Southern Fiction Thrillers

It's Labor Day weekend in Normal, KY, and if you know anything about camping and RVing, you know it's one of the busiest times of the year. Unfortunately, Daniel Boone National Park is in danger of being closed due to a drought and local businesses are scrambling for ideas to survive a possible shutdown. Happy Trails Campground is at the center of a murder in which campers as well as locals are suspects.

Alexandra Haywood and her sister Neely have always loved Whistledown, the family's Shelby County horse farm. After their billionaire father's sudden and tragic death, Alex returns to find the family fortune in shambles, and Whistledown has to go. But Joe Welch, the sexy farm manager, refuses to cooperate. Sparks of rage give way to a fiery attraction when Joe and Alex meet head-on. But just as a volatile passion flares between them, the discovery of a shocking murder with ties to the past rocks the county.

Southern girl Verity Long is about as high society as her pet skunk. Which is why she’s surprised as anyone when the new head of the Sugarland social set invites her to join the "it" girls. But this is no social call. Verity’s new client needs her to go in undercover and investigate strange happenings at the group’s historic headquarters. But while spirits are whispering hints of murder, the socialites are more focused on Verity’s 1978, avocado-green Cadillac. And when Verity stumbles upon a fresh body, she's going to need the long-dead citizens of Sugarland to help her solve the crime.

In less than 24 hours, Pepper Dunn loses her job, her boyfriend, and her home. It's the worst day of her life. But when Pepper discovers she’s a witch and has inherited the most important store in the magical town of Magnolia Cove, Alabama, she’s as happy as a pig in mud. Too bad the shop is a familiar pet store, and Pepper doesn’t like animals - not even a teensy bit. Determined to sell the shop and get the heck out of town, Pepper’s plans go haywire when a local store owner winds up dead and Pepper gets accused of murder.

Axel’s parents are visiting for the holiday and Pepper wants things to go smoothly. But when his mom insults the town Scrooge things turn rocky fast. Worse, when the town Scrooge is murdered, fingers quickly point to Axel’s mom.

One sunny Spring morning, EJ's simple life is turned upside down when the town's master gardener unceremoniously hands her a stack of handwritten letters that have all been addressed to a nonexistent person at the garden. This simple act sets in motion a chain of events that will lead EJ on a life-altering quest to uncover the identity of the mysterious letter writer―and into a surprising head-on confrontation with the harsh realities of the racial injustice that is as deeply rooted in the life of her community as the ancient herbs cultivated in the Moravian garden.

As a young man, Virgil Moody vowed he would never be like his father, he would never own slaves. When he moves from his father's plantation in Savannah to New Orleans, he takes with him Annie, a tiny woman with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, who he is sure would not survive life on the plantation. She'll be much safer with him, away from his father's cruelty. And when he discovers Annie's pregnancy, already a few months along, he is all the more certain that he made the right decision. As the years pass, the divide between Moody's assumptions and Annie's reality widens ever further.

Daniel Russell was only 13 years old when his father tried to kill them both by driving their car into Moon Lake. Miraculously surviving the crash - and growing into adulthood - Daniel returns to the site of this traumatic incident in the hopes of recovering his father's car and bones. As he attempts to finally put to rest the memories that have plagued him for years, he discovers something even more shocking among the wreckage that has ties to a twisted web of dark deeds, old grudges, and strange murders.

Mae West is getting settled into the RV lifestyle as the owner of a Happy Trails Campground in Normal, Kentucky. Betts Hager is desperate for help with her cleaning business, and Mae offers her services. Heiress Tammy Jo Bentley's mansion is the first one on her schedule, and Mae makes sure Tammy Jo's house is spotless because the Kentucky Kennel Association's annual meeting is going to be held at the mansion. Fifi, Tammy Jo's high pedigree, insured poodle, is going to be on display, but before the annual meeting, Camille Braun, Fifi's nanny, is stabbed to death.

Callahan Garrity is the owner of House Mouse, a cleaning service that tidies up after Atlanta's elite. She's also a former cop and a part-time sleuth. She and her coterie of devoted helpers can ransack a house for clues faster than it takes a fingerprint to set. Some people might call Callahan Garrity nosy, but she prefers to think of her tendency toward snooping as a healthy interest in the truth. So when news reaches her of her cousin Patti's death during a carjacking, Callahan shakes off her House Mouse cleaning uniform to don her detective's cap.

Max’s mother has been suffering from the debilitating effects of multiple sclerosis for several years now. Unable to find relief, she turns to the world of witches for an answer. In particular, a Granny Witch from the Appalachians.

Siblings Bert, Willet, and Pansy know better than to go swimming at the old rock quarry. According to their father, it's the Devil's place, a place that's been cursed and forgotten. But Mississippi Delta summer days are scorching hot, and they can't resist cooling off in the dark, bottomless water - until the day six-year-old Pansy vanishes...not drowned, not lost, simply gone. When their father disappears as well, Bert and Willet leave their childhoods behind to try and hold their broken family together.

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.

For Southern girl Verity Long, friendship means sitting down to stories and sweet tea on the front porch. For her gangster ghost housemate, it means dragging Verity out to a remote haunted asylum during a raging thunderstorm to do a favor for a long-dead mob boss. But Verity is always ready to help out a friend, even one as eternally eccentric as Frankie. And in the case of Mint Julep Manor, the stakes are too high to refuse.

Sometimes, Verity Long would like to forget she lives with the ghost of a 1920s gangster. But the reluctant housemates must once again work together when a dead detective blackmails Frankie into helping him solve a Great Gatsby-era cold case. Before she can say “bathtub gin”, Verity is dragged straight into a raging, otherworldly house party. Worse, every guest is hiding something. Meanwhile, Ellis Wydell, Verity’s living, breathing boyfriend needs Verity’s help with a police case of his own.

Just because she can see the dead doesn't mean Verity Long wants to spend her days hunting ghosts. Instead she's over the moon to land a marketing job at the local bank...until she finds her new boss dead in the vault. Even her ghost friend, Frankie, knows that's no way to start a career. Relieved to let the police take charge, Verity steps aside, bound and determined to keep her ghost sightings to herself. But when she learns the main suspect in the murder is a very crooked, very dead mobster, Verity knows it's up to her to solve the case.

Southern belle Verity Long is back in business - as a ghost hunter. Now all she has to do is visit the town's creepiest mansion and exorcise a family of vengeful spirits. Piece of cake. After all, ghosts love her and need her...that is until she meets the ghosts of Rock Fall mansion. They'll do anything to keep their murderous secrets hidden within the cliffside fortress - even if that means getting rid of one meddling ghost hunter.

Pepper Dunn is ready to celebrate New Year's. She’s been hard at work creating a potion for the annual potion-making contest. All she must do is present her creation. Pepper’s plans go awry when a sorceress claims she can turn a witch into a toad—all she needs is a volunteer.

Hank Weinberg is a modern day Atticus Finch, recently retired as a defense attorney in Mobile, Alabama, and a Holocaust survivor, who fled the Nazis as a young child. With his daughter in rehab, he's now taking care of his special needs grandson. Mourning his dead wife, spending mornings fishing on the pier with other octogenarians, he passes the rest of his days watching over his sweet grandson with the help of Lupita, a young Honduran babysitter.

Niall Howell's Only Pretty Damned is a taut noir that takes you behind the big top, revealing rough and tumble characters, murderous plots, and crooked schemes designed to keep Rowland’s World Class Circus afloat for another season. When Toby, former trapeze artist turned disgruntled clown, begins seeing Gloria, a young and beautiful dancer longing for a bigger role under the spotlight, his hardboiled past resurfaces.