Historical Cozy

Livia Andersen was a woman who held her family together with a quiet smile and an iron will. It’s been months since her death and her children and grandchildren she leaves behind continue to grapple with the shifting changes in their lives now that she’s gone. For some of them it is about far more than adjusting to her absence in their lives. Trisha Andersen doesn’t do anything without careful deliberation. She can’t remember the last time she made plans involving a man that had her questioning her own judgment. Maybe it’s the simple fact that she’s never made plans with a man ...

1929, December: Snow is falling, and Miss Clara Vale is wrapped up against the cold as she braves the icy streets of Newcastle in her latest investigation. When a young actress from the touring pantomime of Cinderella arrives at her door, Clara isn't sure what to make of her request. Sybil Langford, the legendary fairy godmother in their production, has mysteriously vanished. Could Clara help track her down? But a few days into Clara's search, Sybil's body is pulled from an icy river, and Clara finds herself in the middle of yet another murder mystery.

The most original crime novel in years - British ‘Golden Age’ sleuth meets American hard-boiled crime! It’s the summer of 1920: Kit Aston travels to San Francisco for his cousin’s marriage to the mysterious Dain Collins. When a private investigator tailing Dain Collins is killed, Kit Aston, his fiancée Mary and Aunt Agatha team up with Pinkerton detective, Dashiell Hammett, in a case involving murder, kidnap and the theft of a certain legendary bird from Malta. The latest Kit Aston mystery is a delightful reimagining of some of Dashiell Hammett’s greatest novels: the Maltese ...

Katherine Brooke may be a fabulously wealthy heiress, but she’s trapped, a pawn in her parents’ ruthless game to marry her into the nobility. Then Captain Hugo Penhallow - so charming, as handsome as a Greek god - comes into her life once more, and suddenly she sees a chance to be free.

Five years after the war, Amie Stilwell, a photo interpreter for an Allied unit in England, returns to her hometown in Maine. Jobless and discouraged but stubbornly resourceful, she’s starting over in the same coastal village where her life once went so wrong. Waiting for her is Shibby Travis, the surrogate mother with whom Amie never lost touch. But the unexpected also awaits…

In 1851, private detective Laetitia Rodd is enjoying a well-earned holiday when she gets an urgent request for her services. Mrs. Rodd’s neighbor Jacob Welland is a reclusive rich gentleman dying of consumption, and he wants Mrs. Rodd to find his brother, who has been missing for 15 years. Joshua Welland was a scholar at Oxford, brilliant, eccentric, and desperately poor when he disappeared from the university. Friends claim to have seen him since, in gypsy camps and wandering around the countryside.

1936 in the Crown Colony of Singapore, and the British abdication crisis and rising Japanese threat seem very far away. When the Irish nanny looking after acting governor Palin's daughter dies suddenly - and in mysterious circumstances - mission school-educated local girl Su Lin - an aspiring journalist trying to escape an arranged marriage - is invited to take her place. But then another murder at the residence occurs and it seems very likely that a killer is stalking the corridors of Government House.

After an odd encounter at a grand masquerade ball, Lady Emily becomes embroiled in the murder investigation of one of the guests, a sometime actress trying to pass herself off as the mysterious heiress and world traveler Estella Lamar. Each small discovery, however, leads to more questions. Was the intended victim Miss Lamar or the imposter? And who would want either of them dead?

Pauline Riddell has grand ambitions for her future at the armament factory. So, when her closest workmate reveals a salacious affair with a married man, Pauline refuses to risk her career by listening to the scandal. But, she’s shaken to her core when the police arrive with news of her best friend’s homicide. Desperate for justice, Pauline’s insistent poking into the investigation only makes her the prime suspect. And now, to clear her name, she must unravel a web of deadly clues entangling her in a sinister plot.

When the Moorecliff clan gathers at Moorecliff mansion for Archie’s memorial service, no one expects gossipy aunt Shirley to end up stabbed in the solarium. It’s not really a big surprise though, pretty much everyone in the family had reason to want her dead.

A Yuletide dinner in West Brompton should have been a festive occasion, until the host, wealthy Stephen Whitfield, dropped dead before the second course. Now, Mrs. Jeffries and the busy sleuths must rally in support of their inspector, especially since the clues are harder to find than a silver sixpence in a plum pudding.

After a treacherous journey, Lucina found safety in the bakery of Rydding Village. Her peace is threatened when she learns that Nico, the new apprentice smith, is from the homeland she was forced to flee. Could he be an enemy agent who caught up with her? Even if he isn’t, the newcomer is the chief suspect in a string of burglaries, and Lucina worries the suspicion will spread to her because of their shared nationality. Her nightmares of being driven from the village may come true if she can’t clear his name.

In a bid to heal from the grief of a personal loss, forensic genealogist RaeJean Hunter takes on a straightforward case-identify human remains found on a nearby college campus, believed to be the 180-year-old remains of Mary Rogers, a woman who died mysteriously in 1841 and was believed to have been buried in the nearby cemetery that had washed away. It should be simple enough, a project to get her back in the game.

University of Porto English lecturer Isadora Lee is not excited about Christmas this year. She's tired and broke -- and doesn't have enough money to travel home to the United States for the holidays. She can barely stand to face her wealthy colleagues from the English department, especially not Ben Rhetters-Lyndons, an upper-class Brit who seems eager to prove that he can one-up her at everything. But, when Isadora and Ben stumble upon a secret 19th-century manuscript, they find themselves tangled in a 150 year-old mystery to find a missing artefact. As they peruse library documents, break-...

England, 1922. After their adventures at Westminster, Dora and Rex depart for a quiet month in the Cotswolds. Or at least, that's what everyone thinks. In truth, they're working on a new assignment—investigating rumors that a titled foreigner might be more than he appears. Rex invites the man to his family manor for a rollicking weekend of fun. In between bouts of lawn tennis and parlor games, he and Dora are to uncover the truth about the man's identity. The servants barely have time to unpack everyone's case before the suspected spy is found with an antique dagger sticking from his back.

Winter 1763. Alec, Lord Halsey, is sent on a diplomatic mission to Midanich, imperial outpost of the Holy Roman Empire, to bargain for the freedom of imprisoned friends. Midanich is a place of great danger and dark secrets - a country at civil war, ruled by a family with madness in its veins. For Alec it is a place of unspeakable memories from which he barely escaped and vowed never to return. But return he must, if he is to save the lives of Emily St. Neots and Sir Cosmo Mahon.

Maple Bishop is ready to put WWII and the grief of losing her husband, Bill, behind her. But when she discovers that Bill left her penniless, Maple realizes she could lose her Vermont home next and sets out to make money the only way she knows how: by selling her intricately crafted dollhouses. Business is off to a good start—until Maple discovers her first customer dead, his body hanging precariously in his own barn.

Train enthusiast Francis Humphreys took his last breath while relatives and neighbors visited downstairs. But if everyone was downstairs, who could have stolen into Uncle Francis's study, killed him, and escaped? Mrs. Jeffries will have to lend her downstairs common sense to this upstairs murder mystery.

The winds of change have brought great joy to Lady Arianna and Saybrook, who have recently welcomed an infant son to their family. They are still adjusting to their new life when a letter arrives from Arianna's dearest friend and former comrade-in-chicanery inviting them to a gala fiftieth birthday celebration in Switzerland. With the blessing of their surgeon friend, they decide to make the trip, only to find themselves once again drawn into a dangerous web of political intrigue that may ignite war throughout Europe.

On a snowy Thursday morning in Lent 1964, a stranger seeks sanctuary in Grantchester’s church, convinced he has murdered his wife. Sidney and his wife Hildegard go for a shooting weekend in the country and find their hostess has a sinister burn on her neck. Sidney’s friend Amanda receives poison pen letters when at last she appears to be approaching matrimony. A firm of removal men 'accidentally' drop a Steinway piano on a musician’s head outside a Cambridge college.