Southern Thrillers

Ingrid often said that one could find anything and everything they needed at yard sales. Perhaps she was right. In retirement, she laid her hands on the biggest yard sale find of all. The love of her life, Jerome Prioleau. Now, there was a wedding to plan. Meanwhile, strange things were happening in Juniper. A woman was murdered, her body found deep beneath Lake Murray by one of Ingrid’s former students. Later, the woman’s husband, none other than Juniper’s mayor, was found dead. A victim of his own poisoning.

Some say it was the spirt of one of the pirates that haunt the island that killed him. Others say the death was the result of greed and revenge. All that was known for certain, was that death did not come peacefully for the last inhabitant of a now deserted island. The lighthouse on Skull Island is a mysterious place steeped in legend and folklore.

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery fifty miles from Gull Island. Her body was found in a graveyard and most believe she was the fourth victim of the Silk Stalking Strangler, a mass murderer credited with killing thirteen women over a ten-month period from 1964 to 1965.

Orphaned at age ten by a violent home invasion, Susannah Faulkner grew up wild, her stubbornness the only thing harder than her heart. Since then, she’s used her skills to put a boot in the faces of those who deserve it. Then she gets word her brother Ethan needs her help, so she returns home to Atlanta. But in the airport, she finds her Uncle Gavin suffering a heart attack. Before he is rushed to the hospital, Gavin whispers a single word to Suzie: peaches. She’s determined to uncover the meaning behind the cryptic message, but Ethan is also deep in trouble.

Hanna and Alex risked their lives to put mob boss Xander Lacroix behind bars. When they learn of his early release from prison and one of his henchmen starts a relentless campaign of harassment and revenge, they both find themselves again on the precipice of chaos and danger. The alarming death of a local woman in Alex's hometown of Dugganville leads to a surprising chain of events that quickly escalates into a deadly struggle with the dark forces of crime and corruption in the Low Country of South Carolina.

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.

In 19th-century America, making sense of mysterious events often perplexed citizens of the small Southern town of Juniper, South Carolina. Especially the three Chadwick households. Brothers Laurence, Brodie, and Angus Chadwick lost their parents shortly after sailing from England to the New World. Each young man, in turn, would meet the woman of his dreams. Lacey. Fiona. Guinevere. Beautiful, intelligent, sensitive creatures all. And yet, despite their noble virtues, the three Chadwick women are cursed, it seems, for reasons only the occult can provide.

I told you I was sick, reads the headstone above Mamie Sue Preston's grave. She was the richest woman in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky, and also the biggest hypochondriac. Ironic, considering someone killed her - and covered it up perfectly. And how does Emma Lee, proprietor of the Eternal Slumber Funeral Home, know all this? Because Mamie Sue's ghost told her, that's how. And she's offering big bucks to find the perp.

A gripping tale of courageous love, regret's heavy burden, and the unbreakable ties that bind, A Slow Burn explores the beauty and pain of telling the truth. Most of all, it is about the power of forgiveness--and what remains when shame no longer holds us captive.

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.

Only a handful of people know that Emma Lee Raines, proprietor of a small-town Kentucky funeral home, is a "Betweener." She helps ghosts stuck between here and the ever-after - murdered ghosts. But Emma Lee's own sister refuses to believe in her special ability. In fact, the Raines sisters have barely gotten along since Charlotte Rae left the family business for the competition. After a doozy of an argument, Emma Lee is relieved to see Charlotte Rae back home to make nice. Until she realizes her usually snorting, sarcastic, family-ditching sister is a...ghost.

When she runs into her friend's deadbeat dad at the local deli, undertaker Emma Lee Raines can't wait to tell Mary Anna Hardy that he's back in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky, after five long years. Cephus Hardy may have been the town drunk, but he didn't disappear on an epic bender like everyone thought: He was murdered. And he's heard that Emma Lee's been helping lost souls move on to that great big party in the sky. Why do ghosts always bother Emma Lee at the worst times?

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.

Colonel W.B. Townsend has fallen on rough times establishing the Little River Lumber Company due to strange occurrences preventing the construction of his railroad. Detectives William Rue and Johnny Walking-Stick from the Pinkerton Detective Agency are called to find the unknown saboteurs and bring them to justice. A new threat descends on this small, developing town, with nefarious plans that may one day threaten the entire world. Will the citizens of Townsend and the Foresters of Stillwater set aside their differences and join forces against the nightmare known as the Rougarou?

Even as a child growing up in a small Southern city, Jon Wren frequently faced death. Before he’d even started school, he had played in the family parlor, where first an uncle, then a grandfather, lay in repose, their caskets positioned in front of the picture window. With their Instamatic cameras, several family members took photographs of well-dressed corpses. In his 30s, Jon fell in love with Ryan Armstrong. When you’re head over heels, who thinks of death? And when you make a commitment for the long haul, death feels remote. Something that happens to other people.

When Jack receives a disturbing email from a man claiming to have killed eight people, he sets off on a road trip with Jill and Kizzy in search of the answers he will need to stop this madman before he is able to kill victim number nine.

Some say it was the spirt of one of the pirates that haunt the island that killed him. Others say the death was the result of greed and revenge. All that was known for certain, was that death did not come peacefully for the last inhabitant of a now deserted island.

When 16-year-old Emily Halliwell ran away from home, she agreed to send her half sister a photo every week to prove she was okay. And she did. For a while. But then the photos stopped coming. Nicole Carrington, Emily's half sister and the newest permanent resident of the Gull Island Writer's Retreat, decides to ask the Mystery Mastermind Group for help. The trail has gone cold, but Nicole is desperate, so the group decides to accept the challenge in spite of the staggering odds of finding Emily alive after all of this time.

A serial arsonist is slowly burning Gull Island one building at a time. A local hero is falsely accused of taking his own life. A young widow raising four children with a fifth on the way faces losing her home.

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery 50 miles from Gull Island. Her body was found in a graveyard and most believe she was the fourth victim of the Silk Stalking Strangler, a mass murderer credited with killing 13 women over a 10-month period from 1964 to 1965.