Cozy Occult

A summer heat wave is the worst of vampire baker Priscilla Pratt’s problems - until an anti-vampire religious sect shows up in town. Someone else comes knocking: a grumpy (though handsome) investigator who is suspicious Priscilla has been surrounded by so many murders recently. Avalon, Priscilla’s wacky fairy godmother, is causing a ruckus again, too. And finally - another murder, right under Priscilla’s nose, found dead on the steps of the church. Priscilla is the number-one suspect, and everyone seems to want to do her in.

Nicole was from New Orleans. When she found voodoo dolls in her gym locker, work desk, and on her front porch, she was scared. She knew what they meant. She was right. A few days later, she was murdered. A voodoo doll was next to her body. Can voodoo dolls kill? Liz, an amateur sleuth, is determined to find out and catch the killer. On a trip to New Orleans to attend a Cajun Creole cooking school, she meets with a gris-gris doctor who specializes in voodoo, hexes, spells, and superstitions.

How would you feel if you drew the Death Card from a Tarot deck? Seth, the bumbling and incompetent police chief of Red Cedar, calls Liz and asks her to help him solve the murder of his deputy, Leroy. He’s worried he might be a suspect because Leroy was going to run against him in the upcoming police chief election. His alibi is that he was getting a tarot card reading from Madame Dika when the murder occurred, but she vehemently denies that the reading ever occurred. And what about the relationship between Liz and Roger, the San Francisco lawyer she’s fallen in love with?

After spending the night in the village with Frankie's cousin Kaia, Nina comes home to find one of her ex-boyfriends dead in her bed. When Nina enlists Frankie's help to find the real killer, they run into a dead end. And since the sheriff and Frankie's relationship is on ice, he remains tight-lipped about the crime. Leaving Frankie and Nina no choice but to rely on the help of Frankie's wacky roommate and a pair of polar bears to track down the murderer. But the killer went to a lot of trouble to frame Nina and the guilty party isn't going down without a fight.

Just when I think I understand life, the Universe flings a magic booger at me. It just doesn’t pay to think you’ve got a handle on things. For example, my favorite customer, Mrs. Foxladle, got into a simple disagreement with her book club friends over their obsession with youth and beauty. The next thing you know, they’re all dead.