Southern Fiction Mystery

For Southern girl Verity Long, friendship means sitting down to stories and sweet tea on the front porch. For her gangster ghost housemate, it means dragging Verity out to a remote haunted asylum during a raging thunderstorm to do a favor for a long-dead mob boss. But Verity is always ready to help out a friend, even one as eternally eccentric as Frankie. And in the case of Mint Julep Manor, the stakes are too high to refuse.

One sunny Spring morning, EJ's simple life is turned upside down when the town's master gardener unceremoniously hands her a stack of handwritten letters that have all been addressed to a nonexistent person at the garden. This simple act sets in motion a chain of events that will lead EJ on a life-altering quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious letter writer―and into a surprising head-on confrontation with the harsh realities of the racial injustice that is as deeply rooted in the life of her community as the ancient herbs cultivated in the Moravian garden.

When the most powerful witch in North Carolina, Madame Ti, is abducted, the Porter Agency is called upon to find her. With no leadership over magic in the state, many have come to fill the power void, and this appears to be the first overt move. Is it the Brotherhood — a group seeking to restore ancient magic that pre-dates witchcraft? Or Sister Sadie — the insane witch that used the Porter Agency to free herself from cursed captivity?

Christmas, Criminals, & Campers: When romance author Nadine White is found dead in the Normal Library, librarian Abby Fawn is Detective Hank Sharp's number-one suspect. Motorhomes, Maps, & Murder: Mae West, owner of Happy Trails Campground, just might find out that tapping into her namesake might come in handy when coming face to face with a serial killer. Canyons, Caravans, & Cadavers: When the principal of Normal High School asks Mae West to teach a semester on small-town economics, Mae is thrilled and happy to teach the young people.

Once the flashy, successful lawyer known for his in-your-face billboards—IN AN ACCIDENT? GET RICH—Jason Rich has fallen from grace, his reputation scrubbed of its glitz and his life stripped of the people he cares about. All thanks to meth kingpin Tyson Cade. But when Cade is shot and killed in the heart of his territory, things go from bad to worse for Jason as he is charged with his murder.

Detective Dave Robicheaux becomes entangled in the affairs of the Fontenot family, descendants of sharecroppers whose matriarch helped raise Dave as a child. They are in danger of losing the land they've lived on for more than a century. As Dave tries to discover who wants the land so badly, he finds himself in increasing peril from a lethal, rag tag alliance of local mobsters and a hired assassin with a shady past.

Old wars, new battles. Fighting ghosts, witches, and curses is nothing new for Max and Sandra Porter. But when a Civil War ghost gets tethered to their teenage son, J, everything is new. And terrifying. With the help of their partner and ghost, Marshall Drummond, the team will be up against serious and deadly problems - dealing with the head witch of North Carolina, raising ancient bones from the bottom of lake, breaking forgotten curses, and far more. But worse than that, they will have to face the most difficult challenge of all - J starts dating.

More than a decade ago, Mira fled her small, segregated hometown in the south to forget. With every mile she traveled, she distanced herself from her past: from her best friend Celine, mocked by their town as the only white girl with black friends; from her old neighborhood; from the eerie Woodsman plantation rumored to be haunted by the spirits of slaves; from the terrifying memory of a ghost she saw that terrible day when a dare-gone-wrong almost got Jesse—the boy she secretly loved—arrested for murder. But now Mira is back to attend Celine's wedding at the plantation.

Maggie Crozat, proprietor of a historic Cajun Country B&B, prefers to let the good times roll. But hard times rock her hostelry when a new cell phone app makes it easy for locals to rent their spare rooms to tourists. With October-and Halloween-approaching, she conjures up a witch-crafty marketing scheme to draw visitors to Pelican, Louisiana.

Chocolate shop owner Charity Penn is finally settling into life in the quirky South Carolina seaside town of Camellia Beach cooking up chocolate treats. She's even helped organize the town's lively beach music festival which has brought rollicking crowds eager to dance the Carolina shag. That is, until one of the band's lead singers is found dead beside a beach bonfire.

After a hurricane attacks the Crystal Coast, Ruby Mae Jewell, along with her friends and family, will have to deal with more than just the wreckage of harsh weather. When history of the notorious pirate Captain "Bonny" Ann Bonnet catches up to the present, murder and mystery soon follow. Rue discovers that the storm and the discovery of her ship right off the shores of her home area are no coincidence, and she must race to claim the cursed treasure before anyone else gets hurt. Sounds like a good time to call in her friend Charli Goodwin from Honeysuckle Hollow.

Sarah Booth has traded in hosting this Christmas season for a road trip with her besties. Each little Delta town has a special Christmas activity, and Sarah Booth’s BFF and detective partner, Tinkie, has arranged to rent a limo for the gang and drive to Columbus, MS, to stay in a B&B. Visions of Christmas shopping, parade floats, and romantic rendezvous are already dancing in their heads. But Christmas cheer soon turns to Christmas fear when, at one event after another, people keep getting hurt. Christmas karaoke gets ugly when one singer’s microphone gives her an electric shock.

The polite Piedmont town of Hillston, North Carolina, wants to go on believing it is still too temperate to require homicide experts. But when the wife of a state senator is found beaten to death, the inner circle of Hillston’s ruling families arranges to have the case assigned to Detective Justin Savile, the charming black sheep of the dynasty that founded the town. Aided by his wise-cracking partner and a young woman from the Carolina mountains whose strength and love rescues him from his own destructive impulses, Savile sets out to unravel the deceit hidden in Hillston’s past.

Former Vegas star and witch in hiding, Birdie Devaine, is ready for a vacation away from all of the stresses of an ongoing (and haunted) house renovation. Lucky for her, she's got a first-class ticket aboard one of the swankiest cruise ships in the world. Along with her best friends, Birdie's ready to set sail through the warm Caribbean waters, soak up some much needed sun, and sip on some much needed fruity drinks....But a trip to paradise comes with a price. And on a ship full of magical beings, the price is steep.

When Max and Sandra moved to North Carolina, they walked into a world of ghost, witches, and curses. Over the years, and with the help of the ghost of 1940s detective Marshall Drummond, they have fought to build a life for themselves. But now, it all goes on the line. No fight from their past can match what awaits when the Hull family and the Magi Group go to war. Caught between the magic and muscle of these groups, Max and Sandra will have to call in all the help they can find if they are to survive.

When Max and Sandra Porter moved down to North Carolina, they thought they were getting a new beginning - good job, good pay, and a lovely little place in Winston-Salem. But the family that hired him to research land deals in North Carolina is not all that they seem. And when Max discovers that his office is haunted by Marshall Drummond, PI - a ghost from the 1940s - what started as a simple research job sinks him neck-deep in a world of old mysteries and dangerous enemies.

After spending years in North Carolina, Max and Sandra thought they knew how the world of ghosts, witches, and curses worked. With the aid of a ghost, they had defeated the dreaded Hull family. Now, without the Hulls, control of magic in North Carolina is in free fall. When graves from the 1700s start breaking through to the surface, Max and his team find themselves caught in the middle of the fight, and every decision he makes could have consequences that reverberate through the entire magic world.

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When the police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess.

For Max and Sandra Porter, building a family seemed unattainable. But since moving to Winston-Salem and starting a business with the ghost of a 1940s detective, the unattainable did not sound so far-fetched. Over time, they brought two homeless boys into their work and eventually to their home. But this ad hoc family has a lot of unknown histories. Dark secrets that threaten to crawl to the surface. When one of those secrets breaks through, Max finds himself in a fight - not only for his own survival, but for the survival of his family as well.

For many years, Max Porter and his team have been caught between Mother Hope and Grandma Mobley, two witches that hated each other for over a century. Both witches hold power and both are dangerous. But now, their hatred has finally boiled over, and that power is about to be unleashed. Now, Max finds himself the rope in a tug-o-war that threatens to destroy his budding family, if not all of North Carolina. He will have to risk everything he knows and loves, push himself further than ever before. Because Max Porter will be in the fight of his life. And his death.