She has what many people only dream of -- a successful bookstore in a charming old house. Even better, she and her bookstore are located in Stonewall, a picturesque town nestled in the foothills of Tennessee's Blue Ridge Mountains. Unfortunately, Margaret also has a sister -- Bitsy.The morning Bitsy flings a dead pigeon on her sales counter, Margaret decides to redefine her mission in life. "Never assume anything as far as Bitsy is concerned' sound like sane words to her, and that's good, because Margaret's going to need them.

    Germaine, North Carolina. His part-time job, however, is serving as the choir director and organist at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, but he’s also determined to write the next great hard-boiled mystery novel a la Raymond Chandler — a liturgical mystery novel with no real plot, but enough bad prose to make the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest look like the Oxford University Press spring catalog.Chief Konig is also lucky enough to be independently wealthy, which is why he decides that his lack of talent in the writing department can easily be remedied, or at least greatly enhanced, by the purchase of Raymond Chandler’s 1939 Underwood typewriter. He is sadly mistaken, but the results are uproarious! Even as Hayden works on his opus, he must deal with other, more pressing, problems — a new priest at St. Barnabas, a Christmas feud between the Rotarians and the Kiwanians and, more importantly, a dead body in the choir loft. It’s a good thing that Hayden keeps a loaded Glock under the organ bench!As Christmas approaches, the tension (and hilarity) rises to a fever pitch. St. Barnabas is introduced to “The Penguin of Bethlehem” and the town’s Nativity feud turns ugly when the Kiwanian’s bagpiper spooks the Rotarian’s camel. A 12 year old wine snob, hedgehogs, Benny (the world-champion thurifer), church antics, and an episode that is just too good to give away, fill out this mystery that will leave you laughing with every page turn.

    "Where? Mexico? Paris? In Tupelo with a cocktail waitress?" "In your closet," I answered. "Dead." Break out the hoop skirts and the zinfandel. The Divas are on the case. Wine. Chocolate. Transvestite strippers. Just another good-time get-together for the Dixie Divas of historic Holly Springs, Mississippi, where moonlight and magnolias mingle with delicious small-town scandal. But Eureka "Trinket" Truevine, the newest Diva, gets more than she bargained for when she finds her best Diva girlfriend Bitty Hollandale's ex-husband in Bitty's hall closet. He's dead. Very dead. Now Trinket and the Divas have to help Bitty finger the murderer and clear her name. Virginia Brown is the nationally acclaimed, award-winning author of fifty novels.

    To the rest of the world, she's a gifted graphic designer, marvelous cook, and doting Minneapolis mother. But then her world is shattered when her teenage daughter is murdered. Has her life of lies caught up with her? Detectives are asking dangerous questions and going after the wrong man. It's up to Sofia to find her daughter's murderer before her elaborate deception is exposed and she loses whatever semblance of a life she has left.Grab it now to see what is keeping early readers up all night!

    Now Wells is back, writing about his favorite subject–the exotic, beleaguered Louisiana wetlands–in a sharp, rollicking tale of corporate corruption and political shenanigans. The fight over one man’s tract of sacred marsh fronts a deeper story of our place in the environment and our obligations to it. Justin Pitre’s marsh island, a legacy of his trapper grandfather, is a scenic rival to anything in the Everglades, and he has promised to protect it from all harm. But he hasn’t counted on oil bigwig Tom Huff’s plans to wreck his bayou paradise by ramming a pipeline through it. When cajolery doesn’t sway Justin to sign the land over, Huff turns to darker methods. But Justin and his spirited wife, Grace, prove to be formidable adversaries–and the game is on.Into the fray comes the charismatic Cajun governor Joe T. Evangeline, who seems more interested in chasing skirts than saving Louisiana’s eroding coast. The Guv, though, is a man on the edge, upended by a midlife crisis and torn between a secret political obligation to Big Oil and the persuasive powers of Julie Galjour, a feisty environmentalist. Julie is clearly out to reform more than the Guv’s ecopolitics, but will his tragicomic Big Oil deals wreck both his career and his chances with the brash and beautiful activist?As Justin and Grace battle to stop this Big Oil assault, the plot thickens–and the Guv becomes snared in the web. Featuring a gumbo of eccentrics and lowlifes, a kidnapping, a sexy snitch, a toxic-waste-dumping scheme, a boat chase, and a fishing trip gone horribly awry, Crawfish Mountain, spiced with Ken Wells’s keen eye for locale, showcases his adventurous storytelling.

    A second-generation beauty queen, Georgia turns to women she knows she can trust to keep her secret from her controlling society mama: the Tiara Club. All the members are veterans of the pageant circuit, but they've just admitted one woman who doesn't fit in---a Yankee who's never taped her breasts or smeared glue on her butt to wow the judges. And this year the Tiara Club is determined to help this outsider win the coveted Shrimp Queen crown. Add in an impending wedding and the club's attempts to keep Georgia's secret, and the women of the Tiara Club have to do all they can to hold on to their poise, their friendships, and their senses of humor.

    A paranoid reporter convinces her the death is murder. He leads her down a dangerous path to organized crime, secret lovers, and suspicious taco trucks.

    Henry Grave is an investigator for the Association of Cruising Vessel Operators. A former P.O.W., Henry is as cunning as he is charming, and at 84 years of age, he fits right in with his fellow passengers. When retired FBI profiler Robert Samson is murdered onboard the cruise liner Contessa Voyager, Henry Grave is sent to investigate. Samson was giving a series of lectures on cold case crimes he felt he could crack. But he got cracked first. Henry has just five days before Voyager reaches Miami. There, the FBI will question the passengers, but the case will have grown cold and the killer will walk free unless Henry can find him first. With the help of a television actress, a cosmonaut, and a Venezuelan general fighting extradition, Henry draws on skills honed in a Nazi prison camp to track down a couple of passengers who might have their own reasons for taking this particular cruise, reasons unrelated to the sumptuous meals, delightful shipboard activities, and exciting ports of call.12 million people take a cruise each year.Most have fun.Some die.Henry Grave investigates.

    

    "Others have observed the natural man in the American condition before, but nobody has done it with such good humor. Ed McClanahan's good humor both sharpens his eye and gentles his vision. I don't know where else, now, you would find workmanship that is at once so meticulous and so exuberant" - Wendell Berry.

    The Crozats have an inn full of guests for the local food festival--elderly honeymooners, the Cajun Cuties, a mysterious stranger from Texas, a couple of hipster lovebirds, and a trio of Georgia frat boys. But when the elderly couple keels over dead within minutes of each other--one from very unnatural causes-- Maggie and the others suddenly become suspects in a murder.With the help of Bo Durand, the town's handsome new detective, Maggie must investigate to clear her name while holding the family business together at the same time. And the deeper she digs, the more she wonders: are all of the guests really there for a vacation or do they have ulterior motives? Decades-old secrets and stunning revelations abound in Ellen Byron's charming cozy debut, Plantation Shudders.

    Down in her small Virginia hometown, she's maid of honor at the nuptials of three loved ones--each of whom has dumped the planning in her capable hands. One bride is set on including a Native American herbal purification ceremony, while another wants live peacocks on the lawn. Only help from the town's drop-dead gorgeous hunk, disappointingly rumored to be gay, keeps Meg afloat in a sea of dotty relatives and outrageous neighbors.And, in whirl of summer parties and picnics, Southern hospitality is strained to the limit by an offensive newcomer who hints at skeletons in the guests' closets. But it seems this lady has offended one too many when she's found dead in suspicious circumstances, followed by a string of accidents--some fatal. Soon, level-headed Meg's to-do list extends from flower arrangements and bridal registries to catching a killer--before the next catered event is her own funeral...

    . . There's something strange afoot in the small town of Mojo, Louisiana. Yet even as the annual voodoo festival gets underway, Penny Francisco, who runs a health food business, refuses to believe in black magic. Her mind is on celebrating her divorce from her lying, cheating husband Deke.Add a Pinprick of Revenge . . .Fueled by run-ins with her ex-mother-in-law and Deke's busty mistress, Penny is eager for the "emancipation party" her friends plan. When she receives a Deke voodoo doll as a gag gift, she sticks it with a pin as a joke. But when Deke winds up fatally stabbed, the police aren't laughing.And Watch Things Boil Over . . .A junk-food junkie P.I. offers his services, and although Penny is wary of the sexy Cajun's motives (and his diet), she's desperate. Dodging a media sideshow and a looming murder rap, Penny realizes that somehow she's landed herself "In Deep Voodoo,"

    There's only one glitch-murder is part of the package on the small South Carolina barrier island of Folly, where eccentric residents live bohemian lifestyles in the shadow of historic Charleston. Soon after settling on Folly Beach, Chris is befriended by an unlikely cadre of locals: a realtor who looks like an out-of-season Santa with an attitude; a waitress who shares rumors and effuses charm; a professor; a lovely, intelligent, and unattached reporter; and a quirky, president-quoting, tag-along companion. He is fascinated by the company of his newfound friends, the novelty of the strange island that they call home, and the contrast of it all to stately Charleston. But when Chris finds the body of a prominent developer and lands in the middle of the Folly Beach spotlight, he immediately becomes a threat to the killer-and his vacation paradise might be the scene of his own untimely death.Vacations aren't nearly as much fun when one of your new acquaintances is trying to kill you, and catching a murderer is not the normal way to spend an extended holiday. But on Folly Beach, what's normal? Chris will take on a challenge that is anything "but."

    In between preparing her famous cornbread and mashed potatoes so creamy "they'll make you want to slap your Momma," owner Halia Watkins is about to dip her spoon into a grisly mystery. . .Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough when he's alive--but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic tile after hours is much worse. Marcus had his enemies, and the cast iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime suspect. Now Halia will have to serve up the real villain--before the killer returns for a second helping. . .Features delicious recipes from Mahalia's Sweet Tea, including Sour Cream Corn Bread and Sweet Corn Casserole!