As librarian at Castleton Manor, the upscale literary retreat in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, Faith Newberry cheerfully hosts various events for book lovers while accommodating the mansion's quirky guests. But during a poetry retreat, Faith's patience is tested by Emilie Smythe, an ill-mannered lecturer with an uncanny resemblance to Emily Dickinson. Emilie not only looks like Dickinson, but she dresses like her and also owns a Newfoundland named Carlo. Even stranger, Emilie claims to be Dickinson's great-great-granddaughter. No one believes her far-fetched story, but Emilie insists she has letters and documents to prove it.
Faith is stunned when Emilie gives her a Victorian beaded bag containing the papers and instructs her to determine their authenticity. But the next morning tragedy strikes . . . Faith and her friends discover Emilie's body washed up on a desolate beach.
It was widely known that Emilie was wealthy and eccentric and possibly even mad. Did she take her own life on the deserted beach? Or was she murdered? Even though an apparent suicide note is found, the list of suspects grows. The man walking on the beach the morning Emilie's body was discovered. Emilie's charming older brother and guardian. Her estranged half sister who was left out of the family estate. And the poet at the retreat who publicly disparaged Emilie.
As Faith and her friends in the Candle House Book Club seek answers, a string of break-ins occurs around town. Is someone searching for Emilie's letters and documents? Can Faith and her friends -- including her protective feline companion, Watson -- finally close the book on this mystery?
A dangerous hitman. An elderly woman in danger. All that stands between them is a broken-hearted young woman.Join Rachel Prince, cruise ship sleuth on her first outing aboard the fictional Coral Queen. Prepare yourself for murder and mayhem with plenty of red herrings.
Rachel is twenty-five years old, and appears to have everything. She is beautiful, bright and a recently qualified police officer. The problem is that the fiancé she was deeply in love with has ditched her for another woman!
Rachel needs rest and relaxation. To help her recuperate her best friend Sarah, a nurse on board a cruise ship offers the solution. A Mediterranean cruise couldn't hurt....
Or could it?
Soon after boarding Rachel befriends an elderly woman but the titled Lady Marjorie Snellthorpe appears concerned about something. Meanwhile, Rachel finds herself falling under the spell of the charming and attractive Carlos. Who is he and why is he so secretive?
When a passenger meets with a tragic accident, the tension builds. With danger threatening at every turn, Rachel needs to get to the bottom of this mystery before someone else is killed. She is putting herself in danger. Could she be the next victim?
This cozy/thriller has suspense and intrigue. A good, clean murder mystery with lots of red herrings.
You don't have to like cruising to enjoy this book but if you do you might get a double dollop of pleasure.
'A great debut novel by an emerging talent.'
It's Christmastime and everyone is heading to Torte, the most cheerful bakery in town. There's no place like home for the homicide . . .
Ashland, Oregon, looks as pretty as a postcard this holiday season. The halls are decked, stockings hung, and eyes are all aglow-mostly thanks to the buttered rum. Jules Capshaw and her staff at Torte are busier than ever . . . still, even the town's most in-demand bakers need to take a break. So Jules invites everyone to celebrate at the local Winchester Inn's Dickens Feast, a six-course extravaganza with Yorkshire Pudding, Christmas goose, and all the trimmings. But as the weather outside becomes frightful, things inside turn less delightful when one of the guests ends up as dead as Scrooge's doornail. Now it's up to Jules and her helpers to make a list of suspects-and check it twice-to try to find out who's naughty, who's nice, and who's guilty of murder . . .
I am not a Consulting Detective, Gemma Doyle reluctantly tells ten-year-old Lauren Tierney, when the little girl comes to the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop and Emporium to beg Gemma to find her missing cat, Snowball. Gemma might not be able to follow the clues to find the cat, but her dog Violet follows her nose to locate the missing kitten in a neighbor's garden shed. Gemma and Violet proudly return Snowball to her grateful owner, and Gemma basks in praise for a job well done. But a few days later, Lauren is back with ten dollars in hand, wanting to once again hire a consulting detective, and this time for a far bigger job: her mother has been accused of murdering her garden-club rival.Sheila Tierney's garden, which everyone said was the one to beat for the West London Garden Club trophy, had been vandalized the night before the club's early summer tour. Sheila confronted her former friend and gardening partner Anna Wentworth in a towering rage, and the women nearly came to blows. Later that night, after having won the trophy for best garden, Anna is found murdered, and Sheila Tierney is the police's prime suspect.Despite herself and despite the disapproval of her police-detective boyfriend Ryan Ashburton, the game is once again afoot, and Gemma finds herself and Jayne Wilson using their powers of deduction to ponder yet another curious incident.
A funny, fabulous, cozy mystery filled with quirkiness and a sweet serve of lesbian romance.
Bess Campbell has escaped to the windswept Australian coastal town of Port Bannir, determined to begin her life again. She is loving her fresh start, thanks to her fun job running a hip gallery, her territorial chickens, and a lot of self-help books to find her new, better self.
Port Bannir local Margaret Gale runs an austere maritime museum, and rules her staff with an iron fist. She has no time for that crazy modern gallery or upbeat, earnest Bess sweeping around town on her hipster bicycle.
After a heated dispute over an antique collectible dildo, there's little hope Margaret and Bess will ever see eye to eye. But when Port Bannir is rocked by a senseless murder, both women find themselves implicated. Can they work together to expose the truth-or will the truth prove far too dangerous?
Contains mature themes.
Necromancer trainee, bookseller, novel writer Ava Harper is settling into her new life with friends and her houseguests. And she definitely isn't thinking about a certain hunky sheriff who pops in unannounced at every turn. And mostly ignoring her devilish new neighbor, a lingering Christmas present from herself.
She has bigger things to worry about. Like learning her newly woken powers. And convincing her house that she isn't selling it so it will stop scaring off any visitors.
Her life gets more complicated when the local coven decides Ava has dodged them for long enough. She doesn't have any interest in joining the coven. She's everything they turn their nose up at. A necromancer with a weird ability to heal people.
But they want her.
When other coven members fall victim to freak accidents, Ava is sure something dark is at play. And the more Ava learns about the so-called accidents the more her past haunts her.
Once again, she puts her trust in her friends-and the deliciously mysterious man in charge of the local law enforcement-to get to the bottom of whoever is targeting witches.
Karnie works in her family's butcher shop. When Donna Amick stalks to the meat display case and tries to pressure her to leave the family business to work for her, Karnie turns her down, flat. But Donna doesn't like to take "no" for an answer. The next morning, Donna's body is found behind A Cut Above with a meat cleaver embedded in the back of her head. Detective Carmichael's top suspect is Sam Lessman, who trained at their shop and then went to work for Donna as a full time butcher. Karnie knows it can't be him and decides to prove it. Unfortunately, that's a lot harder to do in real life than it is in the mysteries she reads.
There's a new ghost in town-and it's calling Emma away from Hillbilly Hollow.
A ghostly visit from her former landlady draws Emma away from sleepy little Hillbilly Hollow to investigate a murder in the big city. But what seems like a straightforward case soon becomes entangled with an event from Emma's past and a personal quest for justice.
With the attractive but bungling Sheriff Tucker at her side, will Emma be tempted by the chance to avenge an old wrong? And will the glamour of city lights make her forget her friends and a certain handsome doctor back home?
Amory Ames is travelling to New York, excited to be a bridesmaid at her childhood friend Tabitha's wedding, but with Prohibition in full swing, her husband Milo is less than enthused. When a member of the wedding party is found murdered on the front steps of the bride's home, the happy plans take a darker twist. Amory discovers that the dead man has links to the notorious - and notoriously handsome - gangster Leon De Lora. While the police seem to think that New York's criminal underworld is at play, Amory feels they can't ignore the wedding guests either. Milo and Amory are drawn into the glamorous, dangerous world of nightclubs and bootleggers. But as they draw closer to unravelling the web of lies the murdered man has left in his wake, the killer is weaving a web of his own.
"A delightful romp...a worthy throwback to the classic murder mysteries of what many call the Golden Age of Detective Fiction." HISTORICAL NOVEL SOCIETY
Lena London's literary dreams are coming true-as long as she can avoid any real-life villains . . . Camilla Graham's bestselling suspense novels inspired Lena London to become a writer, so when she lands a job as Camilla's new assistant, she can't believe her luck. Not only will she help her idol craft an enchanting new mystery, she'll get to live rent-free in Camilla's gorgeous Victorian home in the quaint town of Blue Lake, Indiana. But Lena's fortune soon changes for the worse. First, she lands in the center of small town gossip for befriending the local recluse. Then, she stumbles across one thing that a Camilla Graham novel is never without-a dead body, found on her new boss's lakefront property. Now Lena must take a page out of one of Camilla's books to hunt down clues in a real crime that seems to be connected to the novelist's mysterious estate-before the killer writes them both out of the story for good . . .
Writer's apprentice Lena London is happily working on a new collaboration with her idol and bestselling suspense novelist and friend Camilla Graham, but her joy is short-lived when a dark cloud descends upon the quaint town of Blue Lake, Indiana . . .
Lena's best friend, Allison, is in a panic. On a walk in the woods by her home, Allison discovers the body of her mail carrier, an argumentative man who recently had a falling out with Allison's husband. Lena quickly realizes that Allison has nothing to worry about as the murder weapon points to a different suspect altogether: Lena's embattled boyfriend, Sam West.
Sam was cleared of his wife's murder when she was found alive, and now someone is trying to make him look guilty again. Surveillance video of a break-in at his house shows a shadowy figure trying to incriminate him by stealing the weapon from his desk. Lena and Camilla work on a suspect list, but a threatening note and a violent intrusion at Graham House prove that the devious killer has decided to write them into the plot.
There's bad news for Samantha Warren: the plucky Houston, Texas, reporter lost her job and her fiancé in rapid succession. But Sam has a way of making lemonade out of the bitterest of lemons. At a meeting of the local historical-homes council, she serves up the homemade bitters that she made as gifts for her wedding party. She intends to use that as her "in" to become an in-demand party mixologist. But the party's over for one of the council members, who keels over dead soon after he sips the bereft bride's bitter brew. It turns out that the victim, Mark, was poisoned-his drink spiked with oleander. Since Sam mixed the drink that Mark imbibed right before his demise, she finds herself at the front of the suspect line. Now, she'll have to use all of her reporter's wisdom and wiles to clear her name. Who could have wanted Mark dead? His wife, Gabby? His girlfriend, Darcy? Someone who wanted his seat on the council? Or another citizen of this sweet Texas town that holds some seedy secrets? Job hunting, building her mixology business, and fending off late-night phone calls from her nearly betrothed don't leave much time for sleuthing. But if Sam can't "pour" over the clues to find the killer, it may soon be last call for her.
