Cozy Women Sleuths

Paige Murphy loves her new life in Italy, where she can sip wine, eat pasta, and while the days away working on her romance novel. But all that changes when her beloved aunt falls ill, and she must fly back home to Texas - a place she thought she’d left behind. In a blink, she finds herself with a failing beachside bookstore, jealous cousins out to get her, and pesky suitors who won’t leave her alone. As if that wasn’t enough, buried treasure and hidden secrets could prove to be deadly!

Agatha Raisin, retired PR supremo, has been spurned at the alter by the man of her dreams - her attractive neighbor James Lacey. So temporarily deserting the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely, she pursues her fleeing fiancé to north Cyprus where, instead of enjoying a romantic honeymoon, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Can the duo forget their differences and resume their strangely successful sleuthing partnership?

Meg Langslow and Michael's house is serving as the marshalling point for the annual Caerphilly holiday parade. The theme is the 12 Days of Christmas, and it features 12 drummers from the school's marching band, 11 bagpipers, 10 leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college's drama department, and so on. There are also assorted floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the three wise men on Caerphilly Zoo camels, and Santa in a bright-red horse-drawn sleigh.

In a small town like Pembroke Cove, Maine, everyone has something to hide. But when bookstore owner Lily Michaels takes a tumble and hits her head, and her cat Milo starts talking to her, she discovers she has something to hide, too. She’s a witch, and Milo is her familiar. And she’s not the only one in town. Lily has been hiding something else, too. Even though she’s always kept Gage Erikson in the friend zone, her feelings for the man Milo calls Detective Cutie go a lot deeper than she’s willing to admit.

It’s Christmas in Riddleton and crime-novelist-turned-amateur-sleuth Jen is in desperate need of a cozy festive season running the town's local bookstore. But, between trying to drum up business for Ravenous Readers and attempting to finish her latest novel, Jen is totally run off her feet. Matters get worse, however, when a man's body is found outside the bookstore, along with a scrap of paper in his pocket with none other than Jen's address on it!

When private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge, it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha discovers when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. The factory mystery soon turns to murder and a bad-tempered donkey turns Agatha into a national celebrity, before bringing her ridicule and shame.

At the end of Berrywick’s amateur theatre’s latest production, a shot rings out amongst the rapturous applause. But when Julia Bird peeks through the curtain, she sees lead actor Graham is lying still on the stage, his co-actor Oscar looking down at his prop gun in shock. She knows that Graham has been murdered, but with nearly everyone in the village helping with the play, anyone could have tampered with the props. And why was a beloved family man the target?

A new year, 1917, is dawning, and the Great War that ravages the world shows no sign of abating. Answering the siren call of Egypt once more, Amelia Peabody and her family arrive at their home in Luxor to learn of a new royal tomb ransacked by thieves. Soon an even more disturbing outrage...

Briar Creek Library director Lindsey Norris and her husband, Sully, are at a popular library conference in Chicago to hear book restoration specialist Brooklyn Wainwright give a keynote address. After the lecture, Lindsey looks under her seat and finds a tote bag containing a first edition of Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, inscribed to Alfred Hitchcock. Brooklyn determines the novel is one of a kind and quite valuable, so Lindsey and Sully return the book to the conference director, not wanting to stir up any trouble.

This Christmas, Callie Aspen returns to her childhood hideout Heart's Harbor, Maine, where her great aunt runs Book Tea, a vintage tearoom where every sweet treat contains a bookish clue. Upon arrival in the fairy-tale snowy town, Callie is drawn into the preparations for a special tea party at Haywood Hall, the rambling house of Heart's Harbor's oldest resident, rich but lonely widow Dorothea Finster, who invited her estranged relatives, old friends, and the elite of the town to make a mysterious announcement about her will.

It’s 1958, and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy has not left the Pinnacle Hotel in fourteen months. She suffers from agoraphobia, and what’s more, it’s her father’s hotel, and everything she needs is there. She’s always been good at finding things. Fifteen years earlier, she discovered her mother dead. Now, she’s finding trouble inside her sanctuary. At a party for artist Billie Bell, his newest work is stolen, and Evelyn’s fake boyfriend, movie star Henry Fox, is accused of the theft. But just as Evelyn sets out to prove Henry’s innocence, she finds Billie Bell dead.

Any wedding is a big deal in the small village of Kilbane - even more so when the bride is a famous fashion model. It's also good for business; Siobhan O'Sullivan's bistro will be catering the three-day affair. When the drunken best man is disinvited, Siobhan's own beau, Macdara, gladly steps in. But finding the original best man murdered in the woods casts a pall over the nuptials. And when a second member of the wedding party is poisoned, Macdara goes from being best man to prime suspect.

It's autumn in Ashland, Oregon, - 'tis the season for a spiced hot apple cider with a serving (or two) of Torte's famous peach cobbler. It's also the perfect time for Jules Capshaw to promote her family's beloved bake shop by competing in The Pastry Channel's reality show, Take the Cake. The prize is $25,000. But as Jules quickly learns, some people would kill for that kind of dough. Literally.

It's the week before Thanksgiving, and Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, is preparing for a weekend reunion of her mother's college friends. But when the group of women comes into Merry's shop, Merry is met with frosty attitudes and cold hearts. The women argue amongst themselves constantly, and the bickering only intensifies after one of the friends is poisoned. With her father's role as Santa in danger due to his proximity to the crime, Merry will need to use all of her investigative gifts to wrap this mystery up and save Santa and her favorite holiday.

No one would ever accuse famous opera star Dame Serena Levante of lacking a flare for the dramatic. Unfortunately, it's curtains down on the dysfunctional diva when she's found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her elegant home. Solving an opera singer's murder may not be the typical hairdresser's aria of expertise. But Dame Serena was the mother of Daisy's best friend Floria, so Daisy must do-or-dye her best to get to the roots of the case.

Kelly's spring project: rehabbing an alpaca ranch. But someone has different ideas for keeping her busy, including slashing tires and cracking windshields. Then the House of Lambspun knitting shop is trashed, and a woman is found drowned in a tub of dye.

From deep in the heart of his 18th century English manor, millionaire Sir Adrian Beauclerk-Fisk writes mystery novels and torments his four spoiled children with threats of disinheritance. Gathering them all together for a family dinner, he announces his latest blow - a secret elopement. Within hours, eldest son and appointed heir Ruthven is found cleaved to death by a medieval mace. And soon Sir Adrian himself is found slumped over his writing desk - an ornate knife thrust into his heart.

Life hasn't sparkled too brightly for Bonnie Balfour over the past few years, but a heart-breaking divorce has brought her back to her small rural hometown of Bliss, Georgia, and things are starting to shape up. The proud new owner of Bless Her Heart - a second chance dress shop and boutique on the town square - Bonnie thinks 38 might not be too late for a fresh start in life after all.

After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.

Where Alison Kerby's ex-husband goes, trouble follows. This time, unfortunately, he's brought that trouble right to her doorstep. On the run from a business deal gone bad, Steven, aka "the Swine", owes some scary people a staggering sum of money. No need to panic, though. He has a plan: sell Alison's Jersey Shore guesthouse to pay them off. Before Alison has a chance to read Steven the riot act, he disappears - after a mysterious man trailing him ends up full of bullet holes.