Sarah the Sorceress Queen - First book in the Cottonwood Series by Linda Harper

Sarah Colter heads home to Cottonwood, to settle the estate of her parents who were killed in a head on collision several months ago. An old college friend, Sam Jordane is from the firm her parents used to take care of their wills years ago. Sam reads the will and gives Sarah a beautifully decorated wooden box and key. He explains how wealthy she is now. Her Aunt and Cousin also inherited sizable amounts. Sarah told Sam of her napping and waking with a portion of her clothing torn off, and some of her packing boxes were scratched and torn. Sarah opened the wooden box for him and asked him to look at it's contents, which included very valuable jewelry and a stack of letters. He read one in particular that he said his parents needed to see immediately. Sam and Sarah drove to his parents home in the Cottonwood hills. They read several of the letters and were astounded to learn that Sarah's Dad was not her Father. That her Father's parents live in Italy. The reason Sam wanted them to see the letter was that they were close friends of Sam's parents and had lost track of them. Sam's mother Karen asked if she could talk to Sarah downstairs in her lab? They went downstairs and Karen told her she sensed that Sarah had some special gifts and she wanted to evaluate her. After they were finished, they returned to Sam and Marcus; Sam's Dad. Karen told them that Sarah had her Father's blood and she had many gifts that were just starting to surface. Marcus then told Sarah Why Cottonwood was such a special place; since everyone that lived there had a gift. Karen's give was that of sight, healing and mind control. Marcus was a shape-shifter. Sam's gifts hadn't surfaced yet, but he was close. The young lady that thought Sam was her's started to cause problems for him. Sam told Sarah that Alexa had many problems and if she didn't stop, he would have his Father talk to her Father. Well, Alexa caused a lot of problems for everyone. She killed her Mother. She was placed into a large safe room where she could be monitored and a Dr. Pierre was called in. Come and visit Cottonwood, They'll make you feel right at home...