English Cozies

While Hannah speeds through a lengthy holiday checklist, drama in town grows like Santa’s waistline on Christmas Eve. Her sister, Andrea, wants to stave off the blues by helping out at The Cookie Jar, Michele’s love life is becoming complicated, Lisa needs Hannah’s advice, and Delores has a Christmas secret she’s not willing to share. But nothing dampens the holiday mood more than the chilling mystery surrounding the man found near death in an abandoned storefront two doors down from Hannah’s bakery. The befuddled John Doe can’t recall a thing about himself.

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.

It's the Christmas season in London, but the holiday festivities don't deter Lady Katherine from investigating a death that happened months earlier. Since the victim was a maid, investigative resources were sparse, and the police hastily wrote it off as a random killing. But Lady Katherine and her friends believe it was nothing short of premeditated murder, and they vow to seek justice.

Christmas is six days away - and Sarah Booth Delaney has her hands full! To honor a group of international investors, Shaw, Mississippi, resurrects the old custom of drifting miniature, lighted Christmas floats down Silver Bayou. The Italian delegation from Venice may bring much-needed new jobs and commercial opportunities. Among the investors is notorious womanizer, Enzo Aceto. He is handsome, witty, and eager for new conquests. Then Enzo disappears. Rumors of murder are buzzing.

The story is not your typical murder mystery. The sleuth is not a detective, private eye, or lawyer. He's an ordinary guy with an extraordinary dog. Jacob Martin is trying to make the best of a divorce and mid-life crisis when he gets a call at two o'clock Sunday morning from his mother. His sister has been arrested for the murder of her fourth husband, and his father is near death. Thus begins an adventure that takes Jake and his golden retriever from their Colorado retreat to a backwater town in the Missouri Ozarks.

Agatha Raisin's neighboring village of Ancombe is usually the epitome of quiet rural charm, but the arrival of a new mineral-water company - which intends to tap into the village spring - sends tempers flaring and divides the parish council into two stubborn camps. When Agatha, who happens to be the PR person for the water company, finds the council chairman murdered at the spring, tongues start wagging. Could one of the council members have silenced the chairman before he could cast the deciding vote?

Agatha Raisin, retired PR supremo, has been spurned at the alter by the man of her dreams - her attractive neighbor James Lacey. So temporarily deserting the sleepy Cotswold village of Carsely, she pursues her fleeing fiancé to north Cyprus where, instead of enjoying a romantic honeymoon, they witness the killing of an obnoxious tourist in a disco. Can the duo forget their differences and resume their strangely successful sleuthing partnership?

When Harry Armitage passes an investigation to Cleo involving adultery, they both think it will end in divorce. But when the client’s wife is found stabbed in her drawing room, it becomes clear that marital problems are only part of the story. As they peel back the lies and expose the sordid details of a marriage in tatters, they see firsthand how gossip and politics fuel the machinations of high society.

An escape - that's exactly what Birdie Devaine needs when witches around the world publicly announce their existence. Instead of performing for the sold-out crowd at her world-famous magic show in Vegas, Birdie runs away from the dazzling lights to her hometown in Mississippi. She thinks she has it all planned out - keeping busy with renovating an old beautiful house and eventually fading away from the spotlight. But the house has its secrets, including the haunted cemetery that Birdie is now responsible for. It doesn't help when her nosy neighbor catches on to Birdie's big secret....

Still spinning from the hustle and bustle of city life, Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is glad to be back in the Cornish village she calls home. Having quit the Met Police in search of something less dangerous, the change of pace means she can finally start her dream catering company and raise her daughter, Daisy, somewhere safer. But there’s nothing quite like having your first job back at home be catering an ex-boyfriend’s wedding to remind you of just how small your village is.

Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House—the grand family home where her mother died twenty-one Christmases ago—until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve twelve clues to find twelve keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house. Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: The clues will also reveal who really killed Lily's mother all those years ago.

In 1919 England, in the shadow of The Great War, many look to the spirit world for answers. But it will take an all-too-earthbound intrigue to draw in the discerning heroine of Anna Lee Huber's latest mystery. It's not that Verity Kent doesn't sympathize with those eager to make contact with lost loved ones. After all, she once believed herself a war widow. But now that she's discovered Sidney is very much alive, Verity is having enough trouble connecting with her estranged husband, never mind the dead. Still, at a friend's behest, Verity attends a seance.

Mason "Mace" Reid lives on the outskirts of Chicago and specializes in human-remains detection. He trains dogs to hunt for the dead. Reid’s coming off a taxing year - mourning the death of a beloved springer spaniel as well as the dissolution of his marriage. He adopts a rescue dog with a mysterious past - a golden retriever named Vira. And when Reid begins training Vira as a cadaver dog, he comes to realize just how special the newest addition to his family truly is....

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the Vallée de Follet. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really, that’s the way he likes it. Until scandal erupts in the nearby town of Saint-Sauver when its famous restaurant is downgraded from three Michelin stars to two. The restaurant is shamed, the town is in shock, and the leading goat cheese supplier drowns himself in one of his own pasteurization tanks. Or does he? Valérie d’Orçay, who staying at the B&B while house-hunting in the area, isn’t convinced that it’s a suicide.

In March of 1926, Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher and her friend and collaborator, Lady Lucy Gerald, head off for several days to a stately home reputed to have the best grotto in the country. Working on a book of architectural follies, they plan to research and photograph it. Leaving her husband and young twins behind, Daisy is expecting a productive weekend at Appsworth Hall, with the only potential difficulty being keeping Lucy from offending the current owner, a manufacturer of plumbing products. Alas, it's not to be quite so simple.

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.

Rose Faraday, a gypsy fortune-teller, has succumbed to a rattlesnake bite in her own condo. After a run-in with the victim's traumatized cat, Darwin knows it was no freak accident.

Having solved the shooting death of her cheating husband, Lilly's left behind the drama of Lighthouse Dunes, Indiana, to start over in the hometown of her best friend, Scarlett "Dixie" Jefferson. As she gets settled in her new rented house, Lilly gives Aggie her own fresh start by enrolling her in the Eastern Tennessee Dog Club. But drama seems to hound Lilly like a persistent stray. When Aggie unearths the buried body of a mysterious man who claimed ownership of a lost golden retriever Lilly recently rescued, it's up to Lilly and Dixie to try to muzzle another murderer.

In the small village of Kilbane, County Cork, Ireland, Natalie's Bistro has always been warm and welcoming. Nowadays, 22-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. One morning, as they're opening the bistro, they discover a man seated at a table with a pair of hot pink barber scissors protruding from his chest.

It's springtime on Cranberry Island - and love is in the air. It seems like every woman has the hots for buff trainer Dirk De Leon. He and his equally gorgeous business partner, Vanessa Black, are leading a weight-loss retreat at the Gray Whale Inn - forcing innkeeper Natalie Barnes to lighten up her butter-laden breakfast menu. The mood on the island darkens when two grisly discoveries are made. The first is a skeleton walled up at the island's lighthouse. The second is a corpse of the fresh variety - the handsome Dirk!