Southern Fiction Mystery

Book two begins the morning after a torrential storm upends Shady Gully, and its citizens wake to the news that Wolfheart's beloved sister, Peony, has been brutally murdered. Wolfheart earned his reputation as the town lowlife in book one, inciting unrest and corrupting the youth with his homegrown product and signature scowl. But it's five years later, and the scoundrel from across the creek is now an upstanding citizen, a church-streamer, and a doting brother and uncle. Or is he?

When a popular youth pastor is accused of a grisly crime, MacLaren Yarbrough won't rest until she finds the truth. Her gut instinct tells her Luke Blessed is innocent. Still, how could the dream he had on the night a young woman was murdered depict the crime with such chilling accuracy? As MacLaren tracks down clues from all corners of Hopewell, GA, four like suspects emerge. But the police aren't buying her theories. Even her husband, local magistrate Joe Riddley, resists her amateur sleuthing. This case, he feels, is too dangerous.

With a classical series sold and a portrait commissioned, Cherry Tucker's art career is in Georgia overdrive. But when the sheriff asks Cherry to draw a composite sketch of a hijacker, her life takes a hairpin as the composite leads to a related murder, her local card-sharking buddy Max Avtaikin becomes bear bait and her nemesis labels the classical series "pervert art". While she seeks to help the misfortunate and save her local reputation, Cherry's hammer-down attitude has her facing the headlights of an oncoming killer.

In Denton, Arkansas, the fate of the high school football team rests on the shoulders of Billy Lowe, a volatile but talented running back. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his unstable mother's abusive boyfriend. Then Billy's abuser is found murdered in the Lowe family trailer, and all evidence points toward Billy. Now nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the whole town apart on the eve of the playoffs.

The shocking disappearance of a young woman and a suspicious death put Hanna and Alex back in the crosshairs of the ruthless Dellahousaye crime family. Hanna and Alex again find themselves in the troubled waters of love and commitment. Alex returns to South Carolina with the promise of a new start, but with strings attached that Hanna may never be able to live with. The story plays out against the compelling backdrop of Charleston, Pawleys Island, and the fictional Dugganville, South Carolina.

Sophia, proprietress of For Goodness Cakes, has been commissioned to cater the Heart of the Town Library charity fundraiser at Grape Valley Winery. She's spent all her dough to make this a successful event, raise her profile, and win more plum catering jobs. At first, the going is as smooth as an elegant chocolate ganache. After nibbling Sophia's tasty treats, Ray Peel, the winery's landlord, announces he will pay off Rumford's library loan. But the evening soon turns decidedly frosty when Ray is murdered - before he can make good on his promise, and before he can pay Sophia.

Private investigator, Gideon Baker, is on the trail of a missing husband. A tip about the man’s car sends him to the Savoie Salvage yard in steamy southern Louisiana, but the owner is dead and his daughter, Jessica, is trying to sort out the mess her father left behind. Jessica would rather be anywhere than dealing with the debris left behind by the father she never met. Gideon and Jessica strike sparks—the good kind—as they find themselves following a trail of murder, betrayal, and classic cars. Can they survive the Louisiana heat and the gunshots long enough to fall in love?

After driving through a violent storm, young married couple Riley and Jake Marshall wind up stranded with a flat tire off the I-95 near Yemassee, South Carolina. They thought this would be the worst part of their day. They were wrong. When the tow truck arrives ahead of schedule, Riley and Jake think their luck may have changed. Wrong again. Jakes’s expensive car is loaded onto the flatbed, and the unsuspecting couple climb aboard. What begins as a car theft and mugging turns much darker when the backwoods car thieves discover Jake’s family is worth millions.

A 60-year-old cold case and a big city sheriff seeking redemption—it’s time for the dead to rise. A thwarted youthful romance blends with the blues and Mama Cheche’s mojo. Controversy ensues when a blues singer groom goes missing in Cleveland, Mississippi. All becomes a tangled web. Paula and Mary have written this redemptive tale in such a way that transports you to the Delta. You can feel the gentle breeze coming across the Sunflower River and hear the mellowed notes jumping off the blues man’s guitar.

For nearly a decade, twenty-nine-year-old Hudson Miller has made his living in the boxing ring, but a post-fight brawl threatens to derail his career. Desperate for money, Hudson takes a gig as a bouncer at a dive bar. That’s when life delivers him another hook to the jaw: his estranged father, Leland, has been murdered in what appears to be a robbery-gone-bad at his salvage yard, Miller’s Pull-a-Part.

After seven long years in prison, Colt Hudson is finally returning to Blake County, Georgia. But in his hometown, he's treated like just another criminal—with good reason. The scion of a tight-knit southern clan, Colt's family is deeply involved in one of the most dangerous meth operations in Georgia. Colt's early release from prison comes with strings attached—a deal with narcotics squad commander Tim Dawson, who wants information that could help bust the family business. But when the drug agent who put Colt away seven years ago turns up dead, a dangerous conspiracy begins to unravel.

Once again, the Sophia Island Shrimp Festival is over. Thousands attended to eat shrimp, shop, and watch the pirates come ashore as usual, but this year’s temperatures were warmer than ever. Everyone is happy that the busy hot weekend is over, and everyone came through unscathed. Or so it seems. Jewel and Craig Mantelle also made it through their kids and families’ first visit to their new island home.

The fact that Katrina Pomeroy had been murdered was in and of itself a newsworthy event. The fact that she had been murdered on Friday, October 13th, exactly 11 years after she’d been one of five teenagers to survive the Friday the 13th Massacre, made her passing worthy of notice by the national news agencies Jillian Hanford used to work for.

The gang from the Gull Island Writers Retreat take on the case of a man who is currently doing time for the murder of a woman he swears he did not kill. After speaking to the man, Alex determines that he is most likely telling the truth, so he enlists the help of the gang to prove it. As they work together to sort fact from fiction, they realize there may be a lot more going on than they originally thought.

Sugar Creek Gap is a Southern small town where everyone puts their differences aside in order to come together for the greater good of the cozy, close-knit community. But when a citizen, Jeff Faulkner, goes missing from the annual Sugar Creek Gap High School fundraiser, the rumor mill starts to turn faster and faster, churning up the past. Bernadette Butler, a local mail carrier, hears all the gossip swirling around while delivering the mail on route. Bernie can't help but collect clues with all the gossip flowing faster than she can deliver the mail.

What if the faith you were raised in, professed to love, and thought would protect you from all evil turned out to be the very thing you now feared? And what if public servants, sworn to protect and serve, kept and withheld secrets, both professional and personal, too horrifying to even be known? Sariah could have never known what was to be discovered after simple inquiries of her polygamous faith.

Thirteen years ago, Jori Trahan’s boyfriend vanished without a trace. Now, after moving back home to Alabama to care for her ailing grandmother and autistic brother, she comes face-to-face with the deadly mystery behind his disappearance. Jori has a rare form of synesthesia, meaning she can “hear” colors; to her, tones of voice are as unique as fingerprints. With the help of this ability and a sympathetic cop, Jori comes dangerously close to uncovering the truth. But those responsible will go to any length - including murder - to keep their dark secrets buried.

After Windsor Ebonwood’s love life and successful career as a book conservator vanish in one fell swoop, she’s determined to begin anew. Win moves to Darkly Island off the coast of Louisiana, where she’s been bequeathed an unusual bookshop and a charming home on the edge of a dark swamp. Win gets to work settling into her new life in the sleepy Southern town but discovering Darkly’s heartless town alderman impaled on a gravestone wasn’t on the books. Nor was finding out about her family’s legacy as powerful witches responsible for protecting the bookshop at all costs.

A funeral, a ghost, a murder. It's all in a day's work for Emma Lee Raines...especially when the ghost turns out to be someone very dear to her heart. Psychic Debbie Dually is the one who informed local undertaker Emma Lee Raines that she wasn't crazy, she was a Betweener, someone who can communicate with ghosts of the not-so-dearly departed. In fact, she told Emma Lee how she was the only one that could help solve their murders to help them rest in eternal peace. This time Debbie Dually finds herself needing Emma's help. This means solving her own murder.

By late 1936, the worst years of the Great Depression are over. Wealth has created new opportunities for Minnie: a beautiful home in California, a luxury car, the yearning desire by a handsome lieutenant, and the family’s summer retreat, which draws her like a magnet. Secrets abound. A hidden bohemian community of writers, poets, artists, and escapists is scattered across the shifting coastal dunes near the cottage.