Cozy Comedy

Avery Shaw wants things to go back to normal, but it’s not easy when she’s the current darling of the Detroit media market. Everybody wants a piece of her, and she prefers covering the news rather than being part of it. That’s why she jumps at the chance to cover a quadruple murder on the lake, even though it’s her day off. Avery realizes right away that the murders weren’t a crime of passion. No, this was a planned hit, and it leads her to look at the old mob faces in the county, who don’t exactly want to invite her into their homes.

With help from her friends - the irascible gray cat Pewter, the wise corgi Tee Tucker, and Tally, the exuberant Jack Russell - Sneaky crisscrosses her home state of Virginia hoping to go where no cat since Socks Clinton has gone: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In the tradition of her heroine, Sojourner Truth, she takes her case to the masses. Journeying from the lair of the red-shouldered hawk to the nest of the tufted titmouse, from a pasture full of curmudgeonly cows to the stately halls of Monticello, the tenacious tiger cat even secures the chattering support of Thomas Jefferson’s mice.

Ava doesn't mind raising the dead. It's all a part of being a necromancer. And people keep telling her that she's one of the strongest ones to ever live, but she doesn't believe it. Except she can also heal people, living or dead, which is unheard of.

Avery Shaw has the world at her fingertips...and a pile of dead Santas near the railroad tracks. Interestingly, she’s more focused on the Santas than her personal life, but only because she’s been warned that a proposal is imminent from her live-in love Eliot Kane and she needs to look somewhere else - anywhere else will do - rather than accept what he’s trying to offer. Avery never pictured herself married but it appears it might be happening...no matter how she tries to dodge and weave. The Santas make an enticing distraction, so Avery throws herself in with gusto.

On the edge of the Navajo Nation, rookie paralegal Naomi Manymules pauses on a lakeside clifftop to enjoy a moonlit moment. She hears someone swimming in the darkness far below her, and a boat drifts out of the shadows. When she glimpses something that might be a naked butt shining in the moonlight, she decides to head for home. What she saw was the bare behind of a murdered local sleaze. His passing upsets exactly no one, but his wife can offer only a coyote for an alibi.

Halliday resumes the story of Maddie Springer, shoe designer and amateur sleuth, a week before her marriage to hunky Los Angeles police detective Jack Ramirez. When she finds her wedding planner face down in frosting with a knife sticking out of her back, she knows that to leave on time for their honeymoon, she needs to help Jack solve the case. Her two best friends step in, not only to help find the killer, but also to serve as her new wedding planners.

Pepe, aspiring PI Geri Sullivan's muy clever Chihuahua, has stopped talking. But why now, with Geri's best friend Brad missing and her ditzy sister in grave danger? Geri's lost without Pepe's dogged detective work, especially when a client of Brad's expires under very murky circumstances. Luckily, Pepe turns out to be an excelente blogger, and his nose for clues soon has the detective duo chasing down leads.

For all those craving more adventures of their favorite bookseller-by-day and burglar-by-night, The Burglar in Short Order for the first time ever collects all of Bernie Rhodenbarr's short-form appearances in one complete volume. From the story in which a prototype of Bernie first appeared (“A Bad Night for Burglars”) to his appearances in Playboy and (maybe? It's kinda complicated) Cosmopolitan...from an essay discussing Bernie's misadventures in Hollywood to a piece commissioned by a European publisher for a tourist guide to New York....

Francesca "Franki" Amato is a straight-shooting rookie cop in Austin, Texas, until an embarrassing 911 call prompts her to take a job at her best friend’s PI agency in New Orleans. But Franki soon learns that solving crime in The Big Easy is no Bourbon Street party. Case in point, her first investigation involves the murder of a beautiful boutique manager who was strangled with a cheap yellow scarf, and her primary suspect is her client.

Nothing sets the gossips of Tequila Key on fire as much as a new mystery to solve, and word on the street is that a flamingo statue for the new mini-golf course has been stolen. When the Flamingo King himself arrives in town to investigate, no one is more shocked than Althea when Miss Elva takes a shine to the man. Despite her protests, Althea is dragged into chaperoning Miss Elva on their dates, all while doing her best to not to cringe every time she hears Miss Elva giggle.

Charlie (a werewolf), Dorothy (a vampire), and Neil (a wizard) have a new flatmate. The bad news is, she's a human. The even worse news is, she's an investigative reporter. Susan Hall has just joined The Bugle, and is looking to make a name for herself.

L.A. shoe designer Maddie Springer hasn't seen her father since he reportedly ran off to Las Vegas with a showgirl named Lola. So she's shocked when he leaves a desperate plea for help on her answering machine - ending in a loud bang. Gunshot? Car backfire? Never one to leave her curiosity unsatisfied, Maddie straps on her stilettos, and along with her trigger-happy best friend, makes tracks for Sin City in search of her MIA dad. Maddie hits the jackpot, all right.

Poppy Fields has a movie-star mother, 84 million Instagram followers, paparazzi following her every move, and a problem. Her Mexican vacation just went sideways (abducted-by-a-drug-lord sideways). Suddenly her life resembles one of her mother's movies, except the bullets are real, people are dying, and there's no guarantee of a happy ending. Surrounded by trained killers and unsure who she can trust, only one thing is certain - if Poppy doesn't escape, this vacation will be her last.

When the manuscript of a debut crime novel arrives at a Parisian publishing house, everyone in the readers’ room is convinced it’s something special. And the committee for France’s highest literary honor, the Prix Goncourt, agrees. But when the shortlist is announced, there’s a problem for editor Violaine Lepage: She has no idea of the author’s identity. As the police begin to investigate a series of murders strangely reminiscent of those recounted in the book, Violaine is not the only one looking for answers.

Morning sickness sucks. Which is why fashion designer turned amateur sleuth Maddie Springer has spent the last six weeks being a couch potato and Moonlight vampire movie devotee. But when Maddie's best friends finally convince her to venture out, Maddie stumbles on a dead body of a girl who has been bitten on the neck, and life suddenly imitates art in the most deadliest of ways. Now Maddie is smack in the middle of a murder investigation involving a deadly dance club and a coven of Hollywood "vampires".

Welcome to Everlasting, Maine, where there's no such thing as normal. Marcy Lewis is cursed, honestly and truly, which makes dating very interesting. With a string of loser boyfriends behind her, she’s done looking for love in all the wrong places. That is, until the new firefighter arrives in the sleepy seaside town of Everlasting. Nicholas Logan is unlike any other man she’s ever had in her life. When someone starts sending her photographs that raise a red flag, it soon becomes apparent that she’s not just cursed. She’s in serious danger.

Juniper Bean has big plans for her writing career. Swoony kisses, sigh-inducing happily ever afters—she’s going to write them all. There’s just one problem: she can’t seem to stop killing off her main characters. After accepting that a genre change is in order, Juniper sets out to do some research. What’s the best way to carry a dead body? How exactly does one pick a lock? Juniper is going to find out—with the unwilling help of her new roommate, Aiden.

A cop, a pig, and a serial killer walk into a bar. Seal Island is home to a moonshine making billionaire, a pot growing fisherman, a celebrity flower child, a handsome romance writer, a sex addicted realtor, a womanizing pub owner, a cop, a pot-bellied pig…and a serial killer. The island is serene and remote. It is only accessible by boat. The residents like it that way, until those with the deepest and darkest of secrets start dying in the most bizarre of ways.

Between her regular job in Afterlife Arrivals, training for her second job with IA, her community service on The Bus of Death, GA meetings, taking care of her housemates, and every other ghostly commitment in between, Bridget Sway is already stretched pretty thin. Then, her best friend, Sabrina, drops a bombshell. Sabrina thinks she was murdered. And, in the afterlife, murdered dead people usually turn into homicidal maniac dead people. Despite that, Sabrina thinks if they can work out who killed her, then she might be able to get the closure she needs.

When Houston reporter Lucy Resnick cashes in her retirement to buy her grandmother's farm in Buttercup, Texas, she's looking forward to a simple life as a homesteader. But Lucy has barely finished putting up her first batch of Killer Dewberry Jam when an oil exploration truck rolls up to the farm and announces plans to replace her broccoli patch with an oil derrick.