Women Sleuths Christmas

A caroling donkey arrives in Clover Grove before Christmas with tidings of a new murder. Stray rescue animals are business as usual for hobby farmer Ivy and her sheepdog Keats. Misfits blend seamlessly into the menagerie, and the more the merrier. When a mouthy, grieving donkey demands room at the inn right before Christmas, however, Ivy bites off more than she can chew. He’s got a message that’s far from festive, and he won’t stop singing the blues till she figures out his secret.

In Jewel Bay, all is merry and bright. At Murphy's Mercantile, AKA the Merc, manager Erin Murphy is ringing in the holiday season with food, drink, and a new friend: Merrily Thornton. A local girl gone wrong, Merrily's turned her life around. But her parents have publicly shunned her, and they nurse a bitterness that chills Erin. When Merrily goes missing, and her boss discovers he's been robbed, fingers point to Merrily - until she's found dead.

Charlene's parents are in town for Christmas, and her mother is driving her up a tree. Her bed-and-breakfast's resident ghost, Jack, isn't fond of her either - and he's showing it with some haunting high jinks. But when Charlene takes her mom and dad out for dinner, the less-than-seasonal spirits take a deadly turn.

Everybody's looking forward to Christmas, but not Celia.Why? Because she's been making promises all year that she can't seem to keep. Promises to take her young children on a luxurious holiday. Promises to her clients to make them look like a million bucks over the holiday season. She's in for a shock when a client dies at one of the corporate functions she's a part of. The incident seems coincidental, until someone else dies. It seems Celia is the common denominator at both scenes. Celia's blood pressure goes through the roof when she's identified as a person of interest.

Amateur sleuth Maddy Madison and her Quilters Club cronies return with another cozy mystery set in Caruthers Corners, Indiana - this time the murder of a Straw Hatter in the middle of the town's annual Christmas Parade. Maybe "return" is not the right word, in that this book is a prequel, taking place before the others in this best-selling series.

Right before Christmas, Fair Haven is celebrating its annual Ice Fishing Jubilee. When a bad-mannered lawyer is found frozen to death inside his fishing shack, the police soon discover he was really shot. The prime suspect is local ice-fishing legend Jim Campbell, but Maggie thinks he is innocent. The culprit could be the long-suffering wife or the mistress, and soon, Maggie is off doing her own investigating, dragging Joshua along for the ride. As her boss, Joshua couldn’t possibly be romantically interested in her. So why did he hold her so close at the town dance?

When the curtains open on the Fenleys department store Christmas window display, there’s a shock in store. When a friend becomes the police’s prime suspect, crime reporter Emma Fletcher has to decide who has been naughty or nice before someone else gets hurt.

Book four in the Kate Lawrence Mystery series: Christmas has never been Kate Lawrence's favorite time of year, but when a body turns up at Hartford's venerable Wadsworth Atheneum, she knows the holidays are really going to be murder this year. In the long-awaited fourth installment of this popular mystery series, Kate's realty business is on hiatus due to the down economy, friends and family are falling victim to the flu, and daughter Emma has a loathsome new beau. To top off the merriment, Kate's ex-husband has persuaded her to host an at-home wedding for their nephew. And then a murderer strikes....

Jill is deep into preparations for Christmas parties at the Boathouse Event Center, when a trip to the local retirement home with her son's preschool class turns up a deadly surprise. For once, Jill has no tie to the murder victim, until a surprise connection to a family member is revealed.

Attempts to get Stacie in the holiday spirit fall flat when Santa’s elf finds herself in a shooter’s crosshairs. With another shooting, initial theories go up in smoke and the search is on for the true motive. Stacie avoids her own stressors following up on the shooting and murder. Faced with relationship turmoil and a killer on the loose, Stacie embraces her "bah humbug" perspective as she seeks to identify the culprit.

Jill Gardner has volunteered her Coffee, Books, and More to host a Christmas adopt-a-pet party. Among the potential forever friends is a male terrier named Baby, whose owner died of a heart attack. With few clues to go on, even finding the name of Baby's human is a daunting task. But there's no challenge too big for Jill this holiday season. Playing Santa's Little Helper, Jill is determined to find out what happened - and to fulfill a long-time coming Christmas wish.

It’s time to deck the halls! The holidays have arrived in Friendship Harbor, Maine, and pub owner Sophie LaFleur is eager for the extra tourism money to save her struggling business. With her pet llama the star of the school Christmas pageant, Fleece Navidad, and a pub holiday party in the works, it’s going to be a holiday to remember. Especially when the out-of-town choral vocalist staying in Sophie’s guesthouse is found dead. She’s hit her last high note, and now it's up to Sophie to solve her murder while ensuring everyone in town is having a holly jolly good time.

Fun-filled parties. Beautiful decorations. Delicious food. Fantastic presents. Joyous family celebration. And murder. This is shaping up to be a holiday season that Sabrina Daley will never forget. But if she doesn't act fast, it will be for all the wrong reasons. Can Sabrina bring a killer to justice before her Christmas is ruined?

Molly Delray’s father is the groundskeeper of Smith and Stone Cemetery. When she returns home for Christmas after being away for over a decade, she forgets the rules and disturbs the ghost of Old James.

If you love small towns, endearing relationships, food, animals, and a touch of murder, you will love this new mystery series by Kathi Daley, author of the popular Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery Series. Set in the small town of White Eagle, Montana, the series features Tess and her dog Tilly, who spend their days delivering the latest gossip along with the daily mail. When a close friend is murdered, Tess and Tilly join forces with the reclusive genius in town to sleuth out the truth behind the shocking murder that is rocking the community as it prepares for the annual Christmas Festival.

For nearly 20 years, Chester Claus had run a year-round Christmas-themed diner in Wrangler’s Hill. For many Indiana locals, he was the embodiment of the holidays - gregarious, portly, his eyes radiating amusement as he handed out candy to children. The idea of anyone wanting to murder him was simply preposterous. But when Claus is found dead in his kitchen during the Christmas Feast, poisoned with his own favorite knife, it falls on Indiana’s finest amateur detective, Geneva Pomolo, and her partner, Iris Reeves, to investigate.

Christmas is approaching, and private investigator Geneva Pomolo is spending a blissful week at a local bed and breakfast. But her hopes of a few idle days spent reading and relaxing are shattered by a scream in the night. A woman stumbles into her room with a strange tale of ghostly apparitions and a phantom figure clutching his severed head. Geneva dismisses the story as the ravings of a fantasy-prone woman, but soon it becomes clear that the bed and breakfast is crowded with more ghosts than a Dickens novel.

Meghan takes a walk down memory lane and remembers the fright that was before Christmas when she was an aspiring actress in Hollywood. She thought she had gotten the role of a lifetime until she discovered the role she got was for something totally different. Things go from bad to worse when she's identified as a prime suspect for the murder of a key person on set. Meghan knows there are several women who had plausible reasons to want to do something diabolical to the boss from hell. She's one of those women, but she knows she didn't do it. So if it wasn't her, who was it?

The Little Valley library is shutting its doors due to a terrible combination of anonymous threats and a lack of funding. The sheriff is stumped in the investigation of who is sending the threats, so amateur sleuths, Anna and Beth, step in to help.

A lovely cameo brooch is discovered in Fiona’s late Uncle Wilbur’s house two days before Christmas. The pin bears a romantic Christmas message from Wilbur for his new wife with the initials, D.A.S. How very strange! To the family’s knowledge, Uncle Wilbur had never been married. So, who is this mysterious woman? Now, Fiona is on a holiday mission to locate D.A.S. and deliver the belated gift.