Southern Thrillers

It's early October - time for the Fall Folk Art Festival and Bake Sale in Lilyvale, Arkansas. Every business along the town square will benefit from the event, including the craft store run by Leslee Stanton Nix - a.k.a. Nixy - and the Silver Six, a group of retirees. In charge of making the festival go smoothly, Nixy is confident that it will be a success.

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?

Retired school teacher Patricia Anne has a knack for landing right in the middle of murder investigations, but this time she is fighting to clear the accused. Patricia Anne has been good friends with her neighbor Mitzi for 40 years. She’s surprised when she sees Mitzi’s husband Arthur having lunch at the Hunan Hut with an attractive woman. She’s positively shocked when that same woman drops dead moments later. Then Arthur is accused of murder, their home catches fire, and he gets shot in the butt.

Four years ago, the Eternal Slumber Funeral Home put Chicken Teater in the ground. Now undertaker Emma Lee Raines is digging him back up. The whole scene is bad for business, especially with her granny running for mayor and a big festival setting up in town. But ever since Emma Lee started seeing ghosts, Chicken's been pestering her to figure out who killed him.

It’s Pepper Dunn’s first Thanksgiving in the magical town of Magnolia Cove, Alabama. The entire town is ready to celebrate—except Pepper, who’s still yearning for her boyfriend, Axel Reign, to return. But she has little time to mourn. When a new baker sets up shop across the street from Pepper’s cousin and starts stealing customers, it’s all out war. But when the storeowner ends up murdered and Pepper’s cousin becomes suspect number one, it’s up to Pepper to help.

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.

Even in the chill of February, no place touches Harper McClain's heart like Savannah. She should be walking beneath the historic city's towering oaks, surrounded by graceful mansions. Instead, she's hiding miles away on Tybee Island after a mysterious voice on the phone warned her that someone wanted her dead. The call was too specific to ignore. The caller knew everything about her. But that was months ago, and she's getting tired of being scared.

Michelle (Mickey) Kirk, has studied ballet and modern dance from a young age. Mentored by her mother and immersed in the rigors of practice and performance, Mickey has led a sheltered life. Now she headlines Broadway musicals. However, her dancing career is cut short as her involvement with a Russian mobster and the witnessing of a murder has caused her to flee New York City and find sanctuary in the South. Mickey eventually lands in Tampa, Florida, where she meets Chase Mitchell, a financier, and an ex-Army Special Ops Captain. When the Russians locate Mickey in Tampa, Chase and his highly...

The governor of North Carolina has appointed Deborah to a judicial seat in the District Court Division. On her weekends, the fledgling judge has been helping an all-woman building crew complete a home for a needy single mother. Her attempts to gain positive P.R. go awry when her niece is found battered and half-naked in the partially completed home, with Deborah's own bloody hammer lying nearby.

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.

It’s homecoming weekend in Sugarland, Tennessee, and ghost hunter Verity Long is tickled to see so many souls - living and dead - back in town to celebrate. But not all reunions are happy ones, and when Verity stumbles upon a dead body by the football field, it appears someone has already evened the score. With her long-lost mother in tow and her ghostly sidekick Frankie showing her startling glimpses of a time long past, Verity untangles the secrets and scandal behind her town’s favorite traditions. Even more shocking? The murderer is tracking her.

After elementary school teacher Nichole Miller discovers the woman's body, she makes two phone calls: first to the police, who call Beverly's death a slip and fall, and second to her best friend, journalist Jenny Martin. Jenny is attempting to revive her flailing marriage and her all-but-DOA career, and she knows foul play when she sees it. The two women enlist the help of Beverly’s daughter-in-law, Robin, who’s eager to expose the truth.

In this Black Mirror style series, each Witching Hour 60-minute read takes you on an edge-of-your-seat journey that can be read in a single sitting. In Outward, we follow the life of Robby Boulder, a teenage addict who is forced to attend a new-age, walk-in-the-woods-style rehab. After the death of his father the previous year, he found himself in the throes of addiction. Then, late one evening, he woke up to a figure in his room, shaking him awake. The man dragged him into his van with three other troubled teens, promising salvation for the price of one week in the woods. But, once Robby ...

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.

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.

New Orleans: live music, endless drinks, brightly coloured attractions, the perfect place for a party. The bachelorette begins on a Friday night; all six women are excited for a chance to escape their everyday lives. But then friendly rivalries turn vicious, and a game of truth or dare turns deadly. By the end of the weekend one of them will be dead.

Among the workhouses and pudding shops of South London, Private Detective William Arrowood is presented with far grittier, more violent, and considerably less well-paid cases than Sherlock Holmes. Arrowood has no doubt who is the better detective, and when Mr. and Mrs. Barclay engage him to find their estranged daughter, Birdie, he’s sure it won’t be long before he and his assistant, Barnett, have tracked her down.

Mail carrier Bernadette (Bernie) Butler, along with the Front Porch Ladies, are curious about their new neighbor, Courtney Gaines, who is the niece of Florence Gaines, the wealthiest widow in Sugar Creek Gap. Florence lets it be known that she is seeing Zeke Grey, which doesn't set well with the Front Porch Ladies. They were all in competition for Zeke's attention. While delivering the mail, Bernie overhears what could be the couple's first marital spat. When Florence turns up dead in mulch, Bernie can't help but want to get involved.

The Phantom of the Pavilion by K. A. Wijeratne In the crumbling cricket ground of Maduwila, whispers from the past refuse to fade. When jaded sports journalist Laki Perera stumbles upon a half-forgotten scandal buried beneath the lush spin of Sri Lankan cricket, he finds himself haunted—literally—by the ghost of Ranjith "Rana" Abeysekera, a prodigious spinner whose mysterious death decades ago was written off as disgrace. As Laki joins forces with his estranged daughter Madhavi and fiery investigative reporter Shyamali Peiris, the trio uncover a tangled web of match-fixing, political ...

Alexandra Barnaby got the brains in her family. The little gray cells certainly bypassed Barney’s younger brother, Wild Bill. Truth is, Alex has been bailing her brother out of trouble since they were kids. Not that Bill's a bad sort. More that he acts first and thinks later. Unfortunately, this time around, Wild Bill will be Dead Bill if Alex doesn't find him in time.