Holiday Thriller

With twinkling lights and Christmas trees, the small seaside town of Pembroke Cove, Maine, is dressed up for the season. Lily Michaels, bookstore owner and witch, is excited to attend the Glow and Glide ice skating festival. This year, as part of a couple with her new fiancé, Gage Erikson—who Milo, her familiar, calls Detective Cutie. It’s the holidays, what could go wrong?

Matty Iapen is the most average bounty hunter and investigator you could hire in Cleveland. He graduated college with a journalism degree only to find work chasing criminals and solving B-rate mysteries. Along with his colleagues Mariah and Alison, Matty will solve any mystery -- mainly because he needs to pay the bills.

Roxy Bloom and Patrick Cane are hosting the ultimate Christmas Day Diner for all of their friends and family at The Bean Hive. Roxy has been so busy with her Jingle Bells Lattes and planning the party that Patrick whisks her off for a romantic dinner at the Watershed for some alone time. Their dinner turns out to be a headache. They were seated next to Ryan and Yvonne Moore, who fought the entire time. After dinner, Roxy and Patrick see the couple drive off the road into Lake Honey Springs, Patrick dives into the frigid lake to save the couple, only to find Ryan was already dead.

Alex and Leo are finally able to break ground on the dog rescue they've been working on for impossible to place dogs who have been at the shelter for an extended period or who find themselves on death row for one reason or another. The altruistic couple hire a man who is both a contractor and an ex-con to oversee the construction of the pens and buildings.

A man dies during a dinner party Zak and Zoe are attending, Alex has a famous friend staying with her, a suspicious federal agent shows up creating more questions than answers, and what should be a fairly cut and dried murder investigation turns into a complicated mess, which makes it difficult to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Abby is offered the chance to participate in an author event being held at Firehouse Books with one of her own favorite authors. When the guest author turns up dead, Abby realizes that clues to the author’s death could be found in the new novel. Abby joins Colt as he investigates the death of a local man who died after eating pudding dosed with poison during a community dinner. Colt receives a call to check out a light inside an abandoned lighthouse closed for renovations. The pair respond only to find evidence of two trespassers, one of which is now dead.

Holiday for the Hostile, second book in the Hostile series, is probably even stranger than the first. Serena, plus her unusual friend and partner in crime, Tile X, reluctantly find themselves suffering a family holiday at her eccentric grandfather's hovel in Ireland. Who will escape intact from their dramatic holiday from Hell? A gripping paranormal thriller with a splash of horror.

Brighton, 1882: Albert Moscrop spends his holiday peering at beachgoers through a telescope, piecing together disarmingly trivial observations into a compelling drama for his own amusement. A keen student of human nature, Moscrop concentrates his interest on one particular family - the Protheros, especially the beautiful Zena Prothero, whose husband appears to take her for granted. Moscrop gradually moves into the circle of the Prothero family, only to become involved in a sensational murder.

If love for his father makes a man weak, what’ll happen when he gives his heart to a woman? When Special Agent Finnegan O'Reilly gets shot, and the news brings on his father’s heart attack, he decides to take leave from further undercover assignments. The O'Reilly has suffered enough, and Finn can’t be the cause of more distress for this beloved old rascal. Unexpectedly, his boss forces one more case on him - to take place in their own pub.

Hemlock Falls is one of the most picturesque villages in Upstate New York, with the Hemlock Inn, owned by the amateur sleuth Quilliam sisters, as its centerpiece. For the Quilliam sisters, there’s nothing jolly about this Christmas. Meg and Quill are near-broke. At least there’s one bright start on the horizon: A big-time magazine and television show will feature the Inn. But soon the editor’s husband skis to his death. Now, if the Quilliams are to save the Inn from a lawsuit, they’ll need to prove this was no accident.

After getting reassigned from the North Pole by a jealous Mrs. Claus, misfit elf Holly Hopewell is sent to work in the worst place imaginable - The North Pole Emporium Department store in Mistletoe, Oregon. The elves call it Mistletoe Row, a place so devoid of joy and Christmas spirit, that many a curly-toed folk has lost their poor mind working there. But just when Holly thinks things can’t get any worse, the store’s manager, who also happens to be Mrs. Claus’s nephew, is found murdered in his office.

The Darkness of New Orleans dozed fitfully during the war years, waiting for its chance to play with its toys again. It was a Darkness as carefully hidden as the gates to the small courtyards that lurk between buildings in the French Quarter. In the Le Prete Mansion, a movie is just now wrapping up, having spawned madness in trying to film a seductive tale of death and mystery. Disenfranchised spirits have been sent to the hell of their birth. One lost spirit has found a new home in the body of a French Quarter policewoman.

Ainsley decides to set aside her search for answers to her past and enjoy her first Gooseberry Christmas by volunteering along with the rest of the gang for the Christmas festival on the boardwalk. Normally Ainsley didn’t bother much with Christmas and all its trappings, but this year she is excited to join in as most of the locals are prone to do. Of course it does put a bit of a damper on the festivities when a body is found in the tree lot where the gang had offered to help out.

Christmas is on trial, and time is running out. Attorney Thad Raker represents an eccentric client living in a house with a Christmas secret. When the county goes to court to take the client’s property, Raker must battle conspiring adversaries, a cantankerous judge, and his own personal feelings and doubts. If he loses the case, Christmas won’t come for hundreds of thousands of children. Can Raker save Christmas and, in the process, save himself?

Die Ehe von Andreas und Nicola Kantor ist in Routine erstarrt. Da bietet ihnen überraschend ein Freund an, über die Feiertage in sein Ferienhaus in Miramas-le-Vieux zu ziehen. Weihnachten in der Provence, nur sie beide... Tatsächlich reisen sie in einen malerischen, halb vergessenen mittelalterlichen Ort: Das Haus ist romantisch, die wenigen Nachbarn sind freundlich. Doch bereits in der ersten Nacht fällt Schnee in einer Landschaft, in der fast nie Schnee fällt. Langsam, aber unerbittlich wird Miramas-le-Vieux von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten.

Maggie Gerber and those discount divas the Good Buy Girls are gearing up for their first big holiday thrift-shop sale. But one of the Girls - Joanne Claramotta, pregnant with her first child - is acting less than festive. It could be hormones. Or it could be Diane Jenkins, the young knockout her husband Michael hired as his new deli assistant. Calming Joanne’s nerves proves impossible when Maggie finds Michael unconscious on his deli floor - with Diane next to him, strangled to death with her apron strings.

The Sinterklaas has tasked Christmas Special Investigator Steingrim Og with finding a missing spell, but he must first contend with a new assistant and aid an old friend. When mysterious explosions kill elves regardless of race and word of treason among the elves is revealed, Steingrim does not know whom to trust. His investigations uncover plans for an invasion by one of the village’s deadliest nemesis: Jack Frost.

House flippers Jack and Juniper agree to lend and help prep their latest purchase - the Doctor's House, an old Victorian mansion - to act as the eerie setting for the town's Halloween bash. They're expecting to find missing floor boards and pesky bats, not the ghostly specter of the murdered doctor's wife. But when the head of the council is found stuffed in a trunk in the attic, it appears history is repeating.

It's Christmas time at the Paranormal Institute for Witches. Excited to go home for the holidays and be reunited with their families, Mercy, Jax, Holly, Sweets, and Alba say their goodbyes. However, when an unpredicted snowstorm ravages Aspen Falls, the girls must scramble to figure out their next move. Tempers flare as blame is placed and feelings are hurt. By the looks of it, Christmas will surely be ruined. But when a surprise visitor arrives, the girls are forced to find out what friendship really means and decide whether or not it's worth saving.

On a bleak Christmas morning, Sewa Tribal Police Officer Heather English patrols a desolate canyon on the Arizona reservation. Back in Kansas, her father, the sheriff of Benteen County, is lonely enough with no family around to go in to work at his office. On the way, Sheriff English calms a wild incident in a church parking lot. Then he hears of a death threat. The crèche, at the center of the town’s largest holiday yard display, has been desecrated, and its owner plans to kill the neighbors he suspects are responsible.