Holiday Thriller

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. My journey to date has been a bit rocky but my rescue cat Toby and I are making it work.

Christmas has arrived in Rudolph, New York, and Merry Wilkinson is looking forward to a much needed rest. But before that can happen, Luanne Ireland walks through her door. Luanne had asked Merry to help make decorations for her wedding, but has suddenly moved the wedding months earlier and is now demanding that everyone follow her lead, regardless of the cost. But that cost is much higher than anyone anticipated. When Luanne's fiance is found murdered at their proposed wedding venue, Merry resolves to restore peace and calm to the community of Rudolph.

Trixie has been friends with Diana Lynch for years, even before Di's family became fabulously rich. When a long-lost uncle shows up at the Lynches' doorstep and starts ruining Di's social life, Di asks Trixie for help. But Trixie thinks Uncle Monty isn't just an annoying relative, she thinks he's an imposter!

A classic mystery for the festive season: mulled wine, mince pies...and murder. Mordecai Tremaine, former tobacconist and perennial lover of romance novels, has been invited to spend Christmas in the sleepy village of Sherbroome, at the country retreat of one Benedict Grame. Arriving on Christmas Eve, he finds that the revelries are in full flow - but so, too, are tensions amongst the assortment of guests.

It’s Christmastime in Brighton, and the city is abuzz about magician Max Mephisto’s star turn in Aladdin. But the holiday cheer is lost on DI Edgar Stephens. He’s investigating the murder of two children, Annie and Mark, who were found in the woods alongside a trail of candy—a horrifying scene eerily reminiscent of “Hansel and Gretel.” Edgar has plenty of leads. Annie, a dark child, wrote gruesome plays based on the Grimms’ fairy tales. Does the key to the case lie in her final script? Or does the macabre staging of the bodies point to the theater and the capricious cast of Aladdin?

In book 6 in the series, It’s summertime in Holiday Bay, and between the outdoor dining option provided by the new rooftop bar and eatery, and the summer concert series held on the roof every Thursday night, the Bistro is busier than they’ve ever been. Beck has an interesting case involving a woman whose mother disappeared when she was a child, Amy is entered into the annual clam chowder cookoff, Dawson has an important decision to make, Nikki has a new guy in her life, and Kennedy is struggling with empty nest syndrome while Addy is visiting her brother in Boston.

After suffering a personal tragedy, Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, 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 Christmastime, and farmer Lucy Resnick is living the life she's always dreamed of. When she's not selling her jams, soaps, and mistletoe bundles at the Buttercup Christmas Market, she's enjoying cozy evenings by the fire with her knitting group - or her handsome veterinarian boyfriend Tobias Brandt. But less than a week before Christmas, a pall falls over the festive atmosphere when local man Randy Stone turns up with a knife in his back and a sprig of mistletoe in his hair.

Oh, what fun it is to die! When Austin’s parents drag him and his little sister Fiona to a remote cottage for Christmas, he’s less than thrilled about the forced bonding exercise. But after learning that their holiday getaway was the site of a horrific crime, this family on the rocks will have to fight for their lives against a legendary killer because Candy Cain is slashing through the snow with a very long naughty list.

The Bistro at Holiday Bay plays host to the Holiday Bay High School class of 2004 as they gather to celebrate their twentieth reunion. While every class seems to have its story to tell, this particular class is most famous for the murder of one of its most popular students shortly before graduation.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Violet Parker has one request on her list for Santa - to make it home to her kids. Unfortunately, “home” is also the lair of her life-long nemesis, her sister Susan, aka the devil’s concubine. Standing in Violet’s way is Old Man Winter, who slammed the Black Hills with a show-stopping blizzard. However, a little snow isn’t going to ground her sleigh, not with family counting on her to deliver Santa’s goods.

This Yuletide, Kelly Flynn and friends are helping the town's librarian, Juliet, teach children how to knit. Juliet has fallen in love-but just as she finds happiness, death finds her, facedown in her Christmas cape. Suspicion falls on a newcomer, a widow with a puzzling past, who-some believe-was sweet on Juliet's boyfriend. But Kelly and her knitting crew aren't convinced. It's up to them to find a killer-before someone else gets fleeced.

Right before Christmas, Fair Haven is celebrating its annual Ice Fishing Jubilee. When a bad-mannered lawyer is found frozen to death inside his fishing shack, the police soon discover he was really shot. The prime suspect is local ice-fishing legend Jim Campbell, but Maggie thinks he is innocent. The culprit could be the long-suffering wife or the mistress, and soon, Maggie is off doing her own investigating, dragging Joshua along for the ride. As her boss, Joshua couldn’t possibly be romantically interested in her. So why did he hold her so close at the town dance?

Abby is offered the chance to participate in an author event being held at Firehouse Books with one of her own favorite authors. When the guest author turns up dead, Abby realizes that clues to the author’s death could be found in the new novel. Abby joins Colt as he investigates the death of a local man who died after eating pudding dosed with poison during a community dinner. Colt receives a call to check out a light inside an abandoned lighthouse closed for renovations. The pair respond only to find evidence of two trespassers, one of which is now dead.

After suffering a personal tragedy, Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, 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.

Jules Capshaw and her staff at Torte are busier than ever...still, even the town's most in-demand bakers need to take a break. So Jules invites everyone to celebrate at the local Winchester Inn's Dickens Feast, a six-course extravaganza with Yorkshire Pudding, Christmas goose, and all the trimmings. But as the weather outside becomes frightful, things inside turn less delightful when one of the guests ends up as dead as Scrooge's doornail.

It's a week before Christmas, and my quaint holiday town, Marshmallow Hollow, is chock-a-block with seasonal activities. Some less fun than others...like the ice sculpting competition my bestie, Stiles, has talked me into. Let's just say, as a pair, Michelangelo we ain't. I'm secretly relieved when our epically awful ice display gets damaged. It gives me a chance to watch my new beau, Hobbs, compete in the sled race. But not five seconds in, and Hobbs' sled-loving dog, Stephen King, escapes my grip to get in on the action - and boy, does he.

Several years have passed since the war with the djevels ended, the reality they'd infested was destroyed, and their king killed. But that left Sean and the lions faced with another problem: the million or so djevels currently in the world that needed to be hunted down and killed. Part of the solution was to fence in the biggest area that was infested to stop them from spreading any further, while teams began hunting down the ones that had escaped. It's not an easy job, but it's a lot easier than the previous one by far.

Natalia Chase just wants the first family Christmas with her husband and his pride of unruly lion shifter brothers to be perfect. But a simple trip to pick out a Christmas tree turns into a rescue mission when they discover three shifter wolf cubs abandoned in the forest. Between finding the cubs' parents, a surprise Christmas Eve visit from Mama Chase, and Natalia's increasingly difficult pregnancy, will the Chase pride get everything they've asked for from Santa, or will their perfect holiday be a perfect disaster?

Identical twin sisters Alex and Hannah are the owners of Murder and Mayhem, a mystery bookshop that sells their famous poison-themed Killer Chocolates. But now, there’s a real killer in their midst. Shortly before Christmas, their septuagenarian neighbor, Jane, confides to Alex that a murderer from a true-crime show has taken up residence in the village. Unfortunately, she’s also shared her suspicions with town gossip Netta. The next morning, Alex shows up at Jane’s house to watch the show, but instead she discovers Jane's body, with a box of Killer Chocolates nearby.