Cozy Suspense

There's a witch running loose in the town of Excelsior, Minnesota, and her brew is…beer. Actually, Leona Cunningham, co-owner of The Barleywine, is a practitioner of Wicca, which many mistakenly believe to be sorcery or black magic. Then, after one too many pints, local alcohol aficionado Ryan McMurphy accuses Leona of being a real witch, blaming her for the series of accidents. When Ryan ends up dead, without a mark on his body, Leona is not only the target of a witch hunt but also the prime suspect.

Haunted houses are scary enough without knife-wielding clowns. Especially murderous knife-wielding clowns. So thinks Ellison Russell, single mother, artist, and reluctant sleuth. Now death wears a red nose, and Ellison is up to the blood-stained collar of her new trench coat in costumes, caffeine, and possible killers. Who stabbed Brooks Harney, and why? Money? Jealousy? Drugs?

Life is looking rosy for Florrie Fox, manager of the Color Me Read bookstore in Georgetown, Washington, D.C. The bookstore's weekly coloring club is a source of friendship and entertainment, and no member is more vibrant than Dolly Cavanaugh. When Dolly's love of garage sales results in her showing up at Color Me Read with a rare book in hand, Florrie is astounded. The Florist was first published in 1760, and an original copy would be worth a fortune. That same evening, Florrie finds Dolly dead on the floor of her apartment, a corner of a coloring book page clutched in her hand.

Alfie McAlister has retreated from London to the peace and quiet of the country to recover from a personal tragedy. But an accidental death - which may have been no accident - reveals that the heart of England is far from the tranquil backwater he imagined. After arriving in Bunburry, he is co-opted as an amateur detective by Liz and Marge, two elderly ladies who were best friends with Alfie's late Aunt Augusta. And it is not long before their investigations take an even more dramatic turn.

Gemma and Jayne are busy managing both the bookshop and the adjoining Mrs. Hudson's Tea Room in anticipation of the upcoming book signing with Renalta Van Markoff, the author of the controversial Hudson and Holmes series. However, tragedy strikes during the author Q&A session of the signing when a dedicated Sherlockian verbally attacks the series for disgracing Sherlock's legacy and is then publicly humiliated when the author triumphantly lashes back and gains the upper hand - that is, until she collapses on the table and is pronounced dead.

Agatha Raisin thinks she’s in for a treat when her ex-husband, James Lacey, invites her on a holiday. But to her horror, his idea of an exotic destination is a small, rundown resort of Snoth-on-Sea. Needless to say, the break doesn’t go as planned. When a fellow guest in their hotel is found murdered, Agatha herself becomes a suspect - and it looks as if she will be solving this particular case from the confines of a prison cell....

Detective Reed Mattox, just three months removed from the death of his partner, has turned invisibility into an art form. Switching to the K-9, taking over the graveyard shift, moving to a farmhouse miles outside of Columbus - his every move has become predicated on putting as much distance between himself and the outside world as possible. That distance is shattered, though, when bodies begin turning up in The Bottoms, the poverty-stricken section of town he is assigned to patrol.

Winter falls on North Carolina's Outer Banks as Lucy Richardson and her friends joyfully help her favorite cousin, Josie O'Malley, plan her wedding. The owner and head baker of Josie's Cozy Bakery and her fiance, Chef Jake Greenblatt, want a small, simple wedding. But to their horror, Josie's imperious grandmother, Gloria, descends with the "Louisiana Mafia", a gaggle of aunts and cousins who intend to take control of the wedding plans. Gloria doesn't do small and simple, and cousin Mirabelle has her own ideas for Josie's wedding, something grand and lavish.

A magical French island. A dead contestant. An aspiring baker must clear her name before she gets burned. Imogen Banks has dreamed her entire life of opening her own bakery in Seattle. But when she accidentally sets fire to her apartment and loses all her possessions, her dreams get toasted. Still coping with her loss, she receives a cryptic invitation she can't possibly refuse: Entry into a mysterious baking competition on a beautiful French island.

Torie Bliss thought that being over 40 and having your husband dump you over your favorite meal would be rock bottom. Then she learned that the perfect life he had created for them was built on a foundation of lies. A very public fall from grace leaves her penniless and homeless. Thinking she had nothing else to lose, she decides to move in with her estranged mother in a picturesque town in the mountains of North Carolina. Only to discover that her mother is quite the witch. Literally.

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 Sister Trixie Lavender, and I'm an occasionally possessed excommunicated nun. I was booted from the convent after doing something unspeakable. Something I had no control over. Something that lives inside me to this day, exploding out like that chest-burster in Alien when I least suspect it.

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.

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.

Zinnia, Mississippi is rife with quirky characters, but the arrival of three sister witches - and their intention to open a Wiccan boarding school - sets the small town on its ear. And bodies begin to accumulate as a result. They're setting up their boarding school in an old dairy - a piece of property with tremendous development potential. And they're standing in the way of "progress", according to some in the town. When young Corey Fontana goes missing, Delaney Detective Agency is hired to find the youth - who's well known as a local hooligan. His mother believes the witches have abducted her son....

Abandoned by new husband, James, Agatha Raisin hops on a plane to the South Pacific in the hope that an idyllic holiday will bring some consolation. There, she befriends a honeymooning couple but, tragically, the young bride is accidentally drowned. Returning home to the Cotswolds, Agatha finds herself involved in a strangely similar situation - a woman, dressed in a wedding gown, is found floating in the river. The police say suicide, but Agatha sets out to prove them wrong.

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Natalie's Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays twenty-two-year-old Siobhan O'Sullivan runs the family bistro named for her mother, along with her five siblings, after the death of their parents in a car crash almost a year ago. It's been a rough year for the O'Sullivans, but it's about to get rougher.

Former New Jersey prosecutor Sandy Moss moved to a prestigious Los Angeles law firm to make a new start as a family lawyer. So it seems a little unfair that Seaton, Taylor have created a criminal law division specifically for her. Just because she's successfully defended two murder trials, it doesn't mean she likes them! But when abrasive Hollywood movie director Robert Reeves is accused of murdering a stuntman on set, Sandy finds she can't say no when he demands her help. Robert might be an egotistical liar, but something tells Sandy he's innocent—even if no one else can see it.

When the Applegate Paranormal Preservation Society visits Firefly Junction, Sunni Taylor finds herself tasked with writing an article about the group as well as hosting them for an evening at the Cider Ridge Inn. When the society moves on to their next destination, the famously haunted Dandelion Inn in the neighboring town, one member dies in a tragic fall. But things don't seem quite right at the accident scene, and soon Sunni finds herself wrapped up in a possible murder investigation with her favorite detective, Brady Jackson.

Though he may not look the part, Madoc Rhys is a Mountie - and his keen sense of detection tells him it's time to ask Janet Wadman to marry him. They have just gotten engaged when Christmas rolls around, and Janet's boss invites them to his family estate for a last holiday fling before Janet leaves her job. After a long helicopter ride, they are at Graylings, ancestral home of the Condryckes, a family so strange that Canada's shortest Mountie fits right in. There is a psychic old woman, an erudite butler, and a family patriarch.