Cozy Women Sleuths

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.

Grandeur and opulence are everything in the famed New Orleans Garden District where pets are family and no bling is too big. Opening Furry Godmother, pet boutique and organic treat bakery, is Lacy Marie Crocker's dream come true - until the glitter gun used to make her Shih Tzu tutus becomes a murder weapon - and Lacy becomes public enemy number one. Now detective Jack Oliver is hounding Lacy, and her Furry Godmother investor wants out before his name is tarnished by association.

Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton is a Milwaukee bar owner with a nose for trouble - literally. A neurological glitch has left her with extra-perceptive senses. So when she stumbles upon a dead body in the alley behind the bar - the same spot where her own father was shot eight months earlier - she can tell right away there's something fishy in the air. The lead detective thinks there's a link between the two deaths, and he'll need Mack's help to sniff out the murderer. But when all the evidence points to her as the most likely culprit, it could be an early last call for Mack.

Harvest, Ohio, is a long way from New York City, where Bailey King left a coveted job as a head chocolatier to take over Swissmen Sweets, her Amish grandparents' candy shop. But between lavender blueberry fudge and chocolate cherry ganache truffles, Bailey may have bitten off more than she can chew when the search for a missing pot-bellied pig turns up a body suffering from sugar overload - the fatal kind....

Daisy, a widowed mom of two teenagers, is used to feeling protective - so when Iris started dating the wealthy and not-quite-divorced Harvey Fitz, she worried...especially after his bitter ex stormed in and caused a scene at the party Daisy's Tea Garden was catering. Then there was the gossip she overheard about Harvey's grown children being cut out of his will. Daisy didn't want her aunt to wind up with a broken heart - but she never expected Iris to wind up a suspect in Harvey's murder.

As if a run-in with an old flame and a failed marriage proposal weren't enough to horrify Krissy for one night, a woman is found strangled to death in a room filled with ominous jack-o'-lanterns. All signs suggest a crime of passion - but when the hostess's jewelry disappears, malevolent intentions seem way more likely.

After 15 years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland, full time. And she definitely didn't expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town's 19th-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. Then a dead body turns up in the town library - mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves.

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.

When an old friend of her ex-husband develops the world's first botanically decaffeinated coffee bean and smuggles it into the country, Clare Cosi believes it's a business opportunity she needs to investigate... at least until the first dead body shows up. With casualties piling up and a complicated blend of old and new loves muddying the waters, it's up to Clare to find the murderer before one of her near and dears takes the fall. Otherwise, her latest addition to the menu will prove to be a real buzz killer….

Former English professor Cat Latimer is back in Colorado, hosting writers' retreats in the big blue Victorian she's inherited, much to her surprise, from none other than her carousing ex-husband. Now it's an authors' getaway, but Cat won't let anyone get away with murder. The bed-and-breakfast is open for business, and best-selling author Tom Cook is among its first guests. Cat doesn't know why he came all the way from New York, but she's glad to have him among the quirkier - and far less famous - attendees.

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.

Like many old New England families, the Kellings live to die. Although their family vault is spacious and comfortable, it will not do for Sarah Kelling's great-uncle Frederick. In his will, he demands to be buried inside the ancient family tomb at Boston Common, which hasn't admitted a new member in more than a century. But when the Kellings crack the old vault's door, they find a recently built brick wall - and behind it lays a surprisingly fresh corpse, a skeleton with rubies in its teeth.

Every Thursday, three retired school teachers have their ‘coffee o’clock’ sessions at the Thirsk Garden Centre café. But one fateful week, as they are catching up with a slice of cake, they bump into their ex-colleague, Topsy. By the next Thursday, Topsy’s dead. The last thing Liz, Thelma and Pat imagined was that they would become involved in a murder. But they know there’s more to Topsy’s death than meets the eye—and it’s down to them to prove it.

Christmas is Bailey King's favorite time of year. For her first Yuletide in Harvest, Ohio, the former big-city chocolatier is recreating a cherished holiday treat. But her sugar high plummets when her former boyfriend walks into the candy shop she now runs with her Amish grandmother. New York celebrity chef Eric Sharp and his TV crew have arrived to film an authentic Amish Christmas. Unfortunately, she gets more publicity than she bargained for when Eric's executive producer is found strangled to death - and Eric's the prime suspect.

When the cast of the old Hearth and Home TV show gather for a 25th reunion at a local bed-and-breakfast where the show was filmed, the townsfolk are thrilled to meet the actors and relive their memories of a simpler time. Their nostalgic mood is broken, though, by an ambitious real estate developer who has also come to Quincy's Gap with an eye toward turning the quiet town into the South's hottest new tourist destination. Tensions are boiling over, and then the developer gets a little too sauced one night at the B&B and turns up dead the next morning.

Ten years ago, Ryan Comeaux was convicted of killing his girlfriend and was sentenced to life in prison. Now a witness has come forward who claims she was with Ryan the entire night and it’s not possible that he was the killer. But the local police assume she’s mistaken and aren’t interested in reopening what they view as an open-and-shut case. The witness, Kelsey Spalding, has her own reasons for wanting Ryan’s conviction overturned and hires Swamp Team 3 to prove him innocent.

Between trying to get her gluten-free baking business off the ground and helping her aunt remodel her old Victorian into the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey, Poppy is ready to call "Mayday"! And now Aunt Ginny - who's a handful wide-awake - is sleepwalking on her new sleeping-pill prescription and helping herself to neighbors' snacks and knickknacks. Even more alarming, a local humanitarian who worked with troubled teens is found murdered, and the police suspect the "Snack Bandit".

Curiosity just might be the death of Mrs. Murphy - and her human companion, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Small towns are like families: Everyone lives very close together. . .and everyone keeps secrets. Crozet, Virginia, is a typical small town - until its secrets explode into murder. Crozet's thirty-something post-mistress, Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, has a tiger cat (Mrs. Murphy) and a Welsh Corgi (Tucker), a pending divorce, and a bad habit of reading postcards not addressed to her.

Milwaukee bar owner Mackenzie "Mack" Dalton has a unique neurological condition that gives her extra perceptive senses, and police detective Duncan Albright is convinced Mack's abilities can be used to help catch crooks. Mack may be at pro at mixing drinks, but she's still an amateur when it comes to solving crimes - and she's not sure she should mix business with pleasure by working with a man who stirs up such strong feelings in her.

Hailed as “queen of the cozy police procedural” (Publishers Weekly), USA Today bestselling author Carlene O’Connor returns to County Cork in Ireland’s lush countryside, where locals are simmering with excitement over the reality TV baking contest coming to town—until someone serves up a show-stopping murder that only Garda Siobhan O’Sullivan can solve.