Cozy Women Sleuths

A routine trip to the vet begins a wild adventure when Suzy Maycomber and her cat, Snowball, take a shortcut through the cemetery and find themselves in the mystical land of Nightshade, where magic exists and cats talk. Only the librarian, Rachel, the most powerful witch in Nightshade, can help Suzy get home. One big problem: Rachel's just been murdered. Desperate to find her way home, Suzy reluctantly agrees to take Rachel's place as Nightshade's resident witch, where she'll have access to the spell books that might hold the answers she needs.

Darwin Winters, reluctant pet psychic, is determined to leave her family's paranormal past behind and lead a normal life. So she strikes out on her own and opens up a new pet boutique in St. Pete, Florida. When a local homeless man she befriends is found dead, and the police assume it's a suicide, Darwin has no choice but to use her gift to help collar the killer. She adopts his grieving mastiff, Karma - and with the dog's help - tries to piece together the events of that fatal night.

Angie Turner's restaurant, The County Seat, is conveniently located near a first-class farmers market - so her menu is full of fresh ingredients. But a visiting culinary professor has just had a taste of something very unhealthy.... Angie first meets Daniel Monet at a local mission, where she and her chef-in-training, Hope, are serving barbecued chicken poutine to the homeless. Monet is one of Hope's teachers - but Angie's boyfriend knows him from his youthful days in England. But soon, the bon vivant is no longer vivant.

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.

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.

The Tail Waggin' Winterfest is the highlight of the season in the famously pet-friendly Pocono Mountains town of Sylvan Creek. But despite attractions like an ice sculpture display, a dogsled race, and gourmet hot chocolate, Daphne Templeton finds herself annoyed by TV producer Lauren Savidge, who's filming the festivities. She's critical, controlling, and as chilly as the January air. Daphne would like to tell her to go jump in a lake - and as a matter of fact, that's exactly what they're both going to do....

It's a rockin' New Year for Angie and her crew as they cater a bash for a famous band-and as a bonus, they'll get to stay at the singer's Sun Valley house for a whole week once the party's over. But there are hints of discord, and the event hits a sour note when one of the musicians is found with a drumstick in his chest. Is this a case of creative differences turned lethal or is there another motive at play? Angie's jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire as she and her fellow foodies try to solve the case before the killer comes out for an encore.

On a sultry summer afternoon, paramedic Zoe Chambers responds to a call and finds a farmer's body hanging from the rafters of his hay barn. What first appears to be a suicide quickly becomes something sinister when Zoe links the victim to a pair of deaths 45 years earlier. Her attempts to wheedle information from her mother and stepfather hit a brick wall of deception, one that brings into question everything Zoe knows about her late father, who died in a car crash when she was eight. Or did he?

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.

Lee Barrett has agreed to attend a storage auction with Aunt Ibby - even though she suspects the forgotten rooms will yield more junk than treasure. Her skepticism vanishes once the two win a bid on an overlooked locker and uncover a trove of beautiful curiosities, including a stunning wooden carousel horse with gentle eyes and fading paint. But just before Lee leaves the fairground relic at a local repair shop, the sight of a silver samovar awakens her psychic abilities and conjures visions of murder.

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.

A cold case update in Salem, Massachusetts... Life at the house on Winter Street is abuzz with preparations for Aunt Ibby's 45th high school reunion, and Lee Barrett is happy to pitch in, tracking down addresses, and licking envelopes. But as a field reporter for Salem's WICH-TV, her priority is to be on top of the town's latest news before anyone else.

Visiting a psychic is outside the norm for Ellison Russell. Finding bodies is not. Unfortunately, the psychic's crystal ball says she'll soon be surrounded by death. Again. Drat. Now there's a corpse in the front drive, a witchy neighbor ready to turn Ellison and her (not so) little dog into toadstools, and a stripper named Starry Knight occupying the guest room. How did 1975 go so wrong so quickly? Ellison must handle Mother (who's found a body of her own), make up with a certain handsome detective, and catch a killer, or the death surrounding her might be her own.

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.

Cinnamon Peters is one tough cookie. Every year at Christmas River's annual Gingerbread Junction Competition, pie baker extraordinaire Cinnamon aims to win, taking down any competitor who gets in her way. But when she finds a dead body in the woods behind her pie shop just days before the big competition, Cinnamon realizes that there's much more to worry about than cookies, frosting, and gumdrops. Someone's out to bring Cinnamon down. And they're playing dirty.

Estes Park bustles with tourists and locals for its Halloween celebration, and Winifred Page and her corgi sidekick, Watson, are enjoying their favorite pastries as they greet trick-or-treaters outside the Cozy Corgi Bookstore and Bakery. But a chilling after-hours break-in at the charming bookshop leaves Fred and Watson shaken, especially with its connection to a recent poaching incident in the national park. By daybreak, on a cool morning walk through town, Fred discovers the body of one of the poachers....

Goldy Bear is the bright, opinionated, wildly inventive caterer whose personal life is a recipe for disaster, with bills taking a bite out of her budget and her abusive ex-husband making tasteless threats. Determined to take control, Goldy moves her business to the ritzy Aspen Meadow Country Club. Soon she’s preparing decadent dinners and posh society picnics—and enjoying the favors of Philip Miller, a handsome local shrink, and Tom Schulz, her more-than-friendly neighborhood cop.

What do steeplechase, playing cards, and daggers have in common? They all play vital roles in the intricately woven plot of Sneaky Pie and her human cohort Rita Mae Brown in this delightful mystery. While Mary "Harry" Haristeen and her cat Mrs. Murphy attend the annual steeplechase at Montpelier, Mrs. Murphy discovers something amiss. During the celebration following the race, one of the jockeys is found dead in the barn, a dagger through his heart and the queen of clubs impaled by the dagger.

For the first time in sixteen years, Lara Caphart has returned to her hometown of Whisker Jog, New Hampshire. She wants to reconnect with her estranged Aunt Fran, who's having some difficulty looking after herself - and her eleven cats. Taking care of a clowder of kitties is easy, but keeping Fran from being harassed by local bully Theo Barnes is hard. The wealthy builder has his sights set on Fran's property and is determined to make her an offer she doesn't dare refuse.

This edition includes books four through seven of the Irish Village Mystery series: Murder in an Irish Pub, Murder in an Irish Cottage, Murder at an Irish Christmas, and Murder in an Irish Bookshop.