Book picks similar to
The Secret of Willow Inn by Pat Nichols


mystery
romance
women-s-fiction
christian-fiction

A Season to Dance


Patricia Beal - 2017
    Claus kisses her after a rehearsal, a kiss Peter witnesses from the darkened audience. Convinced a kiss between Claus and Ana is more than a one-time mistake, Peter breaks off his engagement with Ana. Rejected by Peter, and knowing Claus is dancing at the Met soon, Ana decides to repave her path to her dream. With her 2002 Thunderbird and Baryshnikov, an old dog crippled by arthritis, she moves to Germany to be with Claus. But the ghost of his late wife, Ana’s own memories of Peter, and the pressure of earning a spot in a large ballet company prove to be a high price for a shot at success.

Beauty in Flight


Robin Patchen - 2019
    These days, she keeps her head down and focuses on the elderly patients in her care. Even her new wealthy east-coast boyfriend, Derrick, can't entice her away. She's trusted men before, and look where that got her. She tries to brush off the feeling that she's being watched. She won't allow a baseless paranoia to derail her life. But when she's followed home one night, her pursuer gets within a hair's breadth of grabbing her. She knows it's time to get away from Las Vegas. Maybe Derrick can be trusted. Maybe his job offer—to care for his aging grandfather in Maryland—will be the second chance she needs. But Derrick has secrets of his own, secrets that could take him down--and take Harper with him. Can there be a second chance for someone like her?  Buy Beauty in Flight today ,  Book 1 in a 3-book-series that’ll keep you guessing until the very end.

Cocoa and Chanel


Donna Joy Usher - 2013
    There, she becomes entangled in a case of the worst kind - a serial killer targeting young women.As she is drawn further into the seedy underground in her attempt to unravel the truth, Chanel makes new friends, new enemies and attracts the attention of the killer. Can she solve the case in time, or will she become the killer's next victim?This is a light-hearted cozy mystery with plenty of laughs suitable for fans of Janet Evanovich, Deborah Coonts, Jana Deleon and Stephanie Bond.

Fall Flip


Denise Weimer - 2019
    What happens when he flips her heart? The tragic death of Shelby Dodson’s husband—her partner in a successful Home Network house flipping business—stole love, status, and career. Now a bungalow redesign thrusts Shelby into the company of a new contractor. Scott Matthews remembers high-and-mighty Shelby from high school, and her prissy, contemporary style goes against his down-to-earth grain. When the house reveals a mystery, will its dark secrets—and their own mistakes—cost them a second chance at love?

Murder is Elementary


Diane Weiner - 2014
    What a joy to be able to attend the holiday concert without worrying about how her chorus will perform. But wait. Where's the principal? Susan offers to check, only to find the principal lying dead on her office floor. Of course, now that she's retired she has time to help the local police (one of whom is her daughter) solve the mysterious crime. Did the principal die of natural causes? The bruise on her face doesn't seem severe enough to be fatal. What about that funfetti cupcake sitting on her desk? Could she have been poisoned? Susan has just found the perfect retirement activity, much to her daughter's chagrin. And when the principal's teenage daughter, one of Susan's all time favorite students, asks for help - how can she say no? Little does she realize that this crime will take her far from the schoolhouse doors, as she investigates a mystery that extends back into one family's painful past.

Elusive


Sara Rosett - 2012
    Zoe Hunter loves living on the edge. Free-spirited and spontaneous, she’s built a life stringing together various freelance gigs that keep her bank account barely in the black. But when her ex, Jack, goes missing along with several million dollars from his business and the FBI zeros in on her as a person of interest, Zoe’s life goes from delightfully unpredictable to downright frightening. Plunged into a world of fake identities, deception, and murder, she’s afraid to trust anyone. Zoe impulsively skips town in a search for answers that takes her from Las Vegas to Italy, but instead of tracking down answers, she only uncovers more questions. Who was Jack? Is he dead or did he fake his disappearance? And, what was he mixed up in—art theft, the mafia, espionage, or all three? SERIES NOTES: On the Run Series Book #1: Elusive Book #2: Secretive

Sunshine Hunter


Maddie Cochere - 2012
    Often, she is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and things go downhill quickly. All of the books cross genres of chick lit, mystery, romance, humor, and action, bringing you a fast-paced, easy-breezy read.Working in a weight-loss center by day and a racquetball club by night, Susan Hunter enjoys her life, the sport, and her friends. ... Sunshine Hunter opens with Susan finding out her new boyfriend of three months is married. To escape the drama, she accepts an offer from her best friend to tag along for a week in Florida. Here the mystery begins, and Susan believes she and her friend are being stalked. She also learns of a murder back home in Ohio and soon finds out she's wanted for questioning. The story takes an adventurous turn when she ends up in the Gulf of Mexico. ... Humorous, sometimes ominous, Sunshine Hunter is quirky and fun! Approx. 52,000 words.

Courting Calla


Hallee Bridgeman - 2019
    No matter how hard she works, though, she feels like she is just treading water and can't see any way out of the hole dug for her by a con artist who stole her identity. When flowers she sends to her best friend with a dinner invitation accidentally get delivered to IAN JONES, she decides to cook him the best meal he's ever had. By the time she admits that the flowers were never for him, he is as convinced as she is that God orchestrated the mistake in the first place. All that's left is to tell him the dark secret about her father's widow. She waits a little too long, though, and is carted off to jail for questioning on felony charges before she gets a chance. Will Ian understand her situation, or will the deception surrounding Calla destroy any trust he has in her?

A Trifle Dead


Livia Day - 2013
    Which was fine when she was a tearaway teen, but not so useful now she’s trying to run a hipster urban cafe, invent the perfect trendy dessert, and stop feeding the many (oh so unfashionable) policemen in her life.When a dead muso is found in the flat upstairs, Tabitha does her best (honestly) not to interfere with the investigation, despite the cute Scottish blogger who keeps angling for her help. Her superpower is gossip, not solving murder mysteries, and those are totally not the same thing, right?But as that strange death turns into a string of random crimes across the city of Hobart, Tabitha can’t shake the unsettling feeling that maybe, for once, it really is ALL ABOUT HER.And maybe she’s figured out the deadly truth a trifle late…

A Twist of Faith


Pepper D. Basham - 2016
    But with any other type, Dr. Adelina Roseland feels confident she can correct it. Accent reduction is her specialty and she’s worked eight years in research to attain her dream job. But a secret wager to transform Appalachian cattle farmer, Reese Mitchell, into corporate material challenges Dee in ways she never expected, threatening her new position.For one, Adelina didn't plan for the faith and friction of Reese or his chaotic family. Now, drawn into a culture she tried to forget, Dee finds the warmth of family, the hope of faith, and the joy of love melting away the deep wounds of her past.But when Reese discovers that he's a pawn in her climb up the academic ladder, will he forgive Dee's deceit or will their miscommunication end in two broken lives?"Basham weaves a unique tale sure to please the romantic at heart." - Denise Hunter, bestselling author of Married 'til Monday

Dr. Horatio vs. the Six-Toed Cat


Virginia Smith - 2015
    Set in the years before the Richardsons launch their bed-and-breakfast scheme, the quirky residents of the small Kentucky town are all in a tizzy over the upcoming Fall Festival. Alison, Al and Millie's headstrong daughter, astounds everyone with the news that she's getting married—in three weeks—to a Colombian! As her parents frantically try to stop the nuptials, Dr. Horatio, Goose Creek's beloved veterinarian, is determined to solve the mystery of the six-toed kittens that have been popping up all over town. This charming prequel will make you laugh out loud, fall in love with the delightful residents of Goose Creek, and remind you why you love reading.

The Secret of Seaside


Agatha Ball - 2017
    AND MURDER! Paige Comber dreams of running off to Paris to train at the Cordon Bleu, but fresh out of college, she is stuck running her granny's coffee shop in the small town of Seaside. It looks like a lousy summer until a handsome stranger named Nate arrives. He's here to help his Uncle Byron with his affairs, but when his uncle's body washes up on the beach and Nate is thrown into prison, it is up to Paige to find out who might have been crazy enough to do it. BOOK ONE in the PAIGE COMBER MYSTERY series

Uncommon Ground


Joy Ohagwu - 2016
    To them, marriage did appear too distant as each struggled to build a career while single, and communication between the sisters was less than stellar. But when God stepped in, He showed that He could turn their struggles into triumphs-if they let Him. UNCOMMON GROUND , begins this series, focused on Stella, the eldest of the Hearts sisters.UNCOMMON GROUNDWidowed and now single, Stella Heart juggled between managing her career and struggling to communicate with her teenage daughter, Sharon. Their common ground crumbled beneath their different beliefs about God. While Stella believed in God, her daughter didn't. Sharon instead held strongly to what they taught her in school--until the day the ground physically gave way--altering both their perspectives about each other, and more than one person's resistance to God.Stella's concerns multiplied in the ensuing chaos after she met Michael, a Christian man with a mysterious past whom danger seemed to follow- and she wondered how many more unseen twists God trusted her to handle.Can she trust Michael beyond what he appears to be hiding from her, or will her own fears cloud her judgement when extreme danger surfaces?

Worth the Weight


Mara Jacobs - 2012
    A new life. An old flame?Lizzie Hampton is literally a shadow of her former self. Having lost half her body weight, she's headed to her small hometown to test out her new body on an old flame. Just a harmless fling to get her self-confidence back before she returns to the city and the new man in her life.But Lizzie's plan has a few bumps in the road.Finn Robbins can't believe Liz is back in town. Desperate to be the holder of her innocence eighteen years ago, he never got the chance. Now she's back and he can finally check her off his to do list. But her friends, his son, and the mysterious Annie may have something to say about that.

The Seat Beside Me


Nancy Moser - 2016
    You are seated next to a stranger. An insignificant coincidence, small talk and pretzels. Yet this time, there’s a connection. A bond forms and your life is changed for having met them. Five passengers and the people in the seats beside them. Five plus five. Ten lives forever linked—by chance or divine design? And someone is a hero and doesn’t even know it. In the aftermath of a crisis, the passengers reevaluate their priorities and question the meaning of their lives. Compelling truths surface about what is really important. No one will be able to ignore the special significance of chance encounters ever again. Is there a hero in you?