Cozy Suspense Women Sleuths

It's Christmastime in Charm, North Carolina, and while Everly Swan would prefer to focus on decorating her iced tea shop for its first holiday season, Great-Aunt Fran has decided to run for mayor against her long-time nemesis. But when the other candidate turns up dead just before the first scheduled debate, all eyes turn to Fran as the suspect with the most obvious motive. Everly knows her sweet, elderly Aunt Fran couldn't have murdered anyone, but as she struggles to find the real killer, it begins to seem like this may be the last merry Christmas her family may ever have.

When Lee Barrett spots the same style oak bureau she once had as a child on the WICH-TV show Shopping Salem, she rushes to the antiques shop and buys the piece. Just like the beloved bureau she lost in a fire, this one has secret compartments. It also comes with an intriguing history: It was purchased in an estate sale from a home where a famous local murder took place. The day after the bureau is delivered, Lee returns to the antiques shop and finds the owner dead.

Miss Busby helped Major Heathcliff Lennox solve a series of murders at Bloxford in the Cotswolds. Now, she finds herself drawn into a new murder, but this time, it's just her, and she must rely on her sharp mind and sharper wits to catch a Cotswolds killer, along with a handsome police inspector and a reporter who's keen to make her mark.

The Tri-County Summer Solstice Celebration has come to town, and even among local artisans, athletes, and marching bands, Hannah attracts fans of her own while serving lip-smacking pink lemonade desserts. But the mood sours when a body turns up, leading revelers to wonder if the festivities mark both the longest day of the year and the deadliest....

Award-winning author Alan Bradley returns with another beguiling novel starring the insidiously clever and unflappable 11-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce. The precocious chemist with a passion for poisons uncovers a fresh slew of misdeeds in the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey - mysteries involving a missing tot, a fortune-teller, and a corpse in Flavia’s own backyard. Flavia had asked the old Gypsy woman to tell her fortune, but never expected to stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned in the wee hours in her own caravan.

When small-town Police Chief Arly Hanks returns to Maggody, Arkansas, after vacation, she finds the population has risen to a booming 802. Among the newbies: Madame Celeste, the psychic who's holding locals in thrall with her predictions of doom; a handsome new high school guidance counselor; and a gaggle of mantra-chanting hippies who have turned the old general store into the source for cosmic harmony. Unfortunately, life in Maggody is anything but harmonious.

Penniless and 34th in line to the throne, Lady Georgiana Rannoch finds herself in a truly draining state of affairs. To escape her hateful brother, Georgie accepts an invitation from the Queen to represent the royals at a wedding in Transylvania. But at the macabre- looking castle, Georgie finds the bride with blood running down her chin, and a wedding guest is poisoned.

Meet Helen Thorpe. She’s smart, preternaturally calm, deeply insightful and a freshly trained butler. On the day she is supposed to start her career as an unusually equanimous domestic professional serving one of the wealthiest families in the world, she is called back to a spiritual retreat where she used to work, the Yatra Institute, on one of British Columbia’s gulf islands. The owner of the lodge, Helen’s former employer Edna, has died while on a three-month silent self-retreat, leaving Helen instructions to settle her affairs.

What a delight it is to finally be able to enjoy a simple meal again! I have been in the throes of morning sickness for the last few months as Darcy and I prepare to welcome a brand-new addition to our little family. Now that I am feeling better, I have realized I am dreadfully bored! It seems that all my nearest and dearest are off leading their own busy lives while I sit at home and attempt to train our two adorably naughty puppies. Fun as it may be, it is hard not to long for a little adventure, a change of pace, before my true confinement begins when the baby comes.

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?

Hustling her fiance off to a neighboring tourist town might be the only way Jill Gardner can plan her nuptials to South Cove's in-demand police detective. But when a mystery man turns up dead at South Cove's PD, Greg is hightailing it back home to investigate, leaving Jill to finish the vacation solo. Jill can barely get in a spa day before her own respite is spoiled by a greedy hotel guest and unexpected revelations about Max Winter, the developer conniving to buy her home out from under her.

January 1910. A journalist has been killed in a suspicious blaze. Everything points to a group of suffragettes, but the apparent culprit insists she is innocent. When Lady Hardcastle receives a letter from a suffragette requesting her urgent help, the retired spy turned sleuth knows only she stands between an accused young woman and the gallows. Evidence at the scene makes Lizzie Worrel’s innocence difficult to believe, and with the police treating it as an open-and-shut case of arson, Lady Hardcastle faces a barrage of resistance as she tries to dig out the truth.

Nasty weather has put Goldy's catering schedule on the skids for weeks. Now, happy to be working again, she looks forward to whipping up a sumptuous dinner for two wealthy clients who are celebrating their new venture - the reopening of the Eurydice Gold Mine. But when one of the men disappears, and her best friend is accused of murder, Goldy must find out who has turned the feast into a fiasco.

It is the early spring of 2016 and Queen Elizabeth is at Windsor Castle in advance of her 90th birthday celebrations. But the preparations are interrupted when a guest is found dead in one of the Castle bedrooms. The scene suggests the young Russian pianist strangled himself, but a badly tied knot leads MI5 to suspect foul play was involved. The Queen leaves the investigation to the professionals—until their suspicions point them in the wrong direction. Unhappy at the mishandling of the case and concerned for her staff's morale, the monarch decides to take matters into her own hands.

As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at 24. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family's summer home in Maine. But when they arrive at the faded mansion, they find it completely locked up. The servants are gone, the lights are dark - and there is a body in the closet.

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?

Molly Murphy is starting to think the cards are stacked against her. She's determined to be a private detective, but hampering her investigations is the fact that she's finding many places in turn-of-the-century New York City where women are not welcome, something that's as frustrating to her fiery Irish pride as it is to her rapidly emptying pocketbook. Then two business opportunities pop up simultaneously. An aristocratic family in Dublin fears their daughter has fled to the New World with her unsavory boyfriend, and they hire Molly to track the two down and send the young woman back home.

Mystery author Nathan Pike checked into South Cove Bed & Breakfast to compose a compelling novel, not commit murder. But things get real when a rival B & B owner ends up exactly like the victim in his draft - undeniably dead. As Nathan prepares to complete his magnum opus behind bars, Jill's the only one who can prove his innocence and deconstruct the plot of a twisted killer.

Thanks to her recent adventures in Dying for Chocolate, Goldy Bear, the premier caterer of Aspen Meadow, Colorado, is no stranger to violence—or sudden death. But when she agrees to cater the first College Advisory Dinner for Seniors and Parents at the exclusive Elk Park Preparatory School, the last thing she expects to find at the end of the evening is the battered body of the school valedictorian.

Fortune, Ida Belle, and Gertie are finally off to Florida on the vacation they’ve always talked about. Days filled with white sand, turquoise water, and fruity drinks are the only thing on the agenda. But when Gertie’s “hot date” turns up dead and she’s the number one suspect, they’re forced to hang up their bathing suits and shift to investigating mode.