Cozy Mysteries

Holly Wood (yes, that's her real name) is driving home for Christmas and not feeling too happy about the empty house waiting for her. When her car skids into a snow bank, she's rescued by a sweet old lady who promises her name is Mrs. Claus. Holly is taken to Candy Cane Hollow to recover, and finds herself in a genuine winter wonderland.

There’s bad news for Samantha Warren: the plucky Houston, Texas, reporter lost her job and her fiancé in rapid succession. But Sam has a way of making lemonade out of the bitterest of lemons.

Owning her own business seemed like pie in the sky to Valentine Harris when she moved to the coastal California town of San Nicholas. But when one of her regulars keels over at the counter while eating a quiche, Val feels like she's living a nightmare. After the police determine the customer was poisoned, business at Pie Town drops faster than a fallen crust, and Val must expose the truth - before a crummy killer tries to shut her pie hole.

Artist Celeste Cabot welcomes the chance to show her paintings at a craft fair in her hometown of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, where she and her Chihuahua, Van Gogh, can park her vintage Shasta trailer and sell her creations, too. Unfortunately, her sales take a hit when a customer returns a painting, claiming it's haunted. When a fellow vendor discovers images hidden in Celeste's artwork - and a ghost pays her a late-night visit - she's shocked to realize she has psychic abilities.

My life was going just fine by most standards. I ran a successful business in a tight-knit magical community, and lived just blocks from a beautiful lake and series of hiking trails. Then Selene showed up. According to some magical code I inherit my aunt's ancient familiar; a grumpy ten-pound cat with a broken filter. She fancies herself something of a saber-toothed tiger, and claims to have wrestled the thread of her ninth life from the hands of the Fates themselves—although, I'm pretty sure that last part isn't true. Almost positive.

Late October 1909, and the season of ghouls and things that go bump in the night has descended on the village of Littleton Cotterell. Lady Hardcastle and her trusted lady’s maid, Florence, find themselves hosting a colorful cast of actors whose spooky moving picture, The Witch’s Downfall, is being shown to mark Halloween. But things take a macabre turn when the first night’s screening ends with a mysterious murder, and the second night with another. One by one the actors turn up dead in ways that eerily echo their film.

When the formidable Marchioness of Bandberry arrives at Ashcombe Hall, Lady Ellen feels the weight of her critical gaze upon her. But pomp and pageantry soon give way to scandal when a London journalist is found dead on Ellen’s drive. And his body has been marked with the chilling symbol of the Vigilante Slasher.

Dying to Go (Nothing to Gush About) Thirty-nine-year-old Rosi Laruee—named Rosisophia Doroche after her mother’s beloved Golden Girls—decides that the end of her twenty-year marriage and her dad’s impending knee replacement surgery are all the excuses she needs to visit Tucson Valley Retirement Community. But the drama follows Rosi when she finds the body of local tart and business owner, Salem Mansfield.

Murder, magic, and mayhem—with a side of cake and a hooting owl. Welcome to Whittlecombe, a village so quaint even the ghosts can’t bear to leave. At the heart of it sits the Wonky Inn—a crumbling, magical haven inherited by one Alfhild Daemonne, a witch with spectacularly unpredictable powers and an owl familiar named Mr Hoo who thinks he knows best (and often does). In The Wonkiest Witch, Alf’s plans to quietly settle in are rudely interrupted by a corpse on the patio, a nosey village full of secrets and a sudden need to remember how magic actually works. Spoiler: it doesn’t go well.

When Mercy McCarthy takes her beloved mother’s watch to be fixed, she’s completely charmed by the little repair store and the father-and-son duo who run it. Little does she know that the clock is ticking… when she returns, she finds the father lying unconscious amid broken glass, and her mother’s watch is missing.

When Adeline Bertrand-Verdon, the haughty, conniving president of the Proust Association, is murdered, Inspector Jean-Pierre Foucheroux is called on to lead the investigation. Soon Inspector Foucheroux is overwhelmed by a seemingly endless list of suspects: from her assistant to her colleagues, her fiancé to her lover, almost everyone Adeline knew had motive to kill her.

Chester Henry and his adult granddaughter Clare lovingly repair old typewriters and restore old books. Who ever thought their quaint store would hold the key to some modern-day trouble? When a stranger to town demands they turn over an antique Underwood typewriter they're repairing for a customer, Clare fears she may need to be rescued. A call to the police scares the man off, but later Clare finds his dead body in the back alley. What about a dusty old typewriter could possibly be worth killing for?

Welcome to Tarpon Cove. Madison Westin has inherited her aunt's beachfront motel in the Florida Keys. The only trouble is she’s also inherited a slew of colorful tenants—drunks, ex-cons, and fugitives. First, she has to wrestle control from a conniving lawyer and shady motel manager. With the help of her new best friend, whose motto is never leave home without your Glock, she dives into a world of blackmail, murder, and drugs.

Tonya Kappes presents Books 19-21 in the Camper and Criminals Cozy Mystery series: Book 19: Wildlife, Warrants, & Weapons, Book 20: Blossoms, Barbeque, & Blackmail, and Book 21: Lanterns, Lakes, & Larceny, featuring sleuthing campground owner in Normal, Kentucky, Mae West....

Starting a new life in Florida means year-round sunshine, beautiful beaches, and balmy breezes. For most people, anyway. But not for thirtysomething Piper and her grandmother, former members of a motorcycle gang in Oregon. For them, it means entering the witness protection program and moving to Bitter End in the Sunshine State. Yes, to Bitter End. It doesn’t get much more ironic than this. But hey, it’s better than rotting in jail for getting busted with tax evasion and money laundering, and infinitely better than getting killed by said gang for testifying against them.

Local chef Tessa Esposito is struggling to get back on her feet following her husband's fatal accident. And when the police knock on Tessa's door, things just get worse. They've discovered Dylan's death wasn't an accident after all, and they need Tessa to start filling in the blanks. Who would want her beloved husband dead, and why?

When Juni Jessup and her sisters Tansy and Maggie put all their beans in one basket to open Sip & Spin Records, a record-slash-coffee shop in Cedar River, Texas, they knew there could be some scratches on the track, but no one was expecting to find a body deader than disco in the supply closet. Family is everything to the Jessups, so when their uncle is arrested by Juni's heartbreaking ex on suspicion of murder, the sisters don't skip a beat putting Sip & Spin up for bail collateral. But their tune changes abruptly when Uncle Calvin disappears, leaving them in a grind.

It’s been an enjoyable and murder-free time for Judith, Suzie and Becks since the events of last year. The most exciting thing on the horizon is the upcoming wedding of Marlow grandee, Sir Peter Bailey, to his nurse, Jenny Page. Sir Peter is having a party at his grand mansion on the river Thames the day before the wedding, and Judith and Co. are looking forward to a bit of free champagne. But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

If you want to enjoy a quick light-hearted listen, with an amateur female sleuth, mouth-watering culinary desserts and a gripping murder mystery, then you'll love Lucy Hale and all the quirky characters in Ivy Creek.

Greta Plank, library director in the small lakeside town of Larkspur, Wisconsin, prefers her rose-tinted glasses extra rosy, thank you very much. It's how she copes with the hard stuff in life . . . like her sister's death and her ex-boyfriend's deception. But Greta's cheery resolve takes a hit when she stumbles upon a dead body on her way home from work. What she assumes is a terrible accident Greta soon learns is something more sinister, and to make matters worse, a new-to-town detective cites her as not only his primary source for the case, but his top suspect.