Cozy Mysteries

Field reporter Lee Barrett is not happy that her hours are being cut back at WICH-TV, although it is nice to spend more time volunteering with Aunt Ibby, a research librarian. But Lee's least favorite task is going up to the stacks, a spooky, seldom-frequented upper section of the library. On this day she has good reason to be afraid - she finds a dead man, surrounded by hundreds of scattered books and torn-out pages. Her police detective beau, Pete Mondello, is soon on the scene, and the deceased is identified as a former minor league baseball player - and ex-con....

Emma Hooper thought coming home to small-town life and the family farm would give her a chance to rest and recover from a traumatic accident. But that was before she started seeing ghosts. It was before Grandma Hooper started singing on the roof, and it was way, way before anybody spotted a ghost in a 19th-century cavalry uniform coming out of an outhouse. Can Emma learn to handle her newfound ability to see spirits, while figuring out a confusing relationship with the handsome local doctor? All while solving the ghastly murder of Preacher Jacob?

Hali Waverly is a witch about town, owner of the Salty Cauldron, the best tiki bar on St. Pete Beach. Her life should be grand, but trouble keeps finding her.

Sussex, 1955: When bookshop owner Flora Steele goes for a walk along the pier she isn’t expecting to spot a young woman’s body in the stormy waters below. And she’s shocked to discover the victim is someone she knows.... Convinced the death was not an accident, Flora persuades attractive local crime writer Jack Carrington to help her find out what really happened to poor Polly Dakers, a popular young woman with a complicated love life, who’d been at the heart of village life in Abbeymead.

Gossip columnists love a bold-faced name - but "Miss Newsy" at Greyborne Harbor's local paper seems to specialize in bald-faced lies. She's pointed a finger of suspicion at Addie after librarian June Winslow never makes it home from a book club meeting. And when June's found at the bottom of a steep flight of stairs, Addie's not only dealing with a busybody, but a dead body. It's a good thing the guy Addie's dating is the police chief. But both the case and her love life get more complicated when a lanky blonde reporter from Los Angeles shows up.

Twenty-nine-year-old Imogen Banks is hashtag struggling. After a disaster ends her career, destroys her home, and burns up all the money she’s saved to open her own bakery, she enters a baking contest for an all-or-nothing last-ditch chance at getting her life together. But when she arrives at the mysterious island off the coast of France, she discovers all the inhabitants of the quaint town are magical, and if she wins the contest, she’ll become the next royal baker at the castle on top of the hill. No worries that the last royal baker appears to have been murdered.

Ellie Avery balances motherhood, marriage, and her own business - Everything in Its Place - with cheerful efficiency. A maestro of organization, she sees her life as an easy checklist that does not include the untimely death of Penny Follette. Unlike the police, Ellie isn't convinced Penny's death was suicide. But it's an uphill battle getting the officials to take her seriously. Then another spouse is strangled, and someone tries to poison an outspoken female Air Force pilot. Poking about in closets and drawers, Ellie hopes to find the common thread tying the crimes together.

Angie Turner's restaurant, The County Seat, is conveniently located near a first-class farmers market - so her menu is full of fresh ingredients. But a visiting culinary professor has just had a taste of something very unhealthy.... Angie first meets Daniel Monet at a local mission, where she and her chef-in-training, Hope, are serving barbecued chicken poutine to the homeless. Monet is one of Hope's teachers - but Angie's boyfriend knows him from his youthful days in England. But soon, the bon vivant is no longer vivant.

When Inspector Shanti de Silva moves with his English wife, Jane, to his new post in the sleepy hill town of Nuala, he anticipates a more restful life than police work in the big city entails. However an arrogant plantation owner with a lonely wife, a crusading lawyer, and a death in suspicious circumstances present him with a riddle that he will need all his experience to solve. Set on the exotic island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka) in the 1930s, Trouble in Nuala is an entertaining and absorbing mystery spiced with humor and a colorful cast of characters.

The Bodie Island Lighthouse Library Classic Novel Book Club is reading Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne while workers dig into the earth to repair the Lighthouse Library’s foundations. The digging halts when Lucy pulls a battered tin box containing a Civil War-era diary from the pit. Tucked inside is a hand-drawn map of the Outer Banks, accompanied by a page written in an indecipherable code.

Dr. Kate Turner is happy with her new life in Oak Falls in upstate New York. Working as a relief veterinarian at a small house-call practice, she truly enjoys helping her patients. All that changes when client Claire Birnham is found dead, an apparent suicide. A talented artist, Claire had everything to live for: a new job; a Manhattan apartment; her cairn terrier, Toto. As feisty as the Wizard of Oz's Toto, he and Claire were devoted to each other. Kate can't imagine Claire simply abandoning her pet. Was her death murder?

Ellison Russell is planning the event of the season - and she's stressed. Why not yoga? Because the yoga instructor gets murdered during class - and Ellison's stress level rises exponentially. Now, in addition to raising a ridiculous amount of money, she's babysitting a deranged cat (named after the devil himself), taking 10 million phone calls (most of them from Mother), and finding more bodies (they're popping up like dandelions after a spring rain). There's no such thing as balance when the killer makes it personal. Can Ellison catch a murderer or will her next namaste be her last?

There's big trouble in Quincy's Gap when the "Diva of Dough" arrives to bake the wedding cake for Milla and Jackson's Christmas Eve wedding. The Diva, a celebrity television chef and cookbook author, is Milla's younger sister. And while her cakes are delectably sweet and incredibly beautiful, the Diva makes enemies wherever she goes. When one of the Diva's enemies decides to take her out, and Deputy Lucy Hanover finds the famous chef's body covered in cake batter, the Supper Club members find themselves up to their necks in suspects.

The perfect proposal leads to a chilling cold case. Coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi sheds tears of joy when her NYPD detective boyfriend surprises her with an engagement ring. But her bridal bliss is put on hold when a chilling mystery brings a wave of deadly danger to those she holds dear. After everything Clare and Mike have been through, they deserve a little bit of happily ever after. So when Mike decides to put a ring on Clare's finger, Clare's eccentric octogenarian employer is there to help. While the engagement is steeped in perfection, the celebration is not long lived.

Each December, the faculty of Balaclava Agricultural College goes wild with holiday decorations. The entire campus glitters with Christmas lights, save for one dark spot: the home of Professor Peter Shandy. But after years of resisting the school's Illumination festival, Shandy suddenly snaps, installing a million-watt display of flashing lights and blaring music perfectly calculated to drive his neighbors mad. Then the horticulturalist flees town, planning to spend Christmas on a tramp steamer. He returns home to find his lights extinguished - and a dead librarian in his living room.

Autumn, 1921. Lady Eleanor Swift is invited to her old school, St Mary’s, as a guest speaker. Her favorite teacher, Mrs. Wadsworth, has asked that Eleanor talk about her intrepid travels around the globe - travelling the Silk Road by bicycle, crossing the Himalayas and even befriending the Maharaja of India. But in the circumstances, perhaps it would have been a good idea to talk about her career as a daring detective. Because no sooner has Eleanor brushed up on her times tables than she is greeted by terrible news: Mrs. Wadsworth has been murdered.

The quaint coastal town of South Cove, California, is all abuzz about the opening of a new specialty shop, Tea Hee. But as Coffee, Books, and More owner Jill Gardner is about to find out, there's nothing cozy about murder. Shop owner Kathi Corbin says she came to South Cove to get away from her estranged family. But is she telling the truth? And did a sinister someone from her past follow her to South Cove?

Everyone in the charming Hudson Valley town of Oak Falls expected Flynn Keegan, their handsome blond "Golden Boy", to make it big in Hollywood. So when veterinarian Kate Turner identifies a bone dug up by one of her dog patients as human, no one thinks back 10 years to remember Flynn. Until DNA and a smashed skull prove he was murdered. Kate soon discovers that chains of love can be as strong as those made of steel-and some deadly secrets have put her next on the kill list.

Nestled off the coast of Maine, this charming little island has everything you'd expect of a small town. There's an old-fashioned soda fountain, a quaint village green, miles of beautiful beaches...and an ancient coven of witches hidden in plain sight. When down-on-her-luck Tamsyn moves to the island in search of a fresh start, mysteries abound at her family's bed and breakfast. Will her newly discovered magical powers be any match for murder? This box set includes Spirits, Pies, and Alibis; Covens, Cakes, and Big Mistakes; and Magic, Lead, and Gingerbread.

Zoe Chambers, paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania's tight-knit Vance Township, has been privy to a number of local secrets over the years, some of them her own. But secrets become explosive when a dead body is found in the Township Board president's abandoned car. As a January blizzard rages, Zoe and Police Chief Pete Adams launch a desperate search for the killer, even if it means uncovering secrets that could not only destroy Zoe and Pete but also those closest to them.