Southern Fiction Mystery

Wedding fever has come to Bon Temps, Louisiana! Unfortunately, buxom, blonde, beautiful, and telepathic cocktail waitress Sookie is not the bride-to-be, so she takes the opportunity to travel to New Orleans on family business. As heir to the estate of her newly dead cousin Hadley, Sookie unearths a big secret. Soon it becomes clear that more than a few people will do anything to stop Sookie from looking into Hadley's past.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator. With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in.

The governor of North Carolina has appointed Deborah to a judicial seat in the District Court Division. On her weekends, the fledgling judge has been helping an all-woman building crew complete a home for a needy single mother. Her attempts to gain positive P.R. go awry when her niece is found battered and half-naked in the partially completed home, with Deborah's own bloody hammer lying nearby.

In a small Southern town where loyalty to family and to "your people" carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition. After 15 years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored.

With her knack for being in trouble's way, Sookie witnesses the firebombing of Merlotte's, the bar where she works. Since Sam Merlotte is now known to be two-natured, suspicion falls immediately on the anti-shifters in the area. Sookie suspects otherwise, but her attention is divided when she realizes that her lover, Eric Northman, and his "child", Pam, are plotting to kill the vampire who is now their master. Gradually, Sookie is drawn into the plot - which is much more complicated than she knows.

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

The eighth entry in Charlaine Harris' New York Times best selling, Anthony Award-winning series finds Sookie reeling from an explosive attack on the previous month's vampire summit. Many vampires were killed, including several of Sookie's friends. But most pressing for Sookie is the unknown status of her weretiger boyfriend Quinn. Like it or not, everything is changing in the supernatural world - and Sookie is caught in the middle.

High school wasn’t a grand time for everyone, but when a group of friends decide to meet up at a B and B ahead of their 10-year reunion, old grudges resurface, and one of them ends up dead. Now the owners, a kindly older couple, are on the hook for the accidental death due to anaphylaxis, but they insist no mistakes were made on their part. Fortune is asked to look into the situation before the inept local sheriff railroads the couple or simply allows gossip to run them out of business, which will cost them their home. Swamp Team 3 heads to Voodoo Island to find a way to clear the couple.

When Charity Penn receives a letter saying she won a trip to Camellia Beach, South Carolina, complete with free cooking lessons at the town's seaside chocolate shop, The Chocolate Box, she's immediately skeptical. She never entered any contest. Her former prep school friend offers to look into the phony prize - only to end up drowned in a vat of chocolate. Struck with guilt, Penn heads to the southern beach town to investigate why he was killed.

Run, Rose, Run is a novel glittering with danger and desire—a story that only America’s #1 beloved entertainer and its #1 bestselling author could have created.

When former prosecutor Penn Cage returns to his hometown of Natchez, Mississippi, he doesn't find the peace he desperately craves. He finds that his own father is being blackmailed by a corrupt ex-cop. And when Penn investigates, he uncovers a murderous secret - and the small town's violent past.

For the Temple women, the winds of change are blowing. And if they're not careful, it could sweep them all away. After rising from Temple servant to tea shop owner, Violet finally feels in charge of her destiny. While learning Gullah folk magic from her aging grandmother, she worries much of her cultural heritage will be lost to the grave. Is there enough time for Old Sally to pass down all her special wisdom? Bride-to-be Queenie has never felt younger at heart.

Finally settled with Viking vampire Eric, Sookie finds normalcy just as chaos surrounds her. Sookie’s former lover Bill, her boss Sam, and even Eric are struggling with family problems. Then things get really interesting when the werewolves tell Sookie an ominous presence is lurking.

"Mom seems off." Her brother's words echo in Sam Montgomery's ear as she turns onto the quiet North Carolina street where their mother lives alone. She brushes the thought away as she climbs the front steps. Sam's excited for this rare extended visit, and looking forward to nights with just the two of them, drinking boxed wine, watching murder mystery shows, and guessing who the killer is long before the characters figure it out. But stepping inside, she quickly realizes home isn’t what it used to be.

No one knows who the victim was, where he came from, or why he staggered out in front of Chief Cade’s car. Guilt overwhelms him that he killed the mysterious stranger, until Cade learns that the man had been shot at close-range before he was struck. Determining his identity and finding the shooter becomes Cade’s top priority. But then Cade vanishes off of the island of Cape Refuge. Rumors spread like wildfire that Cade was involved with the dead man’s wife and that the death was not accidental. Did Cade run to escape murder charges, or has something sinister happened to him?

Emma Lee Raines, proprietor of a small-town Kentucky funeral home, Eternal Slumber, is a "Betweener". She helps ghosts stuck between here and the ever-after-only murdered ghosts. After Emma Lee solves who murdered them, only then can they cross over to the Great Beyond, Big Guy in the Sky. Emma Lee is up against a cold case that happened before she'd even gotten her "Betweener" gift.

When out-of-work graphic designer Verity Long accidentally traps a ghost on her property, she's saddled with more than a supernatural sidekick - she gains the ability to see spirits. It leads to an offer she can't refuse from the town's bad boy, the brother of her ex and the last man she should ever partner with. Ellis Wyatt is in possession of a stunning historic property haunted by some of Sugarland, Tennessee's finest former citizens.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

The second novel by Donna Tartt, best-selling author of The Goldfinch (winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize), The Little Friend is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence, and evil. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved. So Robin’s sister Harriet - unnervingly bright and insufferably determined - sets out to unmask his killer.

One year ago, Isabelle Drake's life changed forever: her toddler son, Mason, was taken out of his crib in the middle of the night while she and her husband were asleep in the next room. With little evidence and few leads for the police to chase, the case quickly went cold. However, Isabelle cannot rest until Mason is returned to her—literally. Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year. Isabelle's entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can’t go on this way forever.