Cozy Mystery Comedy

When Val tries to revive her old writing career, story ideas prove as elusive as a moment alone without her boyfriend Tom breathing down her neck. Tom’s moved in, and Val’s itching to move out–at least temporarily. A last-minute getaway to the country seems like the perfect solution for dissolving her writer’s block. But a fateful fish fry ends up inspiring a whole different kind of dead end.

Liza B.—the only DJ who gives a jam—wants to take her neighborhood back from the soulless property developer dropping unaffordable condos on every street corner in DC. But her planned protest at a corporate event takes a turn after she mistakes the smoldering-hot CEO for the waitstaff. When they go toe-to-toe, the sparks fly—but her impossible-to-ignore family thwarts her every move. Liza wants Dorsey Fitzgerald out of her hood, but she’ll settle for getting him out of her head.

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.

Leave it to me, Lexi Carmichael, to become a target for an elite organization of cybercriminals simply by being in the wrong place at the right time. As if I weren't already freaking out about planning my best friend's bachelorette party, I now have to keep my eyes peeled for people trying to kill me. After accidentally intercepting a dangerous hack into the NSA and discovering the involvement of a foreign country in said hack, things begin to get seriously complicated. Diplomats, danger, and spies, oh my!

With a Hollywood film crew in town to shoot a remake of the horror classic The Perishing, the residents of Wildwood Cove are all abuzz. Even Marley McKinney, owner of The Flip Side Pancake House, can overlook the fact that the lead actress, Alyssa Jayde, happens to be an old flame of her boyfriend. After all, the crew loves Marley's crêpes - so much so that Christine, the head makeup artist, invites her on set for a behind-the-scenes tour. But when Marley arrives, the special-effects trailer is on fire...with Christine inside.

Semi-retired god of rock guitar and local poseur Erik Make Loud has got himself a new girlfriend. Helene Hilditch - formerly known as Howlin' Hellbitch - of all-girl punk outfit Blue Tits is a mean guitarist, and someone is trying to kill her. With a rare pressing of their first album to find, the Vinyl Detecive and Nevada are soon called into to help, but this time the question is, who isn't a suspect?

Val’s always been unlucky at love—and a whole bunch of other things. But she’s never actually felt cursed. Until now. When Tom gives Val an engagement ring for her 50th birthday, she wants to fly the coop. But it’s Tom who skips out on the romantic getaway he planned. When he can’t make the trip, one of Val’s pals goes instead. On the first day, her friend entangles Val in a prank that ticks off the wrong tourist. On the second day, she gets Val charged with murder. Did I mention Val was unlucky?

After a series of high-profile cases at my cyberintelligence firm, I was looking forward to a simple job. All I had to do was personally deliver a revolutionary microchip to a manufacturing plant in Indonesia. Easy, right? Wrong. Someone else wants the design and is willing to kill to get it. A failed hijacking attempt lands me; my best friend, Basia; and our boss, Finn, in the middle of the jungle.

Callahan Garrity is the owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after Atlanta’s elite. She’s also a former cop and a part-time sleuth. She and her coterie of devoted helpers can ransack a house for clues faster than it takes a fingerprint to set. When Callahan Garrity gets caught in a liquor store holdup on the way home from a St. Paddy’s Day party, one of her best friends is shot.

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.

Going undercover is second nature for Private Investigator Lola Cruz, but she’s out of her league when the case of a murdered Royals Courtside Dancer leads her to a local nudist resort. Parading around the sidelines of Sacramento’s professional basketball scene in a barely there cheerleading outfit is one thing - but parading around in nothing but a smile? If she’s going to have any chance of hiding this from her traditional family and on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jack, she’s going to have to keep a lot more than her duct tape bra and killer dance moves under wraps.

As the new wardrobe assistant for a hit TV show, shoe designer Maddie Springer is in fashion heaven. But then a young starlet is found dead. Now it's up to Maddie to sift through a secretive leading lady, an actor on the verge of a nervous breakdown, a sexy cyber scandal, and one tabloid reporter who'll stop at nothing to get the story of the century. Not to mention her tangles with the infuriatingly sexy lead detective, Jack Ramirez.

It’s a slow, steamy summer in New Orleans’ French Quarter, but Franki Amato is busy planning her bridal shower—that is, until a hit-and-run outside a coffee shop gets her PI senses percolating. The victim is linked to crimes at a fancy society wedding in a haunted hotel where Franki’s fiancé’s family is staying. As for the java joint, it’s straight out of a hardboiled detective movie, and there’s something hinky about its walnut liqueur coffee.

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.

In The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, Wodehousian clubman, flaneur, idler, and sleuth Anty Boisjoly pits his sardonic wits against another pair of impossible murders. This time, Anty Boisjoly’s Aunty Boisjoly is the only possible suspect when a murder victim stands his old friends a farewell drink at the local, hours after being murdered.

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. .

Avery Shaw is growing up, although it’s with a great deal of reluctance. She’s always been good at her job. Now she’s getting good at relationships. Well, kind of. With her merry band of misfits at her side, Avery has a lot on her plate…including taking down every bad guy who gets in her way. Avery likes to win, and she’ll do whatever it takes to claim victory for herself and keep those she loves safe. Join her for the ride of a lifetime.

SWFG: Single, White, Female, Geek. "That's me, Lexi Carmichael, a reformed hacker who was gainfully employed by the National Security Agency. But a series of extraordinary events led me to leave government life behind for a fresh start with a brand-new company and an incredibly sexy boss, Finn Shaughnessy. It may not be kosher to have the hots for your boss, but he seems to have the hots for me, too. If only things didn't get so complicated...."

Solving murders, kissing criminology professors, and just the right amount of alligators combine in Swamp Princess, the cozy mystery + romance follow up to Gator Queen. Maggie Andrews is swamped—literally—as she tries to balance running her family's gator trapping business, "defining the relationship" with tattooed professor Jack Bianchi, and helping her twin sister Vera with her bookstore. When she's invited to speak at a conference about the dangers hunting for cryptids in gator-infested waters, she assumes it's a joke she doesn't have time for.

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.