Murder In Half Moon Bay


Nancy Jill Thames - 2010
    But a startling discovery draws Jillian and her garden club friends into solving a mystery that threatens her life and changes her future.The unlikely team helps the chief uncover a series of mysterious events that lead to solving several murders, both past and present. Could it be the mean spirited conference director? Perhaps it's the wealthy widow on the make for her next husband; or maybe the killer is the haughty business woman who shows no regard for her brow beaten husband.“Murder in Half Moon Bay,” Book 1 in The Jillian Bradley Mystery Series, introduces Jillian's little companion Teddy, a Yorkie who falls prey to danger but rises to become a sleuth dog in the next book.

Spirits in the Material World - a Salem Bookstore Cozy Witch Mystery (The Magical Supernatural Paranormal Witches of Massachusetts Book 1)


Lisa Shea - 2019
    She owned a small but popular bookstore in the heart of Salem, Massachusetts. Surrounded by witches and Wiccans, by pagans and spirits, she treasured every day in the historic cobblestone streets. But one of her regulars, Mrs. McGillicuddy, needs help with a troublesome spirit. Amber quickly realizes is that this haunting goes far beyond just a run-of-the-mill poltergeist. It delves into the very heart of Salem's troubled history. * * * Spirits in the Material World - a Salem Bookstore Cozy Witch Mystery is book one in the series The Magical Supernatural Paranormal Witches of Massachusetts. I live near Salem and visit it regularly - this book is chock-full of my own personal observations, visitations, and delight in roaming the streets and alleys of this amazing location. One of my ancestors was Ann Foster - a grandmother who gave in to the accusations at the Salem Witch Trials in order to protect her innocent daughter and granddaughter. Ann was put into jail, age 75, and she soon succumbed to the atrocious conditions there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this series! I support battered women's shelters.

Craks in a Marriage


Barbara Barrett - 2018
    A few days later, the husband is found dead, his head bashed in. Fearing she’ll be considered the most likely suspect, the widow prevails upon Sydney and her three friends—Marianne, Kat and Micki—to find out who really killed him. Though none of these four fun-loving, take-charge retirees has any training as detectives, the women agree to launch a secret investigation. As they dig under the happy veneer of their community’s social life, they find more than enough suspects, from shady ladies to resentful golf buddies, to keep them looking over their shoulders. Could the murderer be lurking among the talent in a chaotic production put on by Sydney’s husband, who will do anything to keep busy in retirement? Could the sheriff, who may have more than a professional interest in chanteuse Kat, end up pinning the crime on the women instead? Each discovery during their investigations and their weekly mah jongg game keeps them running as they close in on the killer—but the killer may also be closing in on them. This cozy mystery, the first in the Mah Jongg Mystery series, features four retired amateur sleuths who live in the small Florida town of Serendipity Springs, all female and all friends who play the game of mah jongg together. Though they don't set out to investigate murder, after their first experience in this story, others start looking to them to help investigate subsequent homicides and questionable accidents. In this first book, Sydney Bonner takes the lead, although she turns to her three friends for help. Though this series features four protagonists, the others will take the lead in subsequent stories. Two are married, one is divorced and the fourth, who has been single all her life while she tended to her ailing mother, now finds herself the object of the sheriff's attention in this series. The four don't seek out murder; somehow the circumstances and those affected drag them in. Meanwhile, as they attempt to gather information, life goes on in their community in such activities as a women's club, a social group for those over 50, real estate transactions, numerous stops at the local coffeehouse, and even a shopping trip to Naples. Sydney's husband, Trip, and her friend Marianne Putnam's husband, Beau, are golf buddies who spend many a day on the course. When not there, Trip is busy seeking to build a new post retirement life, and Beau is often prevailed upon to join in Trip's latest activity, which in this first book is a town follies. Kat Faulkner has lived a frugal life until winning big in a lottery shortly after her mother's death; suddenly, Kat has money and doesn't know how to spend it. But her divorced friend and freelance writer, Micki Demetrius, does, even if it's to guide Kat through a makeover and wardrobe change for her lounge act. This cozy mystery is the first book in the Mah Jongg Mystery series. Barbara Barrett is already published in contemporary romance. She is a member of the Mystery/Romantic Suspense chapter of Romance Writers of America. Like her protagonists, she is retired and is a resident of Florida, although she spends her summers in her home state of Iowa. She spent over three decades as a human resource management analyst with Iowa state government. She can be contacted at barbarabarrett747@gmail.com. Check her website at barbarabarrettbooks.com.

Perils in Provence


Carolyn L. Dean - 2018
     A dangerous past life. A new mysterious boss. An old chateau with some very suspicious characters. Jennifer was happy working as a baker at the Ravenwood Inn, but when fate comes calling in the form of Gable Landon, she’s ready to jump at the new career he offers. Soon she’s globetrotting from Oregon to Bruges, then on to Provence to assess a rundown property her boss might want to buy. The charm of southern France and its food and landscape is almost intoxicating, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s made a new friend, a French bulldog named Orly. What Jennifer hadn’t expected, though, was stone cold murder. Clean language, and only rated PG because hey, there’s a murderer running around in this book.

Maple Can Be Murder


Grace Lemon - 2016
    It’s just that kind of place. And things get a whole lot stickier for the residents when a businessman visiting the island ends up smothered at the local sugar bush. With maple syrup season in full swing, Ida Noe’s fudge shop is busier than a centipede at a toe counting contest – especially when she’s invited to showcase her world famous Maple Bacon Fudge at Sweeney’s Sugar Bush. All is sweet until some poor sap kicks the bucket in the sugarhouse and all fingers point to Ida’s best friend Maura Sweeney. With the help of her lumpy black Lab and origami loving friend, Ida is determined to “tap” the real killer and prove that maple can indeed be murder. Previously published as Maple Can Be Murder.

The Case of the Missing Finger: A Cruise Ship Cozy Mystery


Cheri Baker - 2021
    Two years later, with her children grown and the rest of her life ahead of her, she's ready to have the adventure she'd planned before her life was turned upside-down. She's excited to visit the U.S. Virgin Islands on her very first cruise.After boarding the most beautiful cruise ship she's ever seen, Ellie's surprised when she's assigned a cabin inside the cruise line's new singles club at sea, but she quickly sees that her new friends aboard could use some advice when it comes to romance. Unfortunately, Ellie's matchmaking efforts are interrupted when a fellow passenger finds a finger with a big diamond ring on it in her Sangria Surprise!Passengers are scandalized and tongues are wagging all around the ship. The ship's security chief seems eager to brush the crime under the rug while others are eager to point fingers at Ellie's favorite bartender. After thirty years married to a small town police chief, Ellie's picked up some sleuthing skills of her own, and she knows that justice demands honest answers to the questions rocking the ship. Who does the finger belong to? How did it end up in the boozy drink special of the day? And what other secrets lurk beneath the Caribbean sun?It's all hands on deck for adventure with this matchmaking sleuth.

Wish Upon A Witch


Lucy May - 2020
    Really. Her name is literally Juliette Good. Apologies for the redundancy. Good witch or not, she often ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Returning home to Charm Cove, Maine after the holidays, she makes a nostalgic wish in the town’s fountain. As unfortunate luck would have it, seconds later the town’s ancient beloved balsam tree catches fire and is burned to a crisp. By virtue of being a witness, Juliette is also a suspect. Suddenly, wishes cast by random strangers in the fountain are granted almost instantly if Juliette happens to be nearby. In the less magical realm, residents of Charm Cove are up in arms over winter road maintenance and a few too many fender benders during the icy winter. Meanwhile, the only other person known to be present when the ancient balsam tree caught fire is Donovan Wick—a warlock who’s just moved back to town. He’s handsome and charming, and Juliette just might be falling for him. There’s not much time for romance when the witches and warlocks of Charm Cove are chasing down whoever cast the spell that harmed the tree, and the entire town is disgruntled over the state of the roads. The mundane and magical are all tangled together. Take a visit to Charm Cove, where Wicked meets Good and where you just might find there’s almost always more than meets the eye.

Casino Witch Mysteries 1 & 2 (Casino Witch Mysteries Boxset)


Nikki Haverstock - 2019
     Of Murders and Mages: Casino Witch Mysteries 1 Three ways that Ella's life is totally messed up: 1. Her new coworker is as cranky as he is attractive 2. A mischievous cat has decided she needs a familiar 3. She just found out she's a witch who can read the emotional hologram of a magical death (and isn't that a mouthful) And oh yeah, there's five dead bodies, and no one knows how they are connected. Now she’s drawn into a madcap investigation at the casino where she's managed to snag a job. She must navigate learning her new mage abilities, a topless burlesque show, a jealous girlfriend, gamblers of all varieties, and magical chocolate cake, all while not setting herself or others on fire before the murderer makes her the next victim. Which Mage Moved the Cheese? Casino Witch Mysteries 2 Ella's Super Awesome Guide to Paranormal Cheese: 1. You eat it, but there are weird side effects. 2. The ingredients can be really gross. 3. You don't use it to squash people. When the ex-president of the Paranormal Cheese Council is found dead under the world's largest wedge of cheese, Ella is on the case! Unable to admit who she really is, she goes undercover. But can she, her klutzy sidekick, and the world's most arrogant familiar escape the Booby-Trapped Queso of Doom, or stop eating the magically addictive beer-cheese fondue without giving things away to the anonymous villain?

A Sight for Psychic Eyes


Kelly Hashway - 2018
    Now, she’s hoping to use that ability to bring the boy home unharmed.But things only get worse when the boy who’s been bullying Eric goes missing as well. With a kidnapper on the loose, Piper will need to prove she’s the best P.I for the case. But can she find the boys before it’s too late? Fans of Joanne Fluke and Victoria Laurie will enjoy this psychic cozy mystery series. Scroll up and one-click to start reading today!

Alas, She Drowned


Monica Knightley - 2016
    Betrayal. Tea and Scones. When ex-novice nun, turned steamy romance writer, Maggie O’Flynn moves to the charming village of Stratford Upon Avondale to open a tea room she expects plenty of murders, betrayal, and duplicity. On the stages of the town’s renowned Shakespeare Festival. But when a theater critic is found murdered on the town’s riverbank and the prime suspect turns out to be the sexy bookshop owner Maggie has had her eye on, she takes matters into her own hands. Will she be able to dig through the layers of betrayal and duplicity to find the true murderer before that handsome bookseller, Nate Larimer, finds himself behind bars? With the help of her loud, brash, spitfire of a friend, Gina Mattucci, Maggie plans to do just that. With a bit of Shakespeare, copious amounts of tea, and a faux-English setting to rival anything the real England has to offer, ALAS, SHE DROWNED is the first book in THE STRATFORD UPON AVONDALE mystery series. Lovers of cozy mysteries will find a cozy home in Stratford Upon Avondale.

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**

Death on the Seine (A Paris Booksellers Mystery Book 1)


Evan Hirst - 2017
    What could possibly go wrong? For Ava Sext, a transplanted Londoner who sells books from an outdoor stand that overlooks the Seine River, her day goes from bad to worse when the tall handsome stranger whose appearance her horoscope predicted disappears after he is almost killed before her eyes and that's before she discovers that he supposedly died weeks earlier! With the help of her fellow bookseller, Henri DeAth, a former notary in a country where notaries are a powerful caste who not only know where the bodies are buried but probably helped bury them, Ava attempts to find her not-so-dead man before he turns up dead for real while trying to remain alive. Death on the Seine is a cozy mystery set in Paris, a city where food, wine and crime make life worth living… along with a few books and Mercury, the cat.

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!

Small Town Taxi (Honey Walker Adventures Book 1)


Harriet Rogers - 2019
    Honey has a few goals in life. Her first is to hustle enough fares and tips to pay the rent and buy those red sequined spike heeled slut shoes she lusts after. Her next goal is to kick her budding relationship with police Lieutenant Jon Stevens into high gear. Honey's problem is that dead bodies and live thugs keep getting in the way of her goals. While she admires the Lieutenant's well formed rear end, the Lieutenant is busy chasing the bad guys who are busy chasing Honey. When Honey's new best friend Belle, former prostitute and wife to one of the dead bodies, is kidnapped by the local mafia, Honey sets out to rescue her. Follow Honey as she drives her taxi through a big hole in the local crime scene.

Haunted Hardbodies


Julia Derek
    So, when the opportunity arises to buy Six-Packs for peanuts, she's thrilled. The fact that the previous owner claims the place is haunted doesn't bother her one bit--she doesn't believe in ghosts. With all her experience, she'll revive floundering Six-Packs!Unfortunately, Celeste soon discovers that the gym IS haunted by a feisty ghost named Lennie. Lennie used to own the building that houses Six-Packs, and he was a slumlord. Lennie approaches Celeste and tells her he must solve five crimes before he can enter the next world to atone for being a terrible person in life.At first, Celeste ignores Lennie's badgering ways. But then one of the gym members suffers a mysterious death--and only Lennie seems to know who's behind it. Celeste has no choice but to help Lennie solve his first crime or it's over for Six-Packs, leaving not only Celeste broke, but her employees without a job.NOTE: Haunted Hardbodies is a cozy murder mystery for people who like to laugh.