New Releases For The Week Of July 17th, 2022–Part 1

Dickens of a Christmas turns deadly…

As the holiday season lights up Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece’s beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition—a peppermint bark-off—along with Victorian costumes for this year’s Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend’s brother for the first time.

But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny’s wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper’s mind. Who would want to hurt Beth? Or were they looking for Vinny instead?

The vicious attack upsets everyone at Pike Place, but none more than Pepper’s own employee, Matt Kemp. At first, Pepper is baffled by his reaction, but his clandestine connection to Beth could hold the key to the assailant’s motive. Or perhaps it’s Vinny’s ex-wife who knows more than she’s letting on . . . and what about the mysterious top-hatted man with whom Pepper saw Beth arguing that morning?

As the secrets of the market come to light, long-held grudges, family ties, and hidden plans only further obscure the truth. Is it a ghost of the past rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge with more earthly motives? As Pepper chases down a killer, someone is chasing her, and in the end, the storied market itself may hold the final, deadly clue.

A cozy holiday mystery full of culinary delights and a rich cast of characters, the sixth installment in the Spice Shop Mystery series will keep you turning the page . . . and reaching for another piece of peppermint bark.  (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

I see ghosts, but I do my best to ignore them.
When Eddie Cayce turned home to New Orleans from her carefully built Seattle life, it’s not just for her grandmother’s funeral. She’s home to stay. More to the point, now that she’s broken it off with the almost fiancé and quit her corporate junior designer position over one too many trainings on how to run a copier, she has no reason to return.

With the money she’ll receive in her inheritance, she can finally open the antique store she’s always dreamed of – that as long as her ability to see ghosts stays dormant. In Seattle, her gift had dwindled down to seeing the occasional ghost during her morning runs in her Queen Anne neighborhood. But here? New Orleans is filled with the visitors, as her grandmother always called them. And now, they are finding Eddie and want to chat. Especially about the most recent murder.

Can Eddie carve out a real life here among the spirit world? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

The last time Hannah and Razzy tried to take a relaxing vacation, things didn’t turn out exactly how they planned. Now, the crew is ready to try again. Will they get their week of fun in the sun or will their sleuthing skills be put to the test? After all, lightning never strikes twice. Right? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

An accident that’s not an accident. Perilous pizza. A pug who knows too much…
No one believes Celia Spalt when she gets up at the Storytelling Tent and tells everyone she once witnessed a murder. After all, Celia’s an old lady, and her mind’s on the way out.
But when she unexpectedly dies, Rosie begins to wonder if there could be something more to her story. Celia lived at Sandcastle Village, a gated community that’s supposed to keep its residents safe from the world. But only a month before, Joe Porter slipped, fell and also died.
Could he have been murdered? Possibly. After all, he was the most hated person in the village…
This story’s got it all: pizza clues, a rambunctious pug, and an annual Trash and Treasure sale where no one knows the difference between trash and treasure!
Cape Carson is back with all the usual crowd: librarian Kim Chen, hot cop Todd Parker, and super sassy grandmother Nan Ryan. Oh, and Trixie the beagle. She’s possibly the only one who’s not barking mad!
The Rosie Ryan Mysteries are cozy, clean, fun traditional mysteries that can be enjoyed by young and old alike. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle

In the spirit of Lisa Jewell and Kate Morton, an emotional mystery set in the rugged remote landscape of north Cornwall full of dark secrets and twists, about three unusual sisters forced to confront the past.


Some secrets need to be set free…

When half-sisters Kat, Flora, and Lauren are unexpectedly summoned to Rock Point, their wild and remote Cornish summer home, it’s not a welcome invitation. They haven’t been back since that fateful summer twenty years ago—a summer they’re desperate to forget.
 
But when they arrive, it’s clear they’re not alone. Someone is lurking in the shadows, watching their every move. Someone who remembers exactly what they did…

Will the sisters be able to protect the dark past of Rock Point? Or are some secrets too powerful to remain under lock and key? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audibook

Wedding PlotUSA Today bestselling author Paula Munier’s fourth Mercy Carr mystery, finds Mercy and Elvis at a deadly Vermont wedding.

Love never dies a natural death…

When Mercy’s grandmother Patience marries her longtime beau Claude Renault at the five-star Lady’s Slipper Inn, it promises to be the destination wedding of the year. Just as the four-day extravaganza is due to begin, the inn’s spa director Bodhi St. George disappears—and Mercy’s mother Grace sends Mercy and Elvis to find him. But what they discover instead is a stranger skewered by a pitchfork in the barn on the goat farm where St. George lived.

As Mercy tries to figure out who the victim is and where St. George is hiding, the bride and groom’s estranged relations gather for the first of the pre-wedding festivities. Long-buried rivalries and resentments surface—and Mercy realizes that they’re all keeping secrets that could tear both families apart. When Elvis interrupts the escalating melodrama to alert Mercy to an intruder on the estate, she finds a wounded St. George in the cottage where she and Troy are staying. St. George is not who he says he is—but when he escapes from the hospital and disappears again, Mercy thinks he’s gone for good. With the wedding imminent and the families at each other’s throats, she decides finding St. George will have to wait.

The big day arrives—but the danger is far from over. With the families and the festivities still under threat, it’s up to Mercy and Elvis together with Troy and Susie Bear to stop the killer and save the bride and groom—before death do they part. (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Hardcover, Audiobook

Thrift shop til someone drops…

A mysterious mansion, an island lost in the fog… And a wedding filled with recycled decor.

Jessica Braun is leaving her thrift store in her teen neighbor’s care and heading to Lake Superior for the weekend. Even a trip down memory lane with her ex-husband can’t ruin this Fourth of July.

Until tragedy strikes the happy couple, and the bridge is closed—trapping Jess and the other guests on the island with a murderer.

How will Jess work through the clues, and her past, before the coming storm? (Amazon)

Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback