Holiday Mystery Thriller

Meg's husband has decided to escalate his one-man show of Dickens's A Christmas Carol into a full-scale production with a large cast including their sons Jamie and Josh as Tiny Tim and young Scrooge and Meg helping as stage manager. When a famous, although slightly over-the-hill, actor comes to town to play the starring role of Scrooge, no one expects that he's bringing a lot of baggage and enemies with him.

My name is Lou Prescott. I was born in South Carolina but spent most of my life in Northern Minnesota. Since the death of my husband, I've found myself at loose ends, so when my niece offered to sell me the quaint seaside bookstore she owned in Holiday Bay, Maine, I jumped at the opportunity to restart my life somewhere new. My journey to date has been a bit rocky but my rescue cat Toby and I are making it work.

It's Christmas time in Caerphilly, and the town is preparing for their live nativity. During rehearsals, Meg discovers a real baby in the manger, with a note attached that says the mother is leaving the baby girl there so that her father can take care of her, and the wording of the note implicates Meg's brother, Rob, as the father. Rob protests that he can't possibly be the father, but the town's suspicion creates a rift between him and his new girlfriend. Rob asks Meg to investigate on his behalf‚ to clear his name and to find the real parents of the baby.

Some say that casting crusty attorney Allen Sharpe as Scrooge in the Kindred Players production of A Christmas Carol is just playing to type. He's not the most beloved man in town. In fact, you'd have a dickens of a time finding someone who liked him. Still, it's a shock when the Ghost of Christmas Past stabs him during the first rehearsal. Suzanne, the co-owner of the Cackleberry Club Cafe (Kindred's favorite combination diner, craft store, and bookshop), chases the murderer out of the building but loses him in the alley. As the days pass, the list of suspects grows longer.

Identical twin sisters Alex and Hannah are the owners of Murder and Mayhem, a mystery bookshop that sells their famous poison-themed Killer Chocolates. But now, there’s a real killer in their midst. Shortly before Christmas, their septuagenarian neighbor, Jane, confides to Alex that a murderer from a true-crime show has taken up residence in the village. Unfortunately, she’s also shared her suspicions with town gossip Netta. The next morning, Alex shows up at Jane’s house to watch the show, but instead she discovers Jane's body, with a box of Killer Chocolates nearby.

Boxes of delicious chocolates and roses by the dozen are aplenty in the small town of Paramour Bay as Valentine's Day approaches, but all is not so rosy in Raven Marigold's life when a simple love enchantment goes horribly awry. You see, the affection spell is only meant to affect one recipient...not the entire town! Things for Raven go from bad to worse when small fires begin to break out all around town, causing damages to the local shops and homes alike.

Ruth loves her life in London—she has a high-powered career and a handsome and successful fiancé. This Christmas, she’s bringing him back to her home town to meet her family and school friends, one of whom, Holly Murphy, has a new baby. But, as the Christmas Eve party is in full swing, the unthinkable happens—Ruth drops the baby, injuring the little boy. Or did she? Ruth becomes convinced she didn’t cause the baby’s injuries, that they were inflicted before the party, that the Murphys are not the lovely family they appear to be.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

When Detective Kate Rosetti is startled awake in the middle of the night by a phone call from her mother, she knows it’s not good news. It turns out Kate’s father, the notorious Angelo Rosetti, is missing. There are no witnesses and no leads, and with only a week to go before Christmas, Kate hopes to find her father before the New Year. As Kate begins the hunt for her father, she gets another case added to her plate at the precinct.

Lumi's life is thrust into seasonal overdrive as throngs of visitors make their way to her family's reindeer sanctuary, eager to sip hot cocoa and visit with Santa's retired fleet. Rumors are swirling that she might be getting a shiny new diamond ring in her stocking this year, but Lumi isn't so sure. If anything, Prince Corbin seems to be giving her the cold shoulder, leaving her to wonder if she's headed for holiday heartbreak instead.

The five of us have been friends since we were children. We think we know every scar, every secret, every story. But by the third night, one of us will be dead. How far will we go to keep our secrets hidden? And when does being close to someone start becoming dangerous?

OVER-THE-TOP INSTA-LOVE LIKE YOU'VE NEVER SEEN . . . FOR THE HOLIDAYS! He shows up in a black cape and iron-studded boots that look a hundred years old. He's got a daughter but doesn't know her mother. He doesn't know me either . . . So then why is he looking at me like that? Looking at me like I'm his . . . His Halloween treat. Sweetness and darkness rolled into one. No cheating. No cliffhangers. Guaranteed HEA. Over-the-top with drama, madness, steam . . . and a few scares! This is insta-love, Annabelle Winters style. WHAT AMAZON AND GOODREADS REVIEWERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE CURVY ...

Roasted chestnuts from vendor’s carts, fresh-cut spruce trees lining the sidewalks, extravagant gifts, opulent dinners, carols at St Patrick’s Cathedral, a warm meal, and a few of minutes shelter from the cold at one of the charitable food lines. It’s Christmas in Gilded Age Manhattan. And for the first time ever an amazing giant ball will drop along a rod on the roof of the New York Times building to ring in the New Year. Everyone plans to attend the event. But the murder of a prominent newsman hits a little too close to home.

Enjoy the holiday season with three festive mysteries set in coastal Maine. This anthology includes "Yule Log Murder" by Leslie Meier, "Death by Yule Log" by Lee Hollis, and "Logged On" by Barbara Ross.

The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times best-selling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.

Stephanie Plum is back in town, along with her sidekick Lula, her Grandma Mazur, and an ever-widening cast of freaks, criminals, deranged felons, and lunatics looking for love. And just when Stephanie thinks her life can't get any more complicated, in walks the mysterious Diesel. A man who seems to show up at the most inconvenient moments.

This year, Juniper has invited most of Crescent Cove to her Thanksgiving feast. Even that annoying Detective Mallard and his gang of ducklings. The mansion is decorated. The table is set. The cooks (both living and ghostly) are trying new recipes. Everything is perfect until someone ends up face-down in the pecan pie.

It is a chilly winter season in North Carolina with Hope and her daughter Cori getting ready for the holidays. As she faces her first Christmas without her husband, Hope continues to search for the person responsible for her resident ghost's century-old murder. After interviewing a descendant of one of the suspects, trouble begins to brew with a false accusation, an unusual gift, and an unpleasant surprise. Will Hope be able to figure out what's going on without putting her own life in danger?

It's that time of year again! It's always Christmas in Holiday Haven, but this December is a special one. Carolyn Highcrest is preparing for her parents to visit for the inn's annual celebration . . . and to finally meet her boyfriend, Spencer. But when a mysterious package thief strikes the local postal service, Carol finds herself compelled to help Spencer find the culprit. Someone seems intent on ruining the holiday fun, with presents disappearing left and right and a spate of bad luck, which reminds Carol of the havoc the previous year wreaked by an out-of-control wishing box.

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.