Book picks similar to
Sea Change by T'Gracie Reese


mystery
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Knife Skills


Julie Adler - 2014
     Smart-mouthed Trudi is definitely no foodie: she knows nothing about fine dining, surviving happily on peanut butter and breakfast cereal. But the murder of the most famous chef in town — killed with a cooking knife — presents an opportunity: if Trudi can prove her skills as a reporter, she can return to the news desk where she belongs. In a tight-knit California foothills community of cooks, caterers and wine snobs, can Trudi make her way through a new world of delicious food and drink? And can she track down the murderer — or will he find her first?

Dixie Divas


Virginia Brown - 2009
    "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.

Better Off Wed


Laura Durham - 2005
    Annabelle knows that even her trusted wedding emergency kit won't be able to salvage their careers if she and Richard can't find the real culprit.It's no easy task since the slain matron was perhaps the most hated socialite in DC, but Annabelle navigates through the city's colorful wedding industry and powerful social scene on the deadly trail of a killer. Always the bridal consultant and never the bride, she's seen her fair share of bouquet tosses. But there's no telling what surprises a ruthless killer will throw her way if she gets too close.

Miss Pettybone's First Case


Melissa J. Rees - 2011
    Her job as a postal worker for the last seventeen years is duller than her love life. And as middle age spreads its cloak around her, she realize how boring and mundane her life has become.When a tall, dark, mysterious, stranger rents out an isolated farmhouse on her route, she is intrigued as the rest of the small town. When she stumbles over his dead body while delivering his mail, she is horrified. Deciding to investigate the murder she quickly runs afoul of the law, in the shape of Sheriff Dwight Caruthers, an old high school boyfriend. He mockingly demands she keep her nose out of his business and return to her safe job of delivering the mail. More determined than ever to track down the murderer, she races after clues like her hair is on fire, never slowing down long enough to figure out what to do if she catches the killer. A mistake with deadly consequences!

Throw a Monkey Wrench


Karen Chester - 2016
    She’s hired to throw a housewarming party for the brash and arrogant Tony Barnet, who’s eager to impress the big end of town. But when the party ends in disaster, Tony is quick to blame Emma, and the subsequent rumors spell doom for Emma’s business. Thank goodness she still has the job of planning Sean and Madison’s wedding. Sean, one of the notorious McCluskey clan, is about to marry Madison, the beautiful daughter of the rich and powerful Whites. But when Tony Barnet is killed, the police swiftly arrest Sean McCluskey. Though the evidence is damning, Emma is convinced her friend is innocent. With Sean facing prison, the wedding in jeopardy, and her fledgling business in danger of tanking, Emma must unravel the mystery and expose the real killer before it’s too late. The Emma Cassidy Mystery series: Book 1: Throw a Monkey Wrench Book 2: Pushed to the Limit Book 3: Murder Most Likely (coming in 2016)

Murder Under Construction


Maddie Cochere - 2014
    She wants two things in life - a new career as a private investigator, and to lose the sixty pounds she packed on after her divorce.When she crashes her bike in a construction site, she lands on a girl with a large knife in her chest. Jo enlists her sister, Pepper, and their journalist friend, Jackie, to help solve the dead girl's murder. Things become creepy for Jo when the murdered girl appears in her dreams to offer unusual clues to her death.Murder Under Construction is a humorous mystery with Jo's family adding to the antics of the three women. Mama caterwauls, Jackie's two children offer sleuthing assistance, and her brother, Hank, laughs at all of them from the sidelines. Murder Under Construction is light, easy-breezy reading from Maddie Cochere.

Final Chapter: A Megan Montaigne Mystery (Megan Montaigne Mysteries)


Pam Stucky - 2018
    At least it was, before the murders started. Megan Montaigne has always secretly wanted to be a forensics investigator. The small-town library director has just begun rebuilding her life after tragedy tore it apart less than a year ago, and is happily settling into her new apartment on the top floor of the library by the river. But when a local celebrity turns up dead, the time has come to put her sleuthing fantasies into action. Has she unwittingly invited the murderer into her own home? And will she be able to prove her innocence before she becomes a victim herself?

The Big Lead


Libby Kirsch - 2015
    Being on live TV in a small town has never been so funny, until Stella covers the town’s first murders in years.When the prime suspect’s girlfriend enlists Stella to help clear his name, she uncovers another shocking crime that could expose a handful of powerful insiders.Who is honest, who can’t be trusted, and who committed the murders? Stella is on a tight deadline to find out. Can she help free an innocent man, or will the real culprit get away with murder?

Never Buried


Edie Claire - 1999
    Too bad his body didn't!Advertising copywriter Leigh Koslow doesn't pack heat--just a few extra pounds. And she doesn't go looking for trouble. When she moved into her cousin Cara's refurbished Victorian house, she wasn't planning on discovering a corpse--certainly not one that had been embalmed ten years before. But as anyone in the small Pittsburgh borough of Avalon could tell her, her cousin's house has a history attached. A history dating back to two mysterious deaths in the summer of 1949.Someone wants Leigh and Cara out of the house--someone who has something to hide. But that someone doesn't know Leigh's impetuous cousin, and when Cara digs her heels in, Leigh looks to her old college chum, local policewoman Maura Polanski, for help. But the answers the trio find only point to more questions. Were the scandalous deaths of fifty years ago really an accident and a suicide? Or were they murder?The nearer the women get to the truth, the more desperate someone becomes. Because some secrets are better off kept. Especially when they hit close to home!

The Case of the Defunct Adjunct


Frankie Bow - 2015
    A death in plain sight. And the faculty meeting’s just begun.When the lecherous Kent Lovely, Mahina State’s one-man hostile work environment, collapses face-first into his haupia cheesecake, the faculty retreat goes from dull to disastrous. Now Professor Molly Barda has to fight to keep an innocent out of prison—and herself off the unemployment line. If you like Dorothy Parker, Sarah Caudwell, P.G. Wodehouse, or E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia stories, you'll enjoy this tale of passion, pilferage, and petty politics.

The Third Girl


Nell Goddin - 2015
    She’s looking for peace, beautiful gardens, and pastry—a slower, safer life than the one she’d been living outside of Boston. But you know what they say about the best intentions… Molly has barely gotten over jet-lag before she hears about a local student’s disappearance. In between getting her old ramshackle house in order and reveling in French food, Molly ends up embroiled in the case, along with the gendarmes of Castillac. And unlike the Nancy Drews she loved as a child, this mystery stirs up emotions she thought had been put to rest..and terrifies the residents of her beloved village.

Margaritas & Murder


CeCe Osgood - 2016
    Did she kill him? That's the question bedeviling apprentice P.I. Sunny Truly. Witty, earnest and stubborn, Sunny goes undercover as a glam-girl to ferret out suspects at the Texas nightclub where her friend worked. With the aid of her wise-cracking boss and a handsome police detective, she uncovers a terrible secret with deadly consequences. Now Sunny might be the next victim. Fans of Janet Evanovich, Stephanie Bond, Julie Smith will be tickled by this feisty sleuth and the intriguing whodunit in this fun, twisty, suspenseful cozy mystery

52 Steps To Murder


Steve Demaree - 2006
    An elderly woman is found poisoned in the upstairs bedroom of her home whose front door stands 52 steps above the street in an old-fashioned whodunit that blends clues, red herrings, suspects, and humor.

Murder in the South of France


Susan Kiernan-Lewis - 2011
    Along the way, she finds handsome Laurent Dernier, a sexy if nefarious Frenchman who it's not clear is there to help or hinder Maggie's search for the girl. Meanwhile, her sister's murderer sets his sights on the little girl — and Maggie.The first book of the Maggie Newberry Mystery Series, Murder in the South of France was originally titled Murder on the Côte d’Azur.

A Zen for Murder


Leighann Dobbs - 2014
    but that's about to change. When local psychic Zoila Rivers is found dead at the zen garden, retired police consultants Dominic Benedetti and Claire Watkins are forced to team up to catch the killer. Too bad Claire and Dom don't always see eye to eye. But with an island full of locals who all have secrets, Claire and Dom have to put aside their differences in order to solve the case before the police arrest the wrong person and a killer goes free. Will Claire and Dom figure out whose secret was worth killing for in time to stop the killer from claiming another victim?