Book picks similar to
A Dash of Sorcery by Constance Barker


cozy-mysteries
mystery-cozy
mystery-suspense
correctly-checked

Witch's Tail


Melanie Snow - 2020
    Divorced and jobless, she relocates to the enchanting village of Witchland intent on solving the murder of her late mentor. But as she pursues clues buried in the man’s fight to save the endangered forest-dwelling lynx, she makes an enemy of a ruthless land developer.Encountering fairies in the woods, Sarah discovers she’s been repressing unique gifts passed down from her ancestor and founding witch, Lativia Spellwood. But though she can now hear her deceased friend’s dog speak, she isn’t sure her abilities are enough to expose the greed and corruption covering a killer’s lies.Can Sarah work with the magical beings to bring a murderer to justice?Witch’s Tail is the charming first book in the light-hearted The Spellwood Witches cozy mystery series. If you like paranormal puzzles, delightful canine companions, and environmental enlightenment, then you’ll love Melanie Snow’s wagging-ly fun whodunit. Buy Witch’s Tail to set a snare for an assassin today!

A Cup of Shadows (Devecheaux Antiques & Haunted Things Book 1)


M.L. Bullock - 2020
    

Carrots


Colleen Helme - 2011
    Her life is organized and predictable, revolving around her husband and two children. All that changes the day she stops at the grocery store for some carrots. As the cashier rings up her purchases, a gunman is busy robbing the bank inside the store. When a customer grabs the robber's mask, he is shot and everyone runs for cover. Everyone except Shelby, who finds herself face to face with the killer. The next thing she knows, she's lying on the floor with a bullet wound to her head. Luckily, the bullet only grazes her scalp, and she doesn't suspect any lasting affects until later, when she suddenly 'hears' what people are thinking. With this uncanny ability, her life takes on a whole new dimension. Her kids think she's bossy and too old to understand them, but that's nothing compared to her husband. He says he loves her, but what is it about the redhead at work that he doesn't want her to know? As if that isn't enough, the gunman knows she can identify him, and he's out to silence her forever. In her fight to stay alive, she is saved from certain death by a handsome hit-man with ties to organized crime. This pulls Shelby even deeper into danger, where knowing someone's thoughts can not only hurt her feelings, but get her killed.

A Dash Of Pepper: A Pepper Grinder Cozy Witch Mystery - Book One


Sam Short - 2019
     Wait! Stop right there! That’s not how it’s pronounced! It’s pronounced Grin-der. Grin as in a big cheesy smile, and der as in how dare you mispronounce it! It rhymes with hinder, okay? She’s not a condiment dispenser; she’s a person! It’s easy. Grinder – hinder. Say that ten times, and you’ll have it. So, there’s a new witch in the Derbyshire town of Picklebury, situated in the beautiful region of England known as the Peak District. Her name is Pepper Grinder (that’s it – you’ve got it!), and she’s a dab hand at gardening, without knowing the first thing about plants. Actually, that’s not entirely true - she knows a lot about plants, but not the silly things such as their names, or at what time of the year they’re supposed to flower. No, Pepper knows none of that stuff, but her magic does let her know how a plant is feeling and what it needs to flourish. Such a gift is both a blessing and a curse, and Pepper is quick to find out that the police in Picklebury have a dim view of how she sometimes uses her powers. She’s used to that, though. It’s not the first time she’s had a police warning for sneaking around people’s gardens, and it definitely probably won’t be the last. When she’s not trespassing, or sitting beneath her favourite oak tree in the meadow, Pepper Grinder likes to be alone. She shares her cottage with a cat named Ziggy, and that’s the way she likes it. The fewer people in her life - the better, as far as she’s concerned, so it’s quite unusual when within the space of a day she inadvertently joins a club and takes a small role in a low-budget romantic film about a World War Two Spitfire pilot and his potato picking lover. With things already far more hectic than Pepper is used to, finding a dead body is an additional nuisance she could have done without, especially when she hears through the grapevine that the man’s death may not have been an accident. She can’t tell the police that, though – they’d think she was mad if she told them that her informer was a south-facing, fruit yielding plant, so Pepper must take control and solve the mystery herself, with a little help from members of the club she accidentally joined. With a film director on the hunt for the expensive equipment stolen from his film set, and a strange man skulking around the small canal-side town, Pepper soon realises that moving to Picklebury may have granted her the thatched roof cottage she’d always wanted, but it certainly hadn’t afforded her the peace and quiet she'd craved. A Dash Of Pepper is book number one in The Pepper Grinder Cozy Witch Mystery Series.

All Work and No Slay


Skye Sullivan - 2021
    Learning she has fire-magic? It's bound to go up in flames...It's a beautiful day in the small town of Devil's Orchard when Bobbi's grandmother informs her she's actually a witch. Not just any old witch, either.Bobbi is part of a long line of demon-slayers.Bobbi, who can't step on a cockroach without squealing, is a demon-slayer? Yeah right. She's tempted to write the whole thing off as a stress-induced hallucination. Especially when the dumpster-diving fox starts talking...But then she stumbles over a body that's unfortunately very real, and very dead, and life gets even more complicated. Because people in small towns love to talk. Like about how great a shot her grandmother is with her little .22 pistol. And how her dislike of the dead guy gives her motive. Or how she's just crazy enough to pull the trigger.They're not technically wrong, but Bobbi knows her grandmother's innocent, and she'll do whatever she can to prove it. Even if she has to find the killer herself.She'll have to use her newfound magic to do so, but a spell is just a recipe, and Bobbi's good at following those.This witch thing should be easy... Right?All Work and No Slay is a hilarious, full-length paranormal cozy mystery filled with plenty of sass, snark, sarcasm, spells, snooping, snacks, spirits and sleuthing. And one of Bobbi's prized recipes!

Accidental Leigh


Melanie James - 2014
    She overcomes her grief by taking matters in her own hands and takes up a little romance writing to resurrect her vampire-werewolf book-boyfriend. Leigh gets more than she bargained for when she discovers that every steamy erotic scene she creates is magically reenacted by her family, friends and coworkers.In her hilarious first diary, Leigh unwittingly sets her parents up for a weekend dinner party that they will never forget. She has two weeks to find out what her new found magic is capable of. Can she prevent a wild erotic encounter that could devastate her sweet parent’s marriage? What and who else will get caught up in her magic spells?Read a story so witchingly fun, that you won’t be able to put it down and you will be eagerly awaiting the rest of the Literal Leigh Romance Diaries!

Ghost Mortem


ReGina Welling - 2019
    When my marriage fell apart, I did what every normal, red-blooded woman does… I moved back to my hometown, and bought a haunted house for the back taxes. Okay, I realize I might have been a bit hasty, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, so did staying at the Bide A Way Motel, until a dead body turned up in the next room. All I wanted was to come home, find a job, and start a new life. I didn't plan on getting tied up in the afterlife. Or solving a murder, but here's what I learned: You might not believe in ghosts, but sometimes they believe in you. The Hauned Everly After series featuring the spunky Everly Dupree is a cozy mystery with a hint of the supernatural.

Shifter Fever Complete Series


Selena Scott - 2018
    Join them on their action-packed adventure. If you love bear shifters, and strong sassy mates, set in a world of passion, love, and sizzling romance, you won't want to put this series down! Book 1 - Ansel's GameBook 2 - Alec's GameBook 3 - Matt's GameBook 4 - Kain's GameBook 5 - Griff's Game Ansel's Game - Book 1 Ruby only wanted to find her brother. Finding a true mate definitely wasn't part of the plan! Little did Ansel know that by claiming his true mate he would be opening the gates to a whole new world. Alec's Game - Book 2 They were in a foreign world, where much was the same as earth, But this was very different. Completely disarmed by Alec's honesty, could Milla allow here desires to manifest, and what would this mean for the mission to save Griff? Matt's Game - Book 3 What begins as some neighbourly pleasantries, Matt and Inka's attraction towards each other soon develops. But such attraction doesn't deepen without its own perils. Has Matt uncovered something that could potentially stop him protecting his own true mate? Kain's Game - Book 4 When Valentina falls victim to one of the shifter hunters, will Kain seize his opportunity and be able to save her? From two different worlds, could there really be a future together or is Kain just deluded in his quest? Griff's Game - Book 5 Torn between her feelings for Griff, was Alanya's gift really a curse to drive them apart? Together they were a force, but apart, the final mission to free the captives could fail. What would this mean for all those shifters on Herta they needed to protect and set free? This steamy 5 book paranormal romance series contains strong sexual themes/language and is not intended for readers under the age of 18.

Night of the Living Deed


E.J. Copperman - 2010
    But when a bump on the head leaves her seeing not only stars but spirits, Alison realizes the real challenge she's facing is out of this world.The two residing ghosts are Maxie Malone, the foul-tempered former owner of the house (who has definite opinions about Alison's design plans), and Paul Harrison, a private eye who'd been working for Maxie--both died in the house on the same night. The official cause of death was suicide, but the ghosts insist they were murdered, and they need Alison to find out who killed them--or the next ghost in the guest house will be Alison herself...

Beyond Dead


Jordaina Sydney Robinson - 2016
    And then she finds a dead ghost stuffed in her locker.Since the police are desperate to arrest her for murder, Bridget’s new best friend convinces her the only way to save herself from an eternity in prison is to solve the murder themselves.With a handsome parole officer watching her every move, an outlaw ghost befriending her and two persistent mediums demanding her attention, solving the murder is not quite as easy as it sounds. And when “murder” turns into “murders” Bridget needs to solve the case … before she becomes the next dead body stuffed in her locker. Beyond Dead is the first book in a paranormal cozy murder mystery series set in a ridiculously bureaucratic afterlife. It is rife with cozy humor (or more accurately cosy humour) that cozy British mysteries are famous for. The series follows the newly dead Bridget Sway as she tries to adjust to her new life as a ghost while solving the odd murder along the way. Bridget exhibits all the best virtues of cozy mystery women sleuths in terms of wit and humor but, as the amateur sleuth of a cozy ghost mysteries series, she is something most others are not – and that’s dead.

Midlife Changes Bite (Lucinda's Midlife Adventures #1)


Leigh Raventhorne - 2020
    Yes, some might settle for a meager existence, if that's what life has handed them—but the strong ones will actively look for a change.Lucinda Green left her job in Ohio, looking for change and adventure.She found them both, in spades.Some say, "Be careful what you ask for."Others say, "You'll never know until you try. The worst that can happen is you get told, 'no'."That is just SO not true.Lucinda doesn't take no for an answer, but then again, her midlife change might just be a little different than—everyone else's.MIDLIFE CHANGES BITE starts a brand new series in the Midlife Adventures world starring forty-two year old Lucinda Green, who tends to be slightly feistier, friskier, and steamier than Roxie. (If you've been reading her ongoing series)Lucinda's story takes place in the same world, at the same time as Roxie's, and occasionally shares characters. As you can tell from the cover, there are biters involved—Vampires and vampire gods, to be exact. Shifters, witches, magick, and spirits live by the same 'rules' in both series, making them feel familiar.**Note: This is a 70% rewrite of an earlier title - Lucinda's Midlife Change - adapted to fit here at the suggestion of readers. Where Roxie fits perfectly in Paranormal Women's Fiction #PWF, Lucinda is more #PWR Paranormal Women's Romance.

The Aura


Carrie Bedford - 2014
    SHE KNOWS WHO'S GOING TO DIE! BUT NO ONE WILL BELIEVE HER... Life spins out of control for London architect Kate Benedict when she sees a dancing aura above certain people’s heads that seems to signal death. Suddenly she’s psychic. But that can't be! Psychic’s not acceptable in her circle, where the supernatural is strictly for the superstitious. And yet…people are dying. People close to her. Kate's tentative attempts to talk about her new-found metaphysical gift are met with eye rolls, so much so that she can’t even tell the nice Scotland Yard detective who's investigating the death of a close friend, Rebecca Williams. And now Rebecca’s neighbor has an aura. So what's Kate to do but try to save him by turning detective herself? A break-in and attack on her boyfriend confirm that the murderer’s catching on that Kate knows too much. But he (or maybe she) has no idea that what Kate knows is a little on the paranormal side.

Miss Spelled


Morgana Best - 2015
    Her boyfriend dumps her when she inadvertently gives him food poisoning. Her workplace, a telecommunications center, fires all their staff as they are outsourcing offshore, and she is evicted due to smoke damage resulting from her failed attempts at baking. Amelia thinks her luck has changed when she inherits her estranged aunt’s store, two mysterious cats, and beautiful Victorian house.Yet has Amelia jumped out of the frying pan into the fire? To Amelia's dismay, the store is a cake store, and she discovers that her aunt was a witch. To add to the mix, the house has secrets of its own. When a man is murdered in the cake store, will Amelia be able to cook up a way to solve the crime? Or will her spells prove as bad as her baking? All Morgana Best books are clean cozy mysteries.

Mary-Alice Moves In


Frankie Bow - 2016
    But before Mary-Alice can even unpack her bags, a man of the cloth dies under mysterious circumstances, a device with strange powers turns up in the glove box of her Oldsmobile 88, and her new friends, Ida Belle, Gertie, and young Fortune, are behaving oddly…even for Baptists. This is the first book in a new series, the Mary-Alice files, set in the Miss Fortune world in Sinful, Louisiana. Many thanks to Jana DeLeon for letting us write in her Sinful world!

Caught Dead Handed


Carol J. Perry - 2014
    This October she's returned to her hometown--where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives--to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming. Lee reluctantly takes the job, but when she starts seeing real events in the obsidian ball she's using as a prop, she wonders if she might really have psychic abilities. To make things even spookier, it's starting to look like Ariel may have been an actual practicing witch--especially when O'Ryan, the cat Lee and Aunt Ibby inherited from her, exhibits some strange powers of his own. With Halloween fast approaching, Lee must focus on unmasking a killer--or her career as a psychic may be very short lived. . .