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Jellies, Jams, and Bodies


Donna Walo Clancy - 2016
    Small shops line Main Street, the hub of the town. The residents all know each other and each other’s business. Tourist season brings the place to life, when the locals are outnumbered by visitors, fifty to one. It has been a safe, quiet place to live, until now. There hasn’t been a murder in Whipper Will Junction for over forty years. Now, bodies are popping up everywhere. To make matters worse, Richard Wells, the beloved elder of the town has disappeared. Who or what is causing the upheaval in the quiet town of Whipper Will Junction? While opening her new shop, Jellies, Jams, and Weddings, on Main Street, Tabitha Moon is thrust into her first, real life mystery to solve. Will she be able to find the murderer and rescue Mr. Wells in time? Teaming up with her best friend, Jenny Jones, and her new love interest, Greg Stone, they work together to make Whipper Will Junction the safe place it used to be. With its cast of loveable locals like Gladys Twittle, The Town Mouth, and Sheriff Puckett, you will fall in love with Whipper Will Junction and its people. Come visit. WHERE THE GOSSIP IS PLENTIFUL; AND SO ARE THE BODIES.

Killer Bait


Martina Dalton - 2019
     Much to the chagrin of her brother, Zen, a homicide detective, Clarity throws caution to the wind and jumps into the investigation with both feet. Zen’s ultra-handsome detective partner, Hunter, encourages Clarity to learn self-defense—especially since she’s getting closer to discovering who the killer is. Using her social media sleuthing skills, she sets out to bait the murderer. Is she clever enough to entrap the killer? Or will she end up as the catch of the day?

Powdered Murder


A. Gardner - 2015
    But Patrick isn't back in town to mess with her head. He's in town with his celebrity tart of a fiancée for a secret wedding at the Pinecliffe Mountain Resort – the very establishment where Essie works. Essie is roped into becoming a stand-in bridesmaid by her sister Joy, the resort's Assistant Event Coordinator. But Essie has more than just her resurfacing feelings for the groom to worry about when she finds one of the bridesmaids dead at the hotel spa. Essie searches for the killer, and with a list of suspects ranging from an undercover reporter to the Mayor's gossipy wife, it isn't an easy feat. Especially with a nosy landlady, and a meddling ex in-law with a fondness for nudism. But after she becomes the killer's next target, Essie realizes all her evidence points to the most unlikely person. Will she get it right before the big ceremony, or will the fresh mountain powder become her permanent resting place? **Recipes Included**

Crime and Nourishment


Miranda Sweet - 2017
    Neither does the island of Nantucket. A NEW RELEASE cozy mystery perfect for fans of Agatha Frost, Cynthia Ellingsen, Cindy Bell and CeeCee James When Agnes Mary Clarissa Christie Prouty, a.k.a. Angie, abandons her fiancé and her analyst job at a big Manhattan investment firm, she doesn’t expect to end up back where she started—the island of Nantucket.  It’s not every day you get a chance to open a bookstore, complete with bookmark-eating cats and cantankerous great-aunts.  Especially when your childhood friends agree to provide you with the world’s best pastries from their bakery down the street. Everything goes great until one of the locals turns up dead on the fourth of July, the sound of the gunshots covered by the local fireworks display. But did it have to happen right after Angie delivered a book to his home making her a prime suspect? Angie and every gossip on the island, including her great-aunt and her friends, are on the case.  But trying to discover the truth is going to take more than a simple murder investigation.  Someone’s guilty and the deadly secret might cut closer to home than anyone wants to admit.Being an amateur detective is harder than it looks, even when you’ve been named after the Queen of Crime.  This cozy mystery/amateur sleuth novel is book one in the Angie Prouty Nantucket Cozy Mystery Series

Resort to Homicide: A Merrifield Mystery Novella


Christine Chianti - 2016
    Giving in to her brother's request, she goes to visit his new island resort during a special weekend for the investors. Spending time at Rim Runners should have been the perfect prescription to help rebuild her life, but the mood at the resort is like the weather-stormy. As hurricane Anna cuts them off from the mainland, tempers flare resulting in threats and sabotage. When the body of one of the guests is found, Laura is forced to rely on her training to find the killer before the storm lets up and they can slip away.

Holly and the Framed Friend


Dianne Harman - 2019
     Family secrets. A murdered mother. An estranged aunt. A diary. A vandalized high school. Holly knows nothing about her biological family living in Missouri. When her aunt invites her to stay with them for two weeks after her mother’s murder, she has mixed feeling but decides to accept the invitation. Once she’s there, she’s determined to find out why her mother chose to live alone and at a distance from her family. What happened, and why won’t her aunt talk about it? Does the diary she finds hold the key? And who’s been vandalizing the high school? Her cousin’s friend has been accused, but is she guilty? Holly has to use her skills solving mysteries both at the high school and in her family.

Sea Change


T'Gracie Reese - 2013
    Lucy is a sleepy little Gulf Coast community––and that’s the way its residents like it. Most of them generally ignore the monstrous old Robinson mansion that sits in the center of town, until one day, insane old man Robinson dies and leaves the house and its accompanying fortune to the town. The residents are ecstatic and begin planning improved schools and cultural centers. Local retired school teacher and village elder Nina Bannister is sent to the man’s funeral in New Orleans and to represent Bay St. Lucy at the reading of his will. However, Nina returns from her trip saddened to report that a long lost Robinson relative has appeared to claim the entire inheritance. Almost immediately, the new owner – flamboyant Eve Ivory – arrives and announces her own plans to turn Bay St. Lucy into a extravagant vacation resort, not plans that anyone in this small town like at all and ones that will quickly lead to murder.

Negative Exposure


Lisa B. Thomas - 2017
    INSTEAD SHE GETS A CAT. After losing her fiancé, friends, and job, Wendy Fairmont moves back to her hometown to lick her wounds and start over. But when she discovers the man next door may have been murdered, she’s sucked into an investigation that isn’t making her too popular with the new neighbors. Soon she encounters a former classmate who’s transformed from nearly invisible to totally irresistible, making it difficult to stay focused on setting up her new photography business. Not only that, but her old school nemesis is now married to the small town’s sheriff, and she’s determined to make Wendy’s life miserable. All this, as well as a stray cat channeling the spirit of her grandmother, makes Wendy’s fresh start more like a dead end. Will she be able to return to her former life, or will old demons resurface to destroy her future? Negative Exposure is the first book in the Killer Shots Mysteries. Part Gilmore Girls and part Nancy Drew, this series has plenty of snarky humor, quirky characters and intriguing mystery to keep readers coming back for more.

Must Love Murder


Etta Faire - 2016
    All men, she doesn't discriminate. So when she takes a job at her aunt's sketchy matchmaking club, she knows it's going to mean trouble. Love is a sham, after all. But she never thought she'd be solving a murder, especially not the murder of her aunt's horrible neighbor who calls women "hussies," thinks the matchmaking club is a brothel, and snoops where he shouldn't be snooping. The guy kind of had it coming.But when her aunt becomes the main suspect and the police don't seem to care that things aren't matching up like they should, Marcie is forced to become the perfect match for the evil man's puzzling murder.

Worst Laid Plans


Claire Robyns - 2016
    Oh, and give her soon-to-be ex cheating scumbag husband a fat headache while she’s at it. He hates all small towns, and Silver Firs in particular, with the kind of passion most men reserve for the bedroom. So call it revenge, or call it poetic justice, but investing his savings in the town’s founding inn seemed like the perfect plan for all her needs. But everything goes out the window when Maddox finds her arch-nemesis dead as a doormat in the kitchen downstairs. Before she knows it, she’s embroiled in a murder investigation and tangling with the smoky-eyed detective on the case. Not that she doesn’t trust him to do his job, but he may not be quite as motivated as she is to bring the guilty party to justice. After all, she’s the one who unwittingly incriminated upstanding townsfolk and worse, she may be living under the same roof as a pair of unlikely murderers.

A Shot of Murder


Brenda Gayle - 2020
    But when the story is murder, will she end up above the fold or buried in the back?1948: Kingston, Canada—Charley Hall knows she’s a better reporter than any man in the newsroom. Frustrated to be demoted to the women’s page so her job on the city beat can be given to a returning soldier, she refocuses her energy into locating her brother who disappeared after his latest bender. She’s horrified when her search leads to the woman last seen with him, found dead with a bullet in her neck.Driven to catch the killer and clear her brother’s name, Charley encounters a mysterious cop from out of town who’s showing an intense interest in the case. But as she uncovers the victim’s murky past, tracking down the shooter could land the intrepid journalist in the obituaries.Can this gutsy gal prove her investigative skills and live to tell the tale?A Shot of Murder is the first book in the atmospheric Charley Hall historical mystery series. If you like strong female protagonists, period pieces, and small-town misdeeds, then you’ll love Brenda Gayle’s compelling whodunit.Buy A Shot of Murder to bring justice to the front page today!

Booked for Murder


CeeCee James - 2017
    She expected by the job description to cater to the crazy whims of some of the richest people in America. Make it snow in Florida--check. Helicopter wedding--check. Deliver a baby--check. But what was never on her job resume was dealing with the murder of business mogul Norman Olsen. He’s a huge figure in the gaming video business, but now it looks like he had some dangerous enemies – including his own wife and son. When the murderer targets the hotel again. Maisie thought the worst of her worries was getting fired. But, as she uncovers clues, the murderer focuses on Maisie. Suddenly, it’s personal.

Cutthroat Cupcakes


Cate Lawley - 2021
    Now, if only the wizard detective assigned to the case weren't such a distraction.Cutthroat Cupcakes is a magical witch culinary cozy with a touch of romance, the first of three books in the Cursed Candy Mysteries series!

Partners In Crime


Gallagher Gray - 1991
    Sayers’ Murder Must Advertise has there been a more perfect cozy office murder--and not since Agatha Christie’s immortal Miss Marple has a more loveable geriatric sleuth been spawned. Gallagher Gray’s first Hubbert and Lil mystery’s got it all—a stuffy old firm with stuffy old routines disturbed by a few unaccustomed murders, a hilariously apoplectic boss, the indispensable brace of cats, and a clever amateur sleuths of a certain age. Break out the tea and cookies to welcome T.S. Hubbert and his unforgettable Auntie Lil! T.S. tells the story (and very wittily too), but it's Lil who steals the show—she’s eighty-four years young, with a taste for bloody Marys at any time of day, a fine-tuned appreciation of life’s other pleasures, and a remarkable talent for detecting. It begins, as so many things do, with a phone call: T.S. (Theodore to Auntie Lil) has been retired about eight hours when he’s summoned back to Sterling & Sterling, the bank where he served as personnel manager for most of his adult life. One of the bigwigs is lying stabbed to death in the Partner’s Room and his demanding former boss, forgetting he’s no longer boss, is demanding a favor—damage control. Well, that’s certainly more interesting, thinks Theodore, than “interviewing the slack-jawed sons of clients.” And besides, now he can talk back to the brass. He can even dress like it’s casual Friday and no one can say a word. Although they do. A big part of the fun’s watching him shock his former colleagues with his sudden assertiveness. Because who can boss around a person who’s doing a favor? What starts out as damage control quickly evolves into full-scale detecting as more and more partners bite the big one in unexpected ways. Aunt Lil’s all over it from the first, demonstrating not only the necessary smarts, street savvy, and moxie, but also a feminine way of looking at things that leads to a surprisingly contemporary conclusion. Fans of Golden Age mysteries will eat this irrepressible amateur detective team with a spoon, along with readers who just get a kick out of watching senior sleuths kick butt. If you like Miss Marple, Miss Silver, Miss Seeton, Mrs. Pollifax, Jessica Fletcher, Agatha Raisin, Henrie O, Hercule Poirot, and their many distinguished silver-haired colleagues, you’ll want to grab this one now. Aficionados of cozy authors like Dorothy Cannell, Carolyn Hart, M.C. Beaton, Joanne Fluke, Jana DeLeon, and Alexander McCall Smith will be equally captivated!

Murder Goes to Church


C.D. Jarmola - 2011
    Kool-Aid and kids. Will the stains on the carpet ever come out? Is it contagious? But the most desperate thought churning through Chrissy Chronister’s mind was a hysterical mantra of “Please, don’t die. Please, don’t die. Please, don’t die.” But she did anyway.When Chrissy Chronister agrees to help in her small community church’s vacation Bible school she knows that it will be a hectic week of making crafts, telling stories and singing songs. However, she never expects it to land her in the middle of a murder investigation with her friends, fellow church members and possibly even herself being the prime suspects.Chrissy is a spunky, petite blonde (all adjectives she hates) mother of eleven-month-old, Lukas, along with her husband, Luke, living in south Georgia.As the newest church member Chrissy is stuck with the team teacher from hell, Ramona Snyder, a self-centered thorn in the flesh at United Community Church. However, she also is the richest woman around and her tithe is all that keeps the church solvent.The theme for the week is “God’s Beautiful World,” emphasizing saving our ecology. Thus, everyone has his/her own labeled eco-cup to be used each day during snack time. Day one Chrissy is already hearing Ramona making threats that she will be withholding her money from family members and causes if things do not change to her specifications.By the end of the second day Chrissy is holding a dying Ramona in her arms.The evidence shows that Ramona’s eco-cup has been poisoned. The only people with access are fellow members of UCC including Bro. Michael, the pastor accused of embezzling, his wife Melanie, John, whose farm Ramona foreclosed on, his pregnant teenage daughter Peggy, who Ramona disdained, Scott the youth minister, who Ramona had accused of having inappropriate relations, Emilie Anne the church secretary, Deacon Melvin, Ramona’s own children, Suzanne and Rick, and her husband Max.Chrissy is unwillingly drawn into the investigation. She tries to distance herself, but motherhood forces her back where she unintentionally finds clues through the help of her mischievous son. Due to Lukas’ baby monitor, blankie, tipping over trash cans, getting into ladies’ purses, crawling places he shouldn’t and destroying the story of Abraham and Isaac from his storybook, Chrissy finds skeletons that her fellow parishioners thought were deeply buried.Will Chrissy and baby Lukas solve the crime before the uncovered secrets tear their little church apart?