Cozy Humor

Kay Powell wants to find that break-out client who will become a star. And she thinks she's found him: His name is Bruno, and he has to be walked three times a day. Kay is the Agent to the Paws, representing showbiz clients who aren't exactly people. In fact: they're dogs. Bruno's humans, Trent and Louise, are pains in the you-know-what, and Les McMaster, the famous director mounting a revival of Annie, might not hire Bruno just because he can't stand them.

In Miss Julia Hits the Road, she is becoming increasingly concerned about her gentleman friend, Sam, who has suddenly started wearing cowboy boots, sending her flowers, and writing bad poetry. And when he shows up on a Harley-Davidson Road King and asks her to hop on, she's convinced he's lost his mind. Meanwhile, her invaluable housekeeper, Lillian, has been evicted from her home by her greedy landlord. Deciding that Lillian's need is greater than her own fear (not to mention loss of dignity), Miss Julia takes Sam up on his offer and sets off on a motorcycle Poker Run.

Everyone adores Miss May, except the guilty. In a small town where neighbors know each other, lawn chairs come out in the spring; if you sit around chatting long enough, someone brings you pie; and there are still skeletons in every closet. Luckily for Pine Grove, Miss May has a nose for crime. The body was found face-down in the orchard.

Deputy coroner Mattie Winston knows a thing or two about dead bodies. That's why she's on the case of Derrick Ames, a high school math teacher stabbed to death with a barbecue fork straight to the heart. Sure, she's turned up some motives and a few suspects, but nothing adds up. Especially when the evidence points to Ames's teenage son. Newly pregnant Mattie can't believe it, even as her own long-estranged father may be following her.

Alone in the midnight hours with nothing but dead leaves, stray cats, and legends of ghosts and ghoulies to accompany him. A sleeping village doesn’t mean a simple shift, though. Between the early risers of the farming community, a badger with a sweet tooth, and getting to know his new workmates, there’s no time for Nick to kick his feet up in the station. And of course there’s Claude Jeremiah Greengrass! Why did he have to retreat hastily down a ladder from a lady’s bedroom and what happened to his trousers and shirt?

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.

Life was going well for 25-year-old repo agent Andrea Sloan. She hadn't stumbled across any more naked dead guys at work, and her love life was pretty much wonderful. When she picked up a part-time job working at the mall for some extra cash as an elf, she never imagined she'd witness Santa gunned down in the parking lot. Just like that, Andi became tangled with friends and foes from her past in a race to find Santa's stolen bag of cash before Christmas.

Necromancer trainee, bookseller, novel writer Ava Harper is settling into her new life with friends and her houseguests. And she definitely isn't thinking about a certain hunky sheriff who pops in unannounced at every turn. And mostly ignoring her devilish new neighbor, a lingering Christmas present from herself. She has bigger things to worry about. Like learning her newly woken powers. And convincing her house that she isn't selling it so it will stop scaring off any visitors.

Melanie knew someone should have kept Barry Turk on a short leash. The star Poodle handler and lady killer had a habit of chicanery that bred contempt in the dog show circuit. But when Barry is shot dead in his own driveway, even Melanie is stunned at how unsporting the competition can get. Now, as Melanie digs for clues deep under Connecticut's well-groomed surface, she finds herself sniffing around in the killer's own backyard, and counts herself lucky to have the animal instincts to keep herself alive. .

Easy's getting harder every day for Tara. A tax-evading pet groomer managed to buzz off a big chunk of her hair...just in time for her strictly-business meeting with country-music heartthrob Brazos Rivers. Of course Tara shouldn't care - she's devoted to Special Agent Nick Pratt, after all - but Rivers does know how to steal a woman's heart with a song....

When Fergus tells Diana he's taking her on a flower-arranging retreat for her birthday, she should have been more suspicious. Especially when he announces that he's coming with her. After discovering the whole truth about the retreat, Diana is still considering how to murder Fergus...when one of their fellow flower arrangers is found dead - stabbed in the back with a mystery weapon. With the retreat on complete lockdown, Diana and Fergus have a mystery to solve that wasn't part of the itinerary. Will they find the killer before the clock runs out?

Halloween is looming large in New Orleans, and Private Investigator Franki Amato is in a gloomy mood. Her boyfriend, Bradley, has to leave on an extended business trip, and her slacker brother is coming to town with her matchmaker Nonna, who’s determined to see a Sicilian lemon superstition bear fruit. Meanwhile, the entire city is spooked because a caped figure is targeting its blood banks. Things turn macabre when a psychic makes a dark prediction about Franki’s brother and a frat boy is found in a cemetery crypt with his blood drained.

Taking down a killing team means Avery Shaw is getting a lot of attention. It’s almost too much attention. That’s why she’s ready for a new story, and when one falls in her lap, she’s more than ready to flip the script. When leaving the courthouse, she witnesses two men in a car trying to abduct a local woman. She intervenes, but when the dust settles, the woman is nowhere to be found, and people are telling her that she’s reading too much into the situation. She knows better. Unfortunately, nobody will listen.

Yo ho ho, shiver me timbers, and other pirate-related sayings. After Stitches wins a competition at The Bolt and Jugular, Ollie and the boys take a well-deserved break from the detective agency. As they embark on a cruise, it seems like fate might be finally smiling down on them. But what begins as a relaxing holiday turns into a voyage of intrigue and mayhem on the high seas, as the intrepid explorers get in a mystery involving a strange relic, a dangerous enemy, and a rather bawdy crew of pirates with interesting beards.

Tara's career comes with a lot of pros and cons - which is a nice way of saying that she's kick-ass in her fight against professional con artists. And she's tough enough to deal with all the money launderers, tax evaders, and other such criminals who cross her path...until her own boyfriend, Nick, joins their leagues. Now all bets are off. Nick is about to go deep undercover - and the stakes are higher than Tara could have ever imagined. It's all part of a joint task force with the DEA to bring down a powerful, violent drug cartel.

High school is not something I ever wanted to do over - it was awful the first time around. So why do I have to go back as part of a new undercover assignment? Because the universe loves playing jokes on me, obviously.

Izzy, her boyfriend, and her holiday-crashing neighbor, Etta, are off to the driest, flattest, and most infertile inhabited continent on earth - where even the cutest of creatures might try to kill you. But that’s only the beginning of their problems. A Taste Society courier goes missing. And 26 hours after Izzy lands in Australia, a crocodile is found dead. With a human corpse inside. Not quite the start to her relaxing holiday she’d been hoping for.

The Washbridge banks are in big trouble - all of their money has gone missing. If Susan can uncover what has happened, it will be The Bugle’s biggest story yet. But there are other things on Susan’s mind - like witches, werewolves, and vampires. Even though she knows they can’t possibly exist.

Italy might seem like a long way to go to hide after a disastrous date. But when sexy uberhacker Slash (no, that's not his real name) asks me to go with him to Rome on an investigation, the timing is sort of perfect. My messed-up love life becomes the least of my worries, though, after the dead body, the near-kidnapping and the discovery of a top secret encrypted file that even I can't hack.

This year, all Melanie wants for Christmas is a dull moment. Between her son Davey, her teaching job, and showing her Standard Poodle puppy, Eve, there just aren't enough hours in the day. But when Davey's usual bus driver, Henry Pruitt, disappears and is replaced by a surly, pierced, twentysomething, Melanie is concerned. The elderly, amiable Henry was a friend to all in the neighborhood, so she decides to check on him.... only to find that he died two days earlier, under suspicious circumstances.