Southern Fiction Thrillers

After Windsor Ebonwood’s love life and successful career as a book conservator vanish in one fell swoop, she’s determined to begin anew. Win moves to Darkly Island off the coast of Louisiana, where she’s been bequeathed an unusual bookshop and a charming home on the edge of a dark swamp. Win gets to work settling into her new life in the sleepy Southern town but discovering Darkly’s heartless town alderman impaled on a gravestone wasn’t on the books. Nor was finding out about her family’s legacy as powerful witches responsible for protecting the bookshop at all costs.

I told you I was sick, reads the headstone above Mamie Sue Preston's grave. She was the richest woman in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky, and also the biggest hypochondriac. Ironic, considering someone killed her - and covered it up perfectly. And how does Emma Lee, proprietor of the Eternal Slumber Funeral Home, know all this? Because Mamie Sue's ghost told her, that's how. And she's offering big bucks to find the perp.

In 19th-century America, making sense of mysterious events often perplexed citizens of the small Southern town of Juniper, South Carolina. Especially the three Chadwick households. Brothers Laurence, Brodie, and Angus Chadwick lost their parents shortly after sailing from England to the New World. Each young man, in turn, would meet the woman of his dreams. Lacey. Fiona. Guinevere. Beautiful, intelligent, sensitive creatures all. And yet, despite their noble virtues, the three Chadwick women are cursed, it seems, for reasons only the occult can provide.

Orphaned at age ten by a violent home invasion, Susannah Faulkner grew up wild, her stubbornness the only thing harder than her heart. Since then, she’s used her skills to put a boot in the faces of those who deserve it. Then she gets word her brother Ethan needs her help, so she returns home to Atlanta. But in the airport, she finds her Uncle Gavin suffering a heart attack. Before he is rushed to the hospital, Gavin whispers a single word to Suzie: peaches. She’s determined to uncover the meaning behind the cryptic message, but Ethan is also deep in trouble.

Colonel W.B. Townsend has fallen on rough times establishing the Little River Lumber Company due to strange occurrences preventing the construction of his railroad. Detectives William Rue and Johnny Walking-Stick from the Pinkerton Detective Agency are called to find the unknown saboteurs and bring them to justice. A new threat descends on this small, developing town, with nefarious plans that may one day threaten the entire world. Will the citizens of Townsend and the Foresters of Stillwater set aside their differences and join forces against the nightmare known as the Rougarou?

Mardi Gras has secrets. Like why would Felix's brother, a well-off and successful doctor, let the midnight train roll over him? Especially just as his new Carnival Krewe prepares for their inaugural parade? Felix has had an easy life, coasting by as the black sheep of a wealthy family. He spends his time under the green canopies of Uptown New Orleans, whiling away his days in leisure and mediocrity.

Sometimes you have to forget all that you know...to learn how to love again. The player in the family, Jaxson goes through girlfriends faster than a hot knife through butter. A near fatal accident with a familiar face might be the very thing to give this cowboy a fresh take on love and loyalty. Jaxson locked his heart a long time ago and has no intention of opening it back up for anyone. Sure, he was heartbroken once when his ex-girlfriend Lemon betrayed him, but that was a lifetime ago. He has long since moved on. Then, why is he seeing Lemon? Was it her at the rodeo?

Ingrid often said that one could find anything and everything they needed at yard sales. Perhaps she was right. In retirement, she laid her hands on the biggest yard sale find of all. The love of her life, Jerome Prioleau. Now, there was a wedding to plan. Meanwhile, strange things were happening in Juniper. A woman was murdered, her body found deep beneath Lake Murray by one of Ingrid’s former students. Later, the woman’s husband, none other than Juniper’s mayor, was found dead. A victim of his own poisoning.

Just when Jaymee Ballard's life seems to be on track, a massive derecho attacks the Delta Crossroads, sowing destruction in its path. Her boyfriend, investigative journalist Nick Samuels, comes up missing, and she fears the worst.

Nick's abandoned car contains evidence of his involvement uncovering a controversial case mired in political power and greed.

After an injury derails Poppy Peters' ballet career, she gathers the courage to follow in her grandmother's footsteps and attend Calle Pastry Academy in a small-town Georgia. Poppy has her work cut out for her not only fitting in with her charming (and not-so-charming) Southern classmates but also proving her worth to her teachers after her first publicly humiliating attempt a making the school's famous peach pie.

Proprietor of the Eternal Slumber Funeral Home, Emma Lee can see, hear, and talk to ghosts of murdered folks. And when her high school nemesis is found dead, Jade Lee Peel is the same old mean girl - trying to come between Emma Lee and her hot boyfriend, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, all over again. There's only one way for Emma Lee to be free of the trash-talking ghost - solve the murder so the former prom queen can cross over.

Bopped on the head from a falling plastic Santa, local undertaker Emma Lee Raines is told she's suffering from "funeral trauma." It's trauma all right, because the not-so-dearly departed keep talking to her. Take Ruthie Sue Payne - innkeeper, gossip queen, and arch-nemesis of Emma Lee's granny - she's adamant that she didn't just fall down those stairs. She was pushed. Ruthie has no idea who wanted her pushing up daisies, but she can't cross over until the matter is laid to eternal rest. Emma Lee's high-school crush, Sheriff Jack Henry Ross, isn't ready to rule out foul play.

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery 50 miles from Gull Island. Her body was found in a graveyard and most believe she was the fourth victim of the Silk Stalking Strangler, a mass murderer credited with killing 13 women over a 10-month period from 1964 to 1965.

It was the bottom of the ninth, tying run on third, bases loaded, two outs, full count, and the tension was high. The pitch was thrown, everyone in the crowd held their breath. Trey Alderman lined up with the pitcher and swung the bat with all his might before falling to the ground.

The fact that Katrina Pomeroy had been murdered was in and of itself a newsworthy event. The fact that she had been murdered on Friday, October 13th, exactly 11 years after she’d been one of five teenagers to survive the Friday the 13th Massacre, made her passing worthy of notice by the national news agencies Jillian Hanford used to work for.

When the mysterious death of a childhood friend forces homicide detective Alex Abrams to return to her hometown, she’s pulled back into a world of dark secrets and painful memories she thought she’d left behind. Alex, a battle-hardened Iraq War veteran, is forced to confront the ghosts of her past—and the deadly truth lurking in the shadows of her tight-knit community. Teaming up with her twin brother, Lucca, Alex soon uncovers a chilling pattern of so-called "accidental" deaths—each one more calculated and chilling than the last.

When a tree topples over onto Lillian’s prized 1948 Tucker Torpedo, these over-50 amateur sleuths are once again scrambling for money. Lucky for them, they have their choice of two cases, but which to take - a suspected art forgery or mysterious trash theft from the county landfill?

A funeral, a ghost, a murder. It's all in a day's work for Emma Lee Raines...especially when the ghost turns out to be someone very dear to her heart. Psychic Debbie Dually is the one who informed local undertaker Emma Lee Raines that she wasn't crazy, she was a Betweener, someone who can communicate with ghosts of the not-so-dearly departed. In fact, she told Emma Lee how she was the only one that could help solve their murders to help them rest in eternal peace. This time Debbie Dually finds herself needing Emma's help. This means solving her own murder.

Only a handful of people know that Emma Lee Raines, proprietor of a small-town Kentucky funeral home, is a "Betweener." She helps ghosts stuck between here and the ever-after - murdered ghosts. But Emma Lee's own sister refuses to believe in her special ability. In fact, the Raines sisters have barely gotten along since Charlotte Rae left the family business for the competition. After a doozy of an argument, Emma Lee is relieved to see Charlotte Rae back home to make nice. Until she realizes her usually snorting, sarcastic, family-ditching sister is a...ghost.

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery fifty miles from Gull Island. Her body was found in a graveyard and most believe she was the fourth victim of the Silk Stalking Strangler, a mass murderer credited with killing thirteen women over a ten-month period from 1964 to 1965.