Cozy Thriller

The Bodie Island Lighthouse Library Classic Novel Book Club is reading Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne while workers dig into the earth to repair the Lighthouse Library’s foundations. The digging halts when Lucy pulls a battered tin box containing a Civil War-era diary from the pit. Tucked inside is a hand-drawn map of the Outer Banks, accompanied by a page written in an indecipherable code.

Yes. I'm the daughter of the infamous couple, June Heal and Oscar Park. One teeny weeny problem, I'm a mortal. Yep. I guess I got my granny Darla's DNA. Good news! I might not have spiritual powers but I have a mean set of baking skills. I'm delighted to be moving out of Whispering Falls, where y'all know I can't live since I'm mortal, and to Celestial Falls, another small Southern town where I'm opening Heavenly Desserts. Of course, The Marys wouldn't let me leave unless I took my new kitten with me.

“M.G. Cole is a brilliant new addition to the echelon of British crimewriters.” Peter James "Dark, grim, tense. A compelling new voice." PAUL FINCH, author of the Detective Mark Heckenburg novels. REVENGE IS ONLY HALF THE STORY An unreported missing person. A crime that lurks undetected. A temptation that corrupts the incorruptible. Only when a corpse is uncovered are these dark secrets revealed. But the dead can’t speak. They can’t accuse. And they certainly don’t pay their debts. It’s up to DCI David Garrick’s investigation team to connect the dots and unearth a most ...

Allie Larkin was living her dream as a ballet dancer when a bad fall put her out of business. Now she's back home in Mystic Bay to heal a broken ankle while also helping her dear Aunt Gully get her Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack off the ground. Nothing would help Gully more than winning the local food festival's Best Lobster Roll contest. The competition is sure to be killer - especially after one of the contest judges dies after eating a roll from one of Gully's biggest rivals.

While catering a cosmetics company luncheon, Goldy witnesses the hit and run death of a rising young sales associate. Could the death have anything to do with the animal rights picket line in the parking lot...or with the exotic blue rose found next to the victim's body?

Two things got Rarity Jones through her breast cancer treatments: friends and books. Now cancer-free, Rarity is devoting her life to helping others find their way through the maze to healing. She's opened a bookstore focusing on the power of healing—Eastern medicine, Western medicine, the healing power of food, the power of meditation, and the importance of developing a support community. To that end, she's also started the Tuesday Night Survivors book club. But their therapeutic unity is disrupted when one of their members suddenly goes missing.

Perhaps Danielle's first clue should have been that Hillary's muse is male. He brings with him restless spirits and murders to solve - if Danielle dares. She has already been warned to stay away.

Only a few weeks into her new job as a private investigator, Lexi Graves thinks she may have bitten off more than she can chew with her first solo cases. In between going undercover as a plush pony at a "Bronie" conference and following her cheating brother-in-law, she's got a saboteur-turned-killer to catch and a missing woman to find. Two of her cases may be connected, but how? Her boss, the mysterious Solomon, meanwhile, hopes to get her between the sheets....

Brighton Longfield is kinda bad at life. She's divorced, childless, and she just got fired...again. With dwindling savings and few prospects, she packs her possessions into a U-Haul and sets out for the little town of Coventry, where she inherited a dilapidated old house from her Great Aunt "Mad" Maude Tuttlesmith. Coventry is supposed to be a stop in the road for Brighton. The plan is to fix up the house, sell it, and then figure out what to do with her life. You know what they say about the best-laid plans.

When a body turns up in the dumpster behind Caroline's Cupcakes, Holly White is horrified to learn her best friend, Caroline, is the main suspect. Everyone in town, including Mistletoe, Maine's sheriff, saw Caroline fighting with the victim on the night of his death. Worse, Caroline's fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, a custom-designed marble rolling pin. Now, just 10 days before Christmas, Holly's up to her jingle bells in holiday shenanigans and in desperate need of a miracle.

A body is discovered inside of the smoldering ruins of Key House. The crumbling Cotswold manor has long been empty, but rumor has it that the owner, Gervase Crown, was seen lurking around just before the fire. Inspector Jess Campbell and Superintendent Ian Carter pin Gervase as a prime suspect, but was he the murderer, or the target? It seems that his sudden reappearance has stirred up animosity long thought forgotten.

While New Bern, Connecticut, lies under a blanket of snow, Cobbled Court Quilts remains a cozy haven for its owner, Evelyn Dixon, and her friends. Evelyn relishes winter’s slower pace—besides, Internet sales are hopping, thanks to her son Garrett’s efforts. In addition to helping out at the shop, Garrett has also been patiently waiting for his girlfriend, Liza, to finish art school in New York City.

I've always wanted to meet a mermaid, but when I finally get my chance on New Year's Eve, the circumstances are far darker than I'd imagined. One of the mermaids isn't what she appears to be, and if I don't find a way to break the spell, she will never be herself again. With strange magic in the air and a dangerous force lurking in the shadows, I have to find the truth and keep myself from being the next one to wind up caught in the sorcerer's web.

Making cupcakes can be murder. Especially when someone has poisoned them. Diana knows she's being framed for a crime she didn't commit, but who is out to make her look guilty, and why? Speaking of secret enemies...Fergus has done something terrible. Now part of a new crime-fighting duo, Diana finds herself immersed in a deep, dark conspiracy theory. At the heart of it is a mystery that has baffled investigators for decades. The whole thing is more ridiculous than anything Fergus has ever previously believed. The worst part is...she's starting to think it might all be true.

Trudell Becket, known to her friends as Tru, finds herself in a bind when her library in lovely Cypress, South Carolina, is turned into a state-of-the-art bookless "technological center". A library with no books breaks Tru's book-loving heart. Then the town manager, who was behind the big push for the library's transformation, is crushed by an overturned shelf of DVDs. Tru becomes the prime suspect as she hadn't hid the fact that she hated having all of those wonderful books replaced by tablets and computers.

As far as Carol Spencer is concerned, the war has spoiled everything. She and Don had been engaged for years and were on the verge of marriage when he was shot down in the South Pacific, leaving Carol on the verge of spinsterhood at 24. She wants to take some kind of job in the war effort, but her invalid mother demands that Carol accompany her to the family's summer home in Maine. But when they arrive at the faded mansion, they find it completely locked up. The servants are gone, the lights are dark - and there is a body in the closet.

Summer is on its way, and so is Winifred Page's birthday. While her corgi, Watson, naps in the sunshine and dreams of delicious pastry crumbs at the Cozy Corgi Bookshop and Bakery, Leo—Fred's park ranger boyfriend—plans a surprise each night to extend the celebration. During an evening picnic in the mountains, Fred and Leo glance up at the soft pink glow of the sky . . . just in time to witness a murder. As Fred and Watson slip into sleuth mode, along with their personal park ranger guide, the spiraling trails and twists and turns of the case prove daunting.

Carpenter Whitney Whitaker, her cousin Buck, and guard-cat Sawdust just scored a hot property near downtown Nashville in a tax sale. While the Music City Motor Court might not be much to look at now, the two plan to transform the motel's 12 units into six one-bedroom condominiums with popular mid-century styling. But surprises await when Whitney discovers a squatter living in Room Nine and Sawdust uncovers a body in the bed next door.

Knit and Nibble's numbers are growing! The knitting club just welcomed their newest member, Caralee Lorimer, who's learning to knit for her upcoming role in A Tale of Two Cities. According to the amateur actress, the behind-the-scenes drama at the theater is getting downright catty, and Caralee wants a reckoning for Arborville's pretentious suburbanites. But before she can finish her snitchy stitches, Caralee is killed in a suspicious theater accident. Someone thinks they've staged a perfect murder, but Pamela and her Knit and Nibblers are ready to pounce on the real killer.

When Marley McKinney's aging cousin, Jimmy, is hospitalized with pneumonia, she agrees to help run his pancake house while he recovers. With its rustic interior and syrupy scent, the Flip Side Pancake House is just as she pictured it - and the surly chef is a wizard with crêpes. Marley expects to spend a leisurely week or two in Wildwood Cove, the quaint, coastal community where she used to spend her summers, but then Cousin Jimmy is found murdered, sprawled on the rocks beneath a nearby cliff.