Cozy Thriller

When a sleeping dwarf is found entombed in a glass coffin and remedial witch Sophie is blamed, Emma Hart must defend her friend while trying to get to the bottom of the enchantment. The investigation lands Emma smack dab in the middle of Spellbound's dating scene, where plenty of the town's residents are eager to make her acquaintance. Emma knows it's time to kick her witchy skills up a notch if she expects to survive Thursday night speed dating and keep sweet Sophie from a life in paranormal prison.

When her cozy hometown is visited by death, Emma's investigative skills are enlisted by a secretive ghost. But with the uncooperative spirit holding so much back, and with the handsome local doctor pressing Emma for answers, will she ever get to the bottom of the case? Or will the Hollow be forever haunted by the secrets of the past?

Five thrilling tales of mystery, mayhem, and murder from an exceptional quintet of Edgar, CWA Dagger, and National Book Award winners.

When Blanche White moved north to Boston, she believed it would be a better place to raise her kids, especially after she got them into an elite private school. But now her children are becoming elitist and judgmental, acquiring more attitude than education. So when she and her kids are invited to Amber Cove, an exclusive resort in Maine for wealthy blacks, Blanche jumps at the chance to see how the other half lives and maybe stop her kids turning into people she doesn't want to know.

Maplemead Castle is crawling with ghosts, and the new owners need them gone. When Melody Bittersweet and the Girls' Ghostbusting Agency arrive on scene, they quickly identify the troublemakers swinging from the chandeliers...literally. A century ago, stunning trapeze artist Britannia Lovell plunged to her death, and has done every night since. But did she really just fall, or was there something more to her demise?

Zoe Chambers, paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania's tight-knit Vance Township, has been privy to a number of local secrets over the years, some of them her own. But secrets become explosive when a dead body is found in the Township Board president's abandoned car. As a January blizzard rages, Zoe and Police Chief Pete Adams launch a desperate search for the killer, even if it means uncovering secrets that could not only destroy Zoe and Pete but also those closest to them.

Sunni Taylor decides to pack up her things and join her sisters, Lana and Emily, in the small town of Firefly Junction. Hoping to open a bed-and-breakfast, Sunni sets herself the task of refurbishing the rundown Cider Ridge Inn, a 200-year-old house with a sordid past. In the meantime, she's stuck writing dull human interest stories for the Junction Times. But when Sunni decides to bend the rules on her first newspaper assignment, she soon finds herself in her favorite place - right in the center of a murder investigation.

Pen has just received an extremely rare collection of Edgar Allan Poe's complete works. Rumor has it a secret code, trapped within the books' leather-bound pages leads, to buried treasure. Well, it looks like they got the buried part right because, as Pen sells off the valuable volumes, everyone who buys - dies. Once these books go missing from their owners' cold hands, Pen will need resident ghost and hard-boiled P.I. Jack Shepard to help crack the case. The police are skeptical that the deaths involved foul play - so it's up to them to unravel these shocking endings.

It's St. Patrick's Day, and a dead body shows up in the woods behind the esteemed Beechwood Manor. With the townspeople distracted by a mysterious shamrock-themed scavenger hunt, everyone seems content to chalk up the death as a tragic hunting accident. But when the clover-shaped clues lead back to the crime scene, things take a deadly turn. With a rogue leprechaun on the loose and something sinister lurking on the edges of town, it's up to Holly to stop the murderer and keep secret paranormal powers from swallowing up the sleepy town she's grown to love.

The one rule bookshop owner and widow Penelope Thornton-McClure has given ghostly, hard-boiled PI Jack Shepard is to not haunt the customers. But when the hot, young author Angel Stark arrives at the store to promote her latest true-crime novel, Jack can hardly contain himself. Angel's book is an unsolved mystery about a debutante found strangled to death, and it's filled with juicy details that point a finger at a number of people in the deb's high-society circle. But when the author winds up dead, too - in precisely the same way - Pen is fast on the case...which means Jack is, too.

To Angie, nothing tastes more like summer than her Nona's fried green tomatoes. Eager to add the recipe to the menu at the County Seat, she's found the perfect produce supplier - her sous chef Estebe's cousin, Javier. Just one problem: ladies' man Javier's current hot tomato Heather has turned up dead, and he's the prime suspect. Somehow, between managing her restaurant and navigating a romantic triangle between Estebe and Ian, the owner/manager of the farmer's market, Angie needs to produce evidence to clear Javier before this green tomato farmer gets fried....

Alchemist Zoe Faust and her impish gargoyle sidekick Dorian Robert-Houdin travel to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris to investigate a mysterious discovery found in the wreckage of the tragic fire: a long-lost gargoyle illustration drawn by Victor Hugo himself. When the work of art is stolen under impossible circumstances, Dorian must use his “little gray cells” — not to mention his culinary skills — to solve the crime and discover the true origins of where he came from.

Fletch, as unbridled as ever and still living the good life in Italy on his ill-gotten fortune, gets a surprising visit from two surly FBI agents. The pair offers him a deal: either he attend the American Journalism Alliance convention and work as an undercover spy for them, or be shipped back to headquarters and face jail time for tax evasion. Reluctantly agreeing to the scheme, he catches a red-eye flight back to the States. But just as rubber hits tarmac in Virginia, news breaks on a murder at the convention.

It isn't every day that a billionaire pharmacy CEO sails his yacht down to Tequila Key to see how the common folk live. Or in Chadwick Harrington's case, to hide out from the media circus threatening to ruin his not-so-illustrious career after he privatized a patented cure for Alzheimer's. No wonder he's called "The Most-Hated Man in America." When Chadwick is abducted, his security chief forces Althea and Miss Elva to use their extra-sensory powers to find Chadwick within three days...or else.

The Crozats feared that past murders at Crozat Plantation B&B might spell the death of their beloved estate, but they've managed to survive the scandal. Now there's a très bigger story in Pelican, Louisiana: the upcoming nuptials between Police Chief Rufus Durand and Vanessa Fleer. Maggie Crozat, inexplicably tasked with being Vanessa's maid of honor, quickly discovers why everyone else refused the assignment when the bridezilla hands her a long list of duties.

Aurora Hart hates everything Christmas, but how could she turn down the opportunity to serve one year of probation in Holiday Haven versus a full sentence for her crimes? Saddled with a talking squirrel roommate, Aurora is doing her best to keep a low profile as she bides her time. Everything is going fine...until Santa's sleigh gets stolen.

Allie McMurphy is up to her neck in renovations at the grand old hotel that's been in her family for generations. With its quaint Victorian charm - and world-famous fudge shop - the place is one of Mackinac Island's most beloved landmarks.

Cooper Lee and her friends in the Hope Street Bible study group have just volunteered for a local charity, delivering much-needed food and cheer to shut-ins in their community. It seems like the perfect way for the group to do good, and to Cooper it offers the welcome opportunity to get out of the house and spend more time with her new boyfriend, Nathan.

Krissy is meeting Vicki's parents at the Pine Hills, Ohio, airport - it's the least she can do as maid of honor, even if her relationship with Mr. and Mrs. Patterson is a bit strained. Besides, her own dad is coming in on the same flight. But there are a few additional arrivals, too. Her father's brought a date - and the Pattersons, both actors, seem to have an entire entourage trailing behind them. Uninvited guests are a headache - especially when one turns out to be, allegedly at least, the most important wedding planner in all the world.

In September 1926, the Honorable Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher visits Sybil Sutherby, a school friend now living in Derbyshire as the confidential secretary to a novelist. Suspecting that something is seriously amiss, Sybil has asked Daisy to discretely investigate. Upon arrival, Daisy finds a household of relatives and would-be suitors living off the hospitality of Humphrey Birtwhistle, who had been supporting them through his thrice-yearly, pseudonymous Westerns. When he took ill, though, Sybil took over writing them while he recovered, only to see the sales increase. Now, she fears that someone in the household is poisoning Birtwhistle to keep him ill and Sybil writing the better-paying versions.