Holiday Cozy

I have a perfect life. I recently rented the most adorable little apartment on top of my favorite bookstore coffee shop on Main Street in Holiday Hills, the charmingest of charming small southern towns. I spend my days ghostwriting a cozy mystery series for a well-known author, and maybe just a minute or two crushing on the town’s police chief. But of course, I’d never let that cat out of the bag.

Meg Langslow and Michael's house is serving as the marshalling point for the annual Caerphilly holiday parade. The theme is the 12 Days of Christmas, and it features 12 drummers from the school's marching band, 11 bagpipers, 10 leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college's drama department, and so on. There are also assorted floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the three wise men on Caerphilly Zoo camels, and Santa in a bright-red horse-drawn sleigh.

Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe), and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing. At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne's expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne's personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil's Purse, a deep mountain gorge.

When the townspeople of Harrogate almost riot over the Christmas décor thievery committed by the chair of the Elf on the Shelf Committee, I know I’m not going to survive the holiday season unless drastic action is taken. Biddy Jefferson turning up dead in my Christmas market stall is not exactly the type of drastic measure I had in mind. With no alibi and a town obsessed with pinning the murder on me, I have to clear my name. This is on top of planning the upcoming holiday ball, dealing with quirky stall owners in the Christmas market, and corralling confused tourists.

1929, December: Snow is falling, and Miss Clara Vale is wrapped up against the cold as she braves the icy streets of Newcastle in her latest investigation. When a young actress from the touring pantomime of Cinderella arrives at her door, Clara isn't sure what to make of her request. Sybil Langford, the legendary fairy godmother in their production, has mysteriously vanished. Could Clara help track her down? But a few days into Clara's search, Sybil's body is pulled from an icy river, and Clara finds herself in the middle of yet another murder mystery.

Krissy Hancock is staying in her adopted hometown of Pine Hills, Ohio, for Christmas this year - and she even has a whole week off from her combination bookstore-cafe. Unfortunately, she's been roped into filling in for a sick elf in the local holiday musical extravaganza. With a demanding director, backstage gossip, and two men in fierce competition for the starring role, it isn't all sweetness and Christmas lights. Then a murder puts a stop to the production, and Krissy is faced with a pageant of suspects.

Irish Milkshake Murder: In advance of their St. Patrick's Day wedding, Tara and Danny are off to the Aran Islands. The weekend kicks off with the ferry trip, as the passengers enjoy boozy milkshakes on board. Murder Most Irish: As St. Patrick's Day is drawing near, the folks at Hyler's Luncheonette are getting into the holiday spirit with a festive new green milkshake. Mrs. Claus and the Luckless Leprechaun: To celebrate Spring in Santaland, April Claus's friend, Claire, whips up some minty milkshakes for her bustling ice cream shop, Santaland Scoop.

Holiday time in the Valley, and in the holiday spirit - despite the dismal shape of the finances at the Little Detective Agency - Bernie refers a potential client to Victor Klovsky, a fellow private eye. It’s also true that the case - promising lots of online research but little action - doesn’t appeal to Bernie, while it seems perfect for Victor, who is not cut out for rough stuff. But Victor disappears in a rough-stuff way, and when he doesn’t show up at his mom’s to light the Hanukkah candles, she hires Chet and Bernie to find him.

The shroud is lifted and truths too disturbing to believe are unveiled when an explosion at the town hall traps TJ under a pile of rubble as the walls of the building rain down around her. When the dust settles, TJ is left wondering if you can ever really know another person or if the armor you see is simply an illusion created to conceal the lies that are buried beneath. While TJ struggles with the duplicity of someone she'd previously held dear, she is also forced to deal with the fact that two popular residents are dead with four others in the hospital clinging to life.

Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his wife, Laurie, have started a new Christmas tradition. Their local pet store has a Christmas tree, where instead of ornaments there are wishes from those in need. One poignant wish leads Andy to a child named Danny, whose selfless plea strikes a chord. Danny asked Santa for a coat for his mother, a sweater for his dachshund, Murphy, and for the safe return of his missing father.

As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house - each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake.

Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager. When a famous, although slightly over-the-hill, actor comes to town to play the starring role of Scrooge, no one expects that he's bringing a lot of baggage and enemies with him.

In the dark, wintry highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, where the local Calvinist element resists the secular trimmings of Christmas, the spirit of old Saint Nick is about as welcome as a flat tire on a deserted road. Nor is crime taking a holiday, as Constable Hamish Macbeth soon finds himself protecting an unhappy girl, unlocking the secrets of a frightened old woman, and retrieving some stolen holiday goods. Now the lanky lawman must use all his Highland charm and detective skills to make things right.

I wear many hats. I'm a friend. A sort-of girlfriend. A ghostwriter, and...oh yeah, a witch. My editor always tells me to “write what you know.” Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening...literally. When the main character in my latest novel - a witch herself - takes a new job with the Magical Bureau of Investigators, she stumbles upon a threat so big, it could destroy everything she holds dear. Fiction, right? Nope. For reasons beyond my witchy sixth sense, everything I write is now happening to me in real life!

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a seaside mansion, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn't seem to convince to leave, and a new family she'd never be able to live without.

It's another holiday and Mayor Randall Shiffley has turned Caerphilly, Virginia, into Spooky City, USA. The residents are covering every window with cobwebs and roaming the streets in costume to entertain the tourists, and Meg's grandfather is opening a new 'Creatures of the Night' exhibit in the zoo. When a real body at the zoo and a suspicious fire at the Haunted House threaten to mar the town's creepy fun, it's up to Meg Langslow to save Halloween.

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.

Visitors are arriving in droves to spend Thanksgiving in the mountains of pet-friendly Wagtail, Virginia. Many of them are bringing dog and cat gingerbread houses to enter in the contest that will be held in the new convention center. Wagtail resident Orly Biffle bequeathed the land to the town in his will, provided that they not cut down the grand old oak tree on the property. Holly notices that Trixie and Twinkletoes are fixated on the big oak tree. Trixie barks at it as though it's a corpse! When a bulldozer churns up some roots, the tree falls over, revealing a body inside....

A trio of sweet-toothed Halloween cozy mystery tales by nationally bestselling authors: Halloween Cupcake Murder by Carlene O'Connor, Mrs. Claus and the Candy Corn Caper by Liz Ireland, and A Triple Layer Halloween Murder by Carol J. Perry.

When Lou Prescott bought the bookstore at Holiday Bay, she wanted it to be so much more than a quaint seaside business. She wanted it to be home to the cozy gathering of friends, she knew in her heart, would come together to share their lives, their hardships, and their victories. In Book 4 in the series, Lou receives a package, that by all appearances, seems to contain clues without a mystery. She is stumped as to how to proceed, so she enlists the help of the Tuesday night sleuthing group, who she hopes, will be able to help her to untangle the backwards puzzle she'd been handed.