woman who is beautiful, brilliant, and relentless. To save the family company, Jessica will need to face her. But this is a woman Jessica knows, and loves. A woman who has bested Jessica every time she has faced her. Now they will meet, dance, and battle on a yacht cruising between Dubai and Oman. Held captive on the yacht, Jessica finds a new love. But can she trust him? And what will be the price of his help? Before she is done, she will need to dance with the dragon in Dubai and in Switzerland, and find some way to make peace.