New Releases For The Week of August 8th, 2021–Part 1

A murderer’s out to spoil Hayley’s honeymoon in national bestselling author Lucy Burdette’s eleventh Key West Food Critic Mystery.

Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow and her groom, police detective Nathan Bransford, chose Scotland for their long-delayed honeymoon, hoping to sightsee and enjoy some prize-winning scones. But their romantic duo swells to a crowd when they’re joined by Nathan’s family as well as octogenarian Miss Gloria.

Nathan’s sister Vera takes the women on a whirlwind tour of some of Scotland’s iconic mystic places as research for a looming book project. But the trip takes a deadly tartan turn when a dinner party guest falls ill and claims she was poisoned. And then the group watches in horror as a mysterious tourist tumbles to his death from the famous Falkirk Wheel, high above the Forth & Clyde canal.

Vera and her friends deny knowing the dead man, but after observing their reactions to the fall, Hayley is not convinced. With one person dead, a second possibly poisoned, and the tension among Vera’s friends as thick as farmhouse cheese, Hayley fears her long-awaited honeymoon might end with another murder.

Far away from home, surrounded by unfamiliar faces, eccentric characters, and a forbiddingly gorgeous setting, Hayley must call on all her savvy to keep a killer from striking again and then escaping Scot free. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audiobook

The follow-up to Murder in Chianti finds ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle recruited by Italian authorities to investigate the murder of a prominent wine critic.
One year after moving to his late wife’s Tuscan hometown of Gravigna, ex-NYPD detective Nico Doyle has fully settled into Italian country life, helping to serve and test recipes at his in-laws’ restaurant.
 
But the town is shaken by the arrival of wine critic Michele Mantelli in his flashy Jaguar. Mantelli holds his influential culinary magazine and blog over Gravigna’s vintners and restaurateurs. Some of Gravigna’s residents are impressed by his reputation, while others are enraged—especially Nico’s landlord, whose vineyards Mantelli seems intent of ruining.
 
Needless to say, Mantelli’s lavish, larger-than-life, and often vindictive personality has made him many enemies, and when he is poisoned, the local maresciallo, Perillo, has a headache of a high-profile murder on his hands—and once again turns to Nico for help. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover Audiobook

The next shot from Cupid’s bow may be fatal in USA Today bestselling, Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron’s hearty and delightful seventh Cajun Country mystery.

In Pelican, Louisiana, Valentine’s Day has a way of warming the heart, despite the February chill. But the air at Crozat Plantation B&B turns decidedly frigid when celebrity chef Phillippe Chanson checks in. And when the arrogant Phillippe–in town to open his newest Cajun-themed restaurant–perishes in a fiery boat crash, Maggie Crozat’s dear friend JJ lands in very cold water.

Did JJ, proprietor of Junie’s Oyster Bar and Dance Hall, murder Phillippe because he feared the competition? Might Maggie’s mother, Ninette, have bumped off the chef for stealing one of her cherished recipes? Or was the culprit a local seafood vendor, miffed because Phillippe was somehow able to sell oysters for a remarkably reasonable price, despite an oyster shortage?

Maggie had planned to devote her February to art lessons in New Orleans, a present from her sweetheart, Bo. But now she has to focus on helping her friend and her mother cross a murder charge off the menu. Meanwhile, Maggie receives a series of anonymous gifts that begin as charming but grow increasingly disturbing. Does Maggie have an admirer–or a stalker? And are these mysterious gifts somehow related to Phillippe’s murder?

Blood may be thicker than water, but this case is thicker than gumbo. And solving it will determine whether Maggie gets hearts and roses–or hearse and lilies–this Valentine’s Day. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover

Molly Pink and the Tarzana Hookers must unwind a fiendish skein in national bestselling author Betty Hechtman’s fourteenth Crochet mystery.

These are the dog days of August, but you won’t catch the Tarzana Hookers crochet club napping. While Molly Pink knits together an idea for a new project, Miami Wilson busily converts a house she inherited into a rental property. But Miami is left shorthanded when Sloan Renner, the woman helping her clean out the house ends up dead under a pile of smelly seafood.

A large drone had flown over the property discarding mollusk shells all over the backyard. Was it an accident? An ill-fated prank by neighbors up in arms about a rental house in their cul-de-sac? Witnesses clam up when Molly’s ex, homicide detective Barry Greenberg, tries to get information, but he thinks Molly may be able to get them to open up to her.

When Molly learns about Sloan’s seafood allergy, she suspects that the woman’s death was no accident. Can she bait the hook to catch the culprit, or will the killer keep raising shell? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover

A murder at the flower shop.
An uncle suspected by the cops.
Savanna and her sisters are on the case.

Savanna Shepherd, a former art authenticator turned grade school art teacher, is delighted when her Uncle Max and Uncle Freddie move to Carson. Uncle Max takes a job at Libby’s Blooms, where Savanna teaches a still life painting class for adults. But one morning, Uncle Max finds a dead body in the rooftop greenhouse…and even worse, it looks like an inside job.

Savanna and her sisters—Skylar, a lawyer, and Sydney, the owner of a pet shop and grooming salon—dig in to find the real murderer. With their connections to the community and Savanna’s keen eye for details, they uncover longstanding resentments and horticultural clues. Meanwhile, Savanna’s dating local doctor Aidan Gallager, but she worries it’ll cause a scandal, since his daughter is in her class. As Savanna’s investigation leads her into thorny situations, the killer may be arranging another murder: her own.

This cozy mystery includes a free original Hallmark recipe for Chocolate Pecan Brownies. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook

A puzzling murder at a historic Beaux Arts hotel sets the stage for a mesmerizing mystery, tailor-made for fans of Louise Penny.

The opulent furnishings and period theming of Hotel 1911 invite guests to experience the charm of the early 20th century. But for hotel clerk Ivy Nichols, the mansion also harbors secrets about her past and the family she never knew. When the Pittsburgh chapter of the Association for Gravestone Studies checks in for their national conference, Ivy is intrigued to learn that one of them has connections to her family.

The group plans to kick off their event by touring the historic graves thought to be on the hotel grounds. But they didn’t plan to find one of their fellow members strangled to death afterwards. The police point the finger at the hotel’s loyal manager, Mr. Fig, since no one else could have reached the victim’s room. Ivy has other ideas. She believes Mr. Fig is innocent, and desperately wants to prove it. The inexplicable appearance of strange drawings, an old book, and a wig lead Ivy to a bizarre connection between the grave-obsessed guests and the murder. And when Mr. Fig confesses a long-held secret, Ivy fears she has put herself in the sights of not only the murderer but another dangerous criminal too. Who else had the opportunity to commit the crime? And is Mr. Fig all he seems to be?

Amidst a growing list of suspects with secrets of their own, and an unraveling riddle from her past, Ivy is in a race to catch a killer–and decipher a truth more earth-shattering than she could have imagined. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audiobook

Bookstore owner Erin Coleridge seeks the scoundrel who silenced a conference’s keynote speaker in Elizabeth Blake’s second charming Jane Austen Society mystery.

When the quaint English town of York hosts a Jane Austen Society conference, bookseller Erin Coleridge is glad to get out of Kirkbymoorside for a while–until featured speaker Barry Wolf suddenly perishes from what appears to be a heart attack.

Erin is suspicious, since Barry had no history of heart disease. But who did him in? Was it the decedent’s assistant, Stephen, who was observed chatting to Barry’s young wife Luca earlier that night? Might it have been Barry’s ex-wife Judith, who was seen arguing with her erstwhile betrothed at the bar? Meanwhile, conference co-chairs Hetty and Prudence have been at one another’s throat since the conference. Is one of them the culprit?

Matters of the heart are putting Erin off her guard. Both Detective Inspector Peter Hemming and schoolteacher Jonathan Alder have made gestures of romantic interest, but Erin isn’t sure who is her Willoughby and who is her Colonel Brandon. DI Hemming tries to persuade Erin that her entanglement in the murder investigation is far from sensible, but his entreaties come to naught. Dauntlessly, Erin joins forces with Kirkbymoorside’s cat lady, Farnsworth, to ferret out the guilty party. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle. Hardcover

Sarah Fox continues her USA Today bestselling series with a delicious new cozy mystery set around the Flip Side pancake house in the quirky beach town of Wildwood Cove—a treat for fans of culinary cozies by Joanne Fluke. 

Murder is on the menu in the latest Pancake House Mystery, as a treasure trove of old letters spurs a killer to take some unsavory action. . . .

This summer, Wildwood Cove is hosting a special event, Wild West Days, to celebrate the town’s storied past. Wildwood Cove’s museum is also getting a new lease of life thanks to a longtime resident’s generous bequest. Several locals, including Marley McKinney-Collins, owner of the Flip Side pancake house, offer to transfer artifacts to the beautiful restored Victorian that will become the museum’s home. But there’s an unappetizing development when a volunteer, Jane Fassbinder, is found dead—bludgeoned with an antique clothes iron.

Marley can never resist a piping hot mystery, and this one seems especially intriguing. Jane had recently unearthed some love letters from the Jack of Diamonds, a notorious thief who plagued Wildwood Cove over a century ago. As more locals meet with dangerous “accidents,” it seems that someone is determined to keep that correspondence buried deep in the past. And unless Marley can sift through the likely suspects, she too could end up being nothing but history. . . .

Includes pancake recipes right from the Flip Side menu!

Praise for Sarah Fox’s Wine and Punishment

“Readers will cheer this brisk, literate addition to the world of small-town cozies.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Hits all the right notes—a unique setting, friends and family, an intriguing mystery, and even the promise of romance.”
—Sofie Ryan, New York Times bestselling author of the Second Chance Cat mysteries.

“Draws readers into the fold of suspects in Shady Creek and doesn’t let go until the culprit is uncovered. There are laugh-out-loud moments, hold-your-breath moments, and moments when you’ll think you have the mystery figured out, but the surprises keep coming!”
—USA Today bestselling author Amy M. Reade (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

When Joanna Coffee’s ex, Detective Quentin Perry, is promoted to interim chief of police, Jo thinks she won’t have to deal with him anymore and can just focus on running her coffee shop. She couldn’t be more wrong. Quentin approaches her with an old case involving a man on death row—a man Quentin believes is innocent. 

Jo can’t resist getting involved when it’s a person’s life on the line. But there might not be enough espresso or evidence to help her solve this fourteen-year-old murder before it’s too late. 

Fans of Joanne Fluke will enjoy this culinary cozy mystery series.

Scroll up and one-click to start reading today! (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback

Early summer, Portland, Maine… Eleven months after young policewoman Dee Rommel’s mysterious and life-altering on-the-job injury. Her medical leave is nearly up, and the Police Department and her ex-training officer, newly-single Detective Donato, expect her to reinstate. But her decision is postponed when she’s challenged to step in for her godfather – private investigator Gordy Greer – to investigate the disappearance of a brilliant high-tech heiress, Lucy Claren, who has announced hasty wedding plans that could derail her father’s empire. Life is further complicated when Dee’s good friend, Karla, is physically assaulted by a sadist that Dee had helped put behind bars. Newly released, he decides to turn his sights on justice-driven Dee, making it his personal mission to ensure her failure – and demise. Dee dangerously navigates through the two worlds of crime – determined to survive them both… in just ten days. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback

The death of Gabriel Rhodes on Halloween night sent a shock through the Santa Fe Goth community. Three months later, the fallout continues.

Ellen Rosings is too busy for dead bodies. With a wedding to plan, a move to organize, and business at the Wisteria Tearoom ramping up for Valentine’s Day, the last thing she needs is another corpse to deal with. She is far more interested in solving the murder of Captain Dusenberry over a hundred years ago than in finding fresh victims.

Alas, her plans are doomed to disruption. A body appears, and this time not only is it someone she knew…the evidence points to a member of the tearoom’s staff.

This cozy mystery is the eighth in the Wisteria Tearoom Mysteries series. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

Saying nothing in return, Reed listened as the phone cut out, the forest returning to relative silence around them.

His hands still cupping the underside of his partner’s face, he tilted his own down to match it, feeling the damp warmth of her fur against his skin.

“This girl just saved my ass,” he whispered. “That’s what the hell happened.”   

For the past two months, Detective Reed Mattox and his K-9 partner Billie were in limbo. Victims of their own success, they were plucked from their post on the graveyard shift at the 8th Precinct and thrust into a newly created role working with the governor’s office when a young woman is shot down outside her front door.

Immediately written off by some in the small town as nothing more than a tragic hunting accident, closer examination proves it to not just be a murder but an execution. A very pointed and deliberate killing Reed fears may be the start of things as he and his partner begin unraveling what is behind such a heinous act.

Motivations stretching back several years, pulling them across much of the state and placing them both in harm’s way as they’ve never experience before…(Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback

A heartwarming cozy mystery series about losing everything, taking a chance, and starting again. After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn’t seem to convince to leave, and a new family she’d never be able to live without.

In book 16 in the series, Abby is offered the chance to participate in an author event being held at Firehouse Books with one of her own favorite authors. When the guest author turns up dead, Abby realizes that clues to the author’s death could be found in the new novel the woman had yet to release. Using her own sleuthing skills, Abby jumps into the investigation after it becomes clear that it just might take an author to find the meaning in the pages.

Meanwhile it is weeks before Halloween and the inn is filled with guests looking for a spooky weekend retreat. Join Abby, Georgia, Jeremy, Nikki, and Mylie as they host a series of events designed to provide thrills and chills to all who dare to venture within. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback

From USA Today bestselling author Leslie Langtry comes a killer summer camping trip!

In her career as a spy, Merry Wrath had her share of camping trips—from glamping in a yurt at Oktoberfest with drug lord Carlos the Armadillo to an awkward team building campout in the backyard of a Yakuza mob boss who thought “trust falls” should have lethal consequences. So when the former CIA turned Girl Scout troop leader has the opportunity to take six girls from her troop into a vast, private nature preserve in search of an abandoned scout camp, she jumps at it. The fact that she can secretly use this as a chance to meet up with another spy who has asked for her help just seems to be an added bonus.

Of course she doesn’t expect to find a guy named Chad in a shallow grave. He’s still alive, at least for the moment, and he insists on accompanying them further into the woods. Merry’s contact is a no-show, but another, more dangerous colleague surprises them on the trail. And just when she thinks she might be able to handle things, the group find themselves confronted by a hostile group of senior citizen hermits.

From the strange noises in the night, to vampire ticks, and the constant fear of being invaded by Communists, everything in Merry’s world appears to be dangerously off kilter. When she’s accosted by a 200lb snapping turtle named Old Eisenhower, Merry realizes that not everything is what it appears to be. Can Merry figure it out who is behind the stranger occurrences before the camping trip ends up with a body count?

Merry Wrath Mysteries:
Merit Badge Murder – book #1
Mint Cookie Murder – book #2
Scout Camp Mystery – short story in the “Killer Beach Reads” collection
Marshmallow S’More Murder – book #3
Movie Night Murder – book #4
Mud Run Murder – book #5
Fishing Badge Murder – short story in the “Pushing Up Daisies” collection
Motto for Murder – book #6
Map Skills Murder – book #7
Mean Girl Murder – book #8
Marriage Vow Murder – book #9
Mystery Night Murder – book #10
Meerkats and Murder– book #11
Make Believe Murder – book #12
Maltese Vulture Murder – book #13
Musket Ball Murder – book #14
Macho Man Murder – book #15
Mad Money Murder – book #16
Mind-Bending Murder – book #17
Mascots Are Murder – book #18
Mosquito Bite Murder – book #19

What critics are saying about Leslie Langtry’s books:

“I laughed so hard I cried on multiple occasions! Girl Scouts, the CIA, and the Yakuza… what could possibly go wrong?”
~ Fresh Fiction

“Darkly funny and wildly over the top, this mystery answers the burning question, ‘Do assassin skills and Girl Scout merit badges mix…?'”
~ RT BOOKreviews

“Mixing a deadly sense of humor and plenty of sexy sizzle, Leslie Langtry creates a brilliantly original, laughter-rich mix of contemporary romance and suspense.”
~ Chicago Tribune

“Langtry gets the fun started from page one.”
~ Publisher’s Weekly (Amazon0

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

There’s a new dog groomer in Cottonwood Springs, and Brigid’s delighted! No more taking her dogs, Jett and Lucky, to an out-of-town groomer.

But there are a few problems, like broken statues, dug-up plants, and a very bad word written on a window.
Joss, the owner of Happy Paws Grooming, thinks it’s probably just the work of neighborhood kids and doesn’t want to pursue it. But what if it isn’t? What if someone has more sinister plans in store for the groomer?

Brigid becomes concerned not only for the safety of the groomer, but also for the neighbors, because the more she and Sheriff Davis discover, the more certain they are that someone intends to seriously harm the groomer.
During their investigation, they uncover family feuds, revenge for a dog being too friendly, and a person seriously depressed from the death of her mother.

Then when Brigid plans a baby shower for her good friend, Missy, and the mother-to-be goes into labor during it, life becomes a little more hectic than she’d planned!

If you like to feel good at the end of a book and like a good cozy mystery with dogs and recipes, this one’s for you.
This is the 16th book in the Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery Series by a USA Today Bestselling Author. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle