Cozy Suspense

As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right.

When Emily Lane isn’t busy running her charming Christmas-themed store, ‘’Under the Mistletoe,‘’ located in the quaint tourist town of Fletcher’s Grove, she finds herself compelled to investigate not so quaint local murders. On the surface, Emily is a perfectly lovely, good-natured puzzle-solver and mystery lover. But she is hiding a secret past that has finally begun to catch up with her, as an old acquaintance arrives to throw a wedge between Emily and Sam’s burgeoning relationship, and worse, threatens to destroy the new life Emily has built for herself.

Madeline Brimley left small-town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many, but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore—and restart her life—Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges.

When Holly White's fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime - exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society, Margaret Fenwick, is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly's family tree farm.

Dora Winslow is having a hard day. Not only does she stumble upon a money laundering scheme, but the next thing she knows her boss is dead. As the prime suspect for his murder, she goes to Brian, a police officer she trusts. She soon learns things aren't adding up because Brian's got a mysterious scheme of his own.

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her old Aunt Sadie are making ends meet by managing a mystery book shop - a quaint Rhode Island landmark rumored to be haunted. Pen may not believe in ghosts, but she does believe in good publicity - like nabbing Timothy Brennan for a book signing. But soon after the bestselling thriller writer reveals a secret about the store's link to a 1940s murder, he keels over dead - and right in the middle of the store's new community events space. Who gives Mrs. McClure the first clue that it was murder?

Marian Stamford moves to her dream home: a snug little cottage in a Dorset village where nothing ever happens. She only wants a quiet life, a home for her unlikely family of two nieces and one troublesome kitten. Before long, things take a darker turn. A man breaks out of prison, leaving the villagers rattled. What are they afraid of? Marian isn’t one for idle gossip. But she can’t ignore the telltale signs that someone has been sneaking into her garden at night.

More than anything, Olivia Greer wants to celebrate moving into her newly built home with her boyfriend, Michael. Unfortunately, she's plagued with guilt about leaving her sister Sage. Convinced she would feel better about the whole situation if Sage had a boyfriend, Olivia cooks up a scheme to play match-maker between Sage and her old friend Jeff Grossman. The pair seem to be on the right track toward a connection... when Jeff's sister, Roxanne, finds a dead body and is arrested for murder.

Blue Bell has spent years hiding her mystical talents while running her candy shop, Sucre Bleu. But when a dead body appears outside new neighbor Ethan Moore's office, she finds herself drawn into a baffling murder. With help from her sarcastic talking cat Tiffany, quirky sister Pepper, and Ethan's slick investigating skills, Blue follows the clues. Her supernatural gifts give her an edge, but she risks exposing her secret witchy abilities.

Crescent Cove, a small hamlet on Vancouver Island, is the last place out-of-work investigative journalist Luke Tremblay ever wanted to see again. He used to spend summers here, until his family learned that he was gay and rejected him. Now, following his aunt's sudden death, he's inherited her entire estate, including her seaside cottage and the antiques shop she ran for forty years in Crescent Cove. Luke plans to sell everything and head back to Toronto as soon as he can . . . but Crescent Cove isn't done with him just yet.

Downsized from the FBI’s human resources department on the Virginia mainland, Patience Price is setting up shop as a Counselor at Large in her quirky island town. And she’s making the best of her reinvention, until a high school boyfriend is accused of murder, and his determined mama wants Patience to save his hide. Local golden boy Adrian Davis once crushed Patience’s teenage heart, and now he needed her help? She can’t help offering a chef’s kiss to Karma.

Sometimes the only way to do the right thing is to break the rules. Love, Lies, and Murder is a collection of 19 short stories that explore the extremes of human emotion and the conflicts that result. Every story will leave you tense and breathless as the characters race to a conclusion that is as unexpected as it is satisfying. Intense and gripping, each story features a hero that seeks justice and the triumph of good over evil by whatever means necessary - regardless of what society’s rules find acceptable.

A teacup, a diary, and a body at the foot of the stairs.... When Ruth Townsend’s job and marriage both end abruptly, she heads home to the mountains for a fresh start. Nine months later, she has a new hobby, good friends, and a potential new romance - but only two dozen subscribers to the weekly newspaper she’s intent on reviving. What she needs is a good mystery...but nothing ever happens in sleepy little Thistlewood. Then Edith Morton is found dead at the bottom of her staircase.

When the Earl of Granville is skewered with a pitchfork in his own stables, Inspector Haze and Lord Redmond must unearth decades-old family secrets in order to unravel the motive behind the murder. But just when they think they’re making headway, disturbing new revelations come to light and cast doubt on their findings.

Kinsley never thought she would go home. She left Coventry and didn't look back. But after a divorce, she packed up her stuff and drove toward the only place that she knew would accept her. Life hadn't been easy for Kinsley since she left town. She'd spent her entire adult life rebelling against what she was, and that meant hiding her true self from the world. Kinsley left Coventry on a mission to be ordinary. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans.

A farmer and his wife make a gruesome discovery. Their 911 call brings Detective Dan Cutter out to a lonely country driveway where he finds a brutally murdered young woman. She has no identification on her, but one thing is clear: Somebody wanted to make sure she was dead. Cutter, whose still learning his way around Stone County, must track down a cold-blooded killer who brought this Jane Doe to a dead end.

Growing up in one of Florida's age-55-plus communities, Charlotte never expected life to be wild. Golf cart racing with her surrogate mothers Mariska and Darla was about as nutty as life got... until she found the hot pawnbroker's mom buried in her backyard.

A dead colleague isn't the best way to start a semester, or a romance. Although Sheridan Hendley is not a sleuth, when her colleague is murdered, she assists the detective in gathering information.

When your fiancé breaks up with you on your 49th birthday, what do you do? If you’re April May, you buy a huge Victorian home on a whim and open a tearoom featuring lace tablecloths, exotic teas, and dainty sandwiches.

Molly Appleby is a young writer for Collector's Weekly, and when the attractive reporter isn't covering auctions and antique shows all over the South, she's trying to get her new relationship with a coworker off the ground. When her latest assignment takes her to North Carolina pottery country to cover an exclusive kiln opening, she's certain that the show promises surprising offerings and rare finds. What she doesn't expect to find is a dead body.