Holiday Cozy

My name is Lou Prescott. I was born in South Carolina but spent most of my life in Northern Minnesota. Since the death of my husband, I've found myself at loose ends, so when my niece offered to sell me the quaint seaside bookstore she owned in Holiday Bay, Maine, I jumped at the opportunity to restart my life somewhere new.

Mae West is bound and determined to stay in shape for her wedding day and with all the delicious Southern dessert Mary Elizabeth is serving for Thanksgiving Mae has joined the local running group to race in Thanksgiving's annual Turkey Trot. She never figured murder would be on the menu and a couple of people she loves have a perfect motive. The list of suspects isn't exactly brief especially when one of the governor's recently pardoned prisoner is at the top of the list.

Shelby Morris came to Holiday Bay after receiving a huge inheritance from a woman she'd never met which she'd been destined to share with two half-sisters she'd never knew existed. It took some time for the three very different siblings to settle the estate in a manner that was agreeable to all of them, but in the end, it was decided that Shelby would stay and take care of things.

Tommy and Evelyn Christie are looking forward to a quiet Christmas holiday at the home of Hugh Norton-Cavendish, the 9th Earl of Clifford, who recently married Tommy's cousin, Elise. However, the suspicious death of Albert Lewis, a businessman hoping to buy land from Hugh, means the Christmas festivities are quickly over. Tommy is distracted by his sister's new relationship with a man he distrusts. Evelyn is busy with her pack of dogs, brought for the traditional Boxing Day shoot.

Let me be the first person to welcome you to Normal, Kentucky, located in the heart of the Daniel Boone National Forest. I'm Mae West, the owner of Happy Trails Campground. The campground is full and the campers are excited to participate in Normal's annual Pumpkin Carving Contest. It's a little spooky seeing the hundreds of jack-o-lantern faces all light up. It's the dead body or two among them that chills me to the bone. Especially when one of those bodies is found in a cave and someone I love is a suspect. And when Hanks asks me for input on the case, I know it's important.

A Christmas charity contest leads to murder! Amateur baker Poppy Wilkinson agrees to be a celebrity contestant in a charity gingerbread house competition in Bath, England. She can support a good cause while promoting the long running TV reality show in which she’s a contestant — The Great British Baking Contest. However, beneath the gingerbread walls and behind the lollipop trees swirl bad feelings, jealousy, and murder. Good thing Poppy is also a witch and a talented amateur sleuth.

Boxes of delicious chocolates and roses by the dozen are aplenty in the small town of Paramour Bay as Valentine's Day approaches, but all is not so rosy in Raven Marigold's life when a simple love enchantment goes horribly awry. You see, the affection spell is only meant to affect one recipient...not the entire town! Things for Raven go from bad to worse when small fires begin to break out all around town, causing damages to the local shops and homes alike.

In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest. Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy's younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance.

This year, all Melanie wants for Christmas is a dull moment. Between her son Davey, her teaching job, and showing her Standard Poodle puppy, Eve, there just aren't enough hours in the day. But when Davey's usual bus driver, Henry Pruitt, disappears and is replaced by a surly, pierced, twentysomething, Melanie is concerned. The elderly, amiable Henry was a friend to all in the neighborhood, so she decides to check on him.... only to find that he died two days earlier, under suspicious circumstances.

When Santa Claus appears on Lance's autopsy table, he can't believe his eyes or ears as the not-so-jolly ghost accompanying the body tells Lance he's been murdered. Solving this murder will take time as the list of suspects is growing. For some, Christmas isn't the most wonderful time of the year, but it is the most profitable. To top it off, Lance's brother is in town visiting and he's not alone. He's got a ghost attached to him. Telling his brother that he sees ghosts just became even more important as this ghost insists Lance help him make things right before he moves on.

Enjoy the holiday season with three festive mysteries set in coastal Maine. This anthology includes "Yule Log Murder" by Leslie Meier, "Death by Yule Log" by Lee Hollis, and "Logged On" by Barbara Ross.

Two years ago, Candice’s life changed in a single night. The apartment she shared with her mother and special-needs son burned to the ground, forcing her to accept the help of a stranger. Gary Ford, her knight in soot-coated bunker gear, helped to save their lives and then gave them a home so they could recover from the loss. Convincing her to marry him, they wed on this past Christmas Eve and hoped that their lives had finally hit the plateau we all like to think of as normal. No such luck.

During a break from his usual village beat, young Police Constable Nick finds himself involved with holidaymakers and their problems. As well as the normal seaside duties, how does he cope with a man who’s lost his false teeth in the sea and another who wants to give away thousands of pounds when drunk? Then there’s the stray Labrador that thinks he’s a police dog and accompanies police officers on night patrols, and the anxious fisherman who daren’t tell his wife that he owns a racehorse.

The group discovers a purebred Maltese whimpering in the snow-covered grove - right beside a dead body. Pete, a squatter who camped out on the land, apparently met his end after a fallen fir-tree branch fell on his head. But as Melanie and Aunt Peg investigate Pete's complicated history, it's clear his death was no accident. Now, Melanie must run through a flurry of likely suspects and muzzle a dogged murderer in time - or she'll be next on someone's deadly list.

Lucy Stone is in the doghouse with her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Prudence Pratt. It seems that Kudo, the Stones’ misbehaving mutt, has developed a taste for Mrs. Pratt’s blue-ribbon-winning chickens, as well as an escape artist’s talent for sneaking out. With the Fourth of July coming up, Lucy doesn’t want to set off any more fireworks with the crabby Prudence.

After the annual parade of Christmas presents in Tinker's Cove, Maine, has ended, Lucy Stone and her daughter Elizabeth are ready to ring in the new year in style. Elizabeth has won mother/daughter winter makeovers in Manhattan from Jolie magazine! But the all-expenses-paid trip is bound to have some hidden costs - and one of them is murder.

Now that Thanksgiving's behind her, vintage cookware enthusiast Jaymie Leighton Müller is excitedly making plans for the upcoming Dickens Days festival - the town's month-long celebration leading up to Christmas. With a hot cider booth on the village green to warm the hearts and bodies of the townsfolk and a diorama featuring a scene from A Christmas Carol, things are shaping up for a festive season - until the town's local Scrooge is found murdered, a vintage pudding mould covering his cracked skull.

When the bewitching Diana Ravenscroft comes to quiet Tinker's Cove and opens Solstice, a quaint little shop offering everything from jewelry to psychic readings, Lucy Stone writes her off as eccentric but harmless. Even after Diana gives her a disturbingly accurate reading, Lucy can’t help but befriend the newcomer. But not everyone in town is so enchanted. And when Lucy stumbles upon a dead body near her home, she can’t shake the feeling that something ominous is lurking in the crisp October air...

The lead-up to Christmas sees the Connection private investigation team planning their festive season. Until a new case arrives. Catapulted into their biggest mystery yet, they are tasked with finding a killer who has been released on parole, and subsequently disappeared. Has he returned to finish the murder he tried to commit before his capture? As he targets his intended victim, his attention is also focused on the private investigators and their police colleagues with devastating effect. With families torn apart, Doris must seek assistance from a colleague from her past.

Mystery bookstore owner Tricia Miles has been spending more time solving whodunits than reading them. Now a nearby gas explosion has injured Tricia's sister's boyfriend, Bob Kelly, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and killed the owner of the town's history bookstore. Tricia's never been a fan of Bob, but when she reads that he's being tight-lipped about the "accident", it's time to take action.