Cozy Suspense Women Sleuths

Owning her own business seemed like pie in the sky to Valentine Harris when she moved to the coastal California town of San Nicholas. But when one of her regulars keels over at the counter while eating a quiche, Val feels like she's living a nightmare. After the police determine the customer was poisoned, business at Pie Town drops faster than a fallen crust, and Val must expose the truth - before a crummy killer tries to shut her pie hole.

As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother's house, it'll be a true miracle if she can prevent another yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake....

Maddie Kosloski is no fan of San Benedetto's Christmas Cow, a 30-foot straw bovine that graces the town square every December. For one thing, the cow displaces her paranormal museum as the number one tourist attraction. Plus, every year, despite around-the-clock surveillance, the cow goes up in flames. But this year, there's more than just a fire blazing in Maddie's wine-country hometown. One of the Christmas Cow guards has been found with an arrow in his chest, and Maddie's new haunted cowbell exhibit is fueling a panic.

Lady Violet has decided that life in noisy, crowded, busy London is simply not her cup of tea. Her search for a rural property to purchase must be set aside when she learns that Hugh St. Sevier has been accused of murder. Worse, the handsome physician is doing nothing to aid those trying to exonerate him. Though it requires outsmarting the magistrate, enlisting the aid of Sebastian, Marquess of Dunkeld, and literally poking around in the undergrowth, Violet is determined to prove her friend’s innocence—with or without St. Sevier’s cooperation.

Newly widowed and stuck in a middle-aged funk, Poppy has been running on cookies, infomercials, and one-sided chats with her cat for months. There's no way on earth she's attending her 25-year class reunion - especially after receiving a very bizarre letter from Barbie, the popular cheerleader who taunted her all through high school. At least, not until Poppy's best friend practically drags her to the event.... Using the dreaded homecoming as an excuse to visit her eccentric Aunt Ginny, Poppy vows to leave Cape May with pride and Spanx intact. Too bad Barbie is still the queen of mean.

Lady Arianna, now the Countess of Saybrook, is settling into married life with her new husband. To celebrate his birthday, she finds the perfect gift: a rare volume of botanical engravings on Theobroma cacao - or chocolate - in an exclusive bookshop. But she is forced to fight off a stranger who tries to steal it way from her. Arianna forgets about the strange incident - until she and her husband attend an important government party on a country estate, where her assailant reappears and turns out to be a Russian diplomat.

When Ellison's friend Kay Morrison visits Kansas City from New York, there are certain women who turn green with envy. After all, Kay works in the fashion industry, she actually attended the Battle of Versailles, and her clothes are to die for. Maybe literally. Ellison is convinced someone is trying to kill her friend. Kay is convinced that finding too many bodies has made Ellison paranoid. Both of them are right. Can Ellison catch a killer before it's too late?

High-powered businesswoman Lana Rubicon has a lot to be proud of: her keen intelligence, impeccable taste, and the L.A. real estate empire she’s built. But when she finds herself trapped 300 miles north of the city, convalescing in a sleepy coastal town with her adult daughter Beth and teenage granddaughter Jack, Lana is stuck counting otters instead of square footage—and hoping that boredom won’t kill her before the cancer does.

Carrie Kennersly, a veterinary technician, has become known for baking healthful and popular dog treats at the clinic where she works, in the town of Knobcone Heights, California. When a friend moves away, Carrie buys her bakery and converts half into a Barkery to sell her canine delights. But Myra and Harris Ethman, who own a local store selling pet products, hate the new competition. After publicly badmouthing Carrie and antagonizing family and other townsfolk with her big mouth, Myra is found dead with a Barkery biscuit beside her.

My name is Nora Black, and I'm 51 years young. At least that's what I tell myself, when I'm not having hot flashes; my knees don't hurt; and I can find my reading glasses. I'm also the proud owner of a salon called Scents & Scentsability in the small resort town of Garden Cove, where I make a cozy living selling handmade bath and beauty products. All in all, my life is pretty good. Except for one little glitch.

Thanksgiving is nearly here, and Key West food critic Hayley Snow has just one more assignment to put to bed for Key Zest magazine before she gets to celebrate with her family and her police officer fiance, Nathan Bransford. Then, just days later, wedding bells will ring - if death doesn't toll first. The sweet potatoes and stuffing will have to wait when Hayley picks up a distraught phone call from her friend Analise Smith. On the last stop of a seafood tasting tour run by Analise, one of the customers collapsed - dead.

Guesthouse owner, single mother, and reluctant ghost whisperer Alison Kerby is about to sit down to movie night with her family and friends when she's struck speechless. Floating before her is the ghost of her musical idol, 1960s English rock star Vance McTiernan. He's in desperate need of help from Alison and her resident ghostly gumshoe, Paul Harrison.

Angie Curtis and the Mainely Needlepointers are all too familiar with the Gardener estate. The crumbling Victorian mansion, known as Aurora, has been sitting vacant for nearly 25 years - and some say that it's haunted by the ghost of Jasmine Gardener, the teenage girl who died there in 1970 under mysterious circumstances. Harbor Haven is abuzz with excitement when Hollywood actress Skye West decides to buy Aurora and sell off its furnishings.

Even an experienced pet sitter like Daphne Templeton can be fooled by animal behavior: how can an adorably tiny fuzz ball named Tinkleston be capable of sudden flying leaps with cat claws bared? But human behavior remains even more mysterious, especially when Tinkleston's owner is murdered on the night of a gala fundraiser for Fur-ever Friends Pet Rescue. Accompanied by her unflappable basset hound, Socrates, Daphne plans to take charge of Tinks the Terror and leave the crime-solving to handsome detective Jonathan Black.

Living back at Mom's place with her and Gram is not how this ex-district attorney intended to start the next chapter of her life, but I shouldn't be surprised it's where I ended up. You see, my family is cursed. Literally. At least that's what both Gram and Mom claim. I've never given much thought to their ridiculous superstitions, but when three local patrons from my mom's occult shop end up dead, even I'm a bit unnerved. So I decide to dive right into the crazy headfirst. And what I thought would be the end of my journey...may only be the beginning.

School psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd is settling into the rhythm of being a working mom, but when school is put on lockdown, life gets messy again. Not only is she stuck in a room with her horrible superintendent, Dr. Wraige, it looks like the lockdown was a false alarm - someone left a cupid’s bow and arrow in a classroom. Later, as Wally looks into an attempted break-in, he finds the superintendent murdered, his jugular cut with the arrow of a cupid statue. Did love just turn deadly in Scumble River?

Everyone loves a festival, though Mac has a few concerns about the Spring equinox event organized by the new Chamber of Commerce director, Wagner Lavoie. After all, March weather is unpredictable. Still, there's plenty to enjoy, between flower-shaped candies at Salty Taffy's, spring rolls at the Rusty Anchor, and a parade of decorated bicycles. But the festivities soon take a stormy turn . . . Mac glimpses conflict between Wagner and other locals during the festival, but it's a shock when he's found dead in the Book Nook, pinned beneath a toppled bookshelf.

Mia Malone has landed a lucrative and convenient gig, catering a reunion at the old school that's become her new business headquarters. The town swirls with rumors that St. Catherine's Preparatory is haunted, but there's one living visitor that Mia wasn't expecting - her mother. Theresa Malone stepped away from the magic that runs in Mia's family, much to the annoyance of Mia's grandmother. Soon Mia has to deal with more than personal drama when Robin Hanover, the head of the reunion committee, is murdered in one of the classrooms.

Reindeer Games Christmas Tree Farm is going into the B&B business, and Holly White is looking forward to her new role as innkeeper. Even better, Mistletoe, Maine's sheriff, Evan Gray, has deputized his little sister, Libby, to help Holly wrap presents for Mistletoe's toy drive. But a cold wind ruffles the cheery holiday decorations when a new guest checks in: Cleo, a vicious B&B critic who could make or break the new inn. And the short December days turn even darker when Evan and Libby find Cleo's dead body in the gift-wrapped toy donation box.

Paramedic Zoe Chambers is used to saving lives, but when she stops a man from running into a raging inferno in a futile attempt to rescue his wife, Zoe finds herself drawn to him, and even more so to his 10-year-old daughter. She invites them both to live at the farm while the grieving widower picks up the pieces of his life. Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams, of course, is not happy with this setup, especially when he finds evidence implicating Zoe's new houseguest in murder times two.