Southern Cozy

Fear. Anguish. Heartbreak. Selfless love. Ultimate sacrifice. All in less than a minute. Sometimes that’s all there is. Adam Manning arrives at the crime scene and quickly sees that not everything is as it seems. Neither is he. If you enjoy clean mystery romance and inspirational women’s fiction filled with love, hope, family, new and old friendships, and a mystery to keep you guessing, Stay With Me is the series collection for you. This is Book Five of the eight-part Stay With Me mystery romance novella series. Book 5 of 8.

Someone had a secret to kill for. Now the secret keeper is dead, and the Book of Secrets is missing. Grief turns to fear and suspicion as six childhood friends try to protect their secrets and avoid the consequences of choices they made years ago. The task of protecting their lives falls to Millicent Anderson, philosophy professor turned sleuth. To complete her task, Millicent must find the book, expose the secrets, and identify the killer with little help and much resistance from the friends she is trying to protect, one of whom may be the killer.

Family…however close or distantly connected…is still family. And no one knows that better than the many members of the McAdams family. Few understand the vast implications that come with a large extended family as Drew McAdams does…and especially now. His brothers and sisters are also beginning to understand just how complicated it can be now that the four of them are responsible for the equally vast and extensive McAdams Trust. The headaches have only just begun. Life as they knew it will never be the same. Drew McAdams strongly suspects that if another call or message comes into his...

SOPHIE O’DAY IS TERRIFIED. A budding young nurse in Post Depression Southeast Missouri, Sophie fears repeating a tragic mistake—at the expense of another life. Sy Hawkins has given up all hope of a career in radio and moved to rural Missouri to care for his aging uncle and tend to the old fellow’s goat farm. Sy’s only focus is on this man to whom he feels he owes everything. When an accident occurs, and Uncle Joe’s life is in jeopardy, the elderly man makes a decision that will affect both Sophie and Sy. Can they pull together in a common quest to make his wish come true before ...

Just when Pepper Dunn starts accepting her ability to communicate with animals, she’s thrown for a loop - an egg containing a baby dragon winds up on her doorstep. Convinced the creature will grow up to become a destructive force of nature, Pepper gives the dragon to the first person interested in buying - a traveling magician named Mysterio, who claims he can communicate with the dead.

It’s 1985, and I’ve totally been framed for murder. Amy Sullivan here, aspiring photographer, about to start my new life in small town Georgia with a new job at a Kodak Kiosk and a potential new boyfriend who’s a total fox. My award-winning photographer aunt has even agreed to mentor me. I mean, like, my life is so choice. How lucky can I get? But, psych, nothing’s going as planned. Turns out Aunt Marge is a mega lush who’s retired and wastes her days chain-smoking Virginia Slims while watching soap operas. And my new bodacious hunk? Completely bogus. I’m talking stud to total ...

SWITCH BACK is a novella (about 1/3 of a full-length novel, about 4-5 times longer than a short story) and takes place prior to BOARD STIFF (Elliott Lisbon Mystery #1). After inheriting an entire town, Ballantyne Foundation Director, Elliott Lisbon, travels to Texas to thank them. She quickly learns they don’t want her gratitude, they want their town back. And they’re willing to kill for it. Trapped in a small town full of big suspects, Elliott must unlock their secrets, or she’ll never get out alive. Now doesn’t that sound like fun? Read the whole series and gets even better. - - -...

Sheriff Gus knows it’s going to be a bad week when he sees Sedric Hedgecock’s breathalyzer score. With a blood alcohol level of 0.62 percent, Hedgecock should be dead. If the breathalyzer’s isn’t on the fritz, Hedgecock’s superhuman. Either way, he’s blind drunk, so off to the county jail he goes. Joining the wannabe Bacchus in Gus’s cells is Jennifer Louis Bachman, awaiting extradition to Kansas on a murder charge. The victim in question is Jennifer’s unborn child, and the murder weapon is an illegal Mexican abortion. With the governor vacillating on whether to extradite, ...

All Mel and Dana wanted was a weekend break... Mel and Dana take a long weekend break with the family on a Lake Erie island, or so they planned. Things just never seem to work out as they plan because crime follows them everywhere. Will they ever get a break? Probably not, but maybe Mel will find the career spark that's been missing for a while. This is a short story featuring Mel and Dana that takes place sometime after Book 12 of the Morelville Mysteries series. You don't need to have read the series to enjoy this story, but it will certainly help you understand Mel and her motivations. ...

Daelin High School alumni are returning to Daelin for a mega-reunion involving five graduating classes. Those grads who left Daelin for better opportunities than were available in their small Georgia town are often called the diaspora, the scattered ones. The first alum taken is Captain Riley McDonough’s high school crush, Lucy Hendrickson. Riley and Daelin PD’s finest are on the case, including Dorie MacAvoy, former reporter turned Liaison Officer. However, Dorie and Ross’s pregnancy teeters precariously on viability. Will Dorie and Ross’s child survive? Which alum will be abducted...

A disappearing body. Hidden magical talents. An adorable mind-reading dog. And small-town secrets . . . Addie James’s life imploded when she discovered her fiancé cheating and got downsized from her biotech job. So she left Silicon Valley for the haven of her Aunt Kate’s tea and apothecary shop in the peaceful mountain town of Stargaze. There, she plans to take a deep breath and figure out what’s next. But when Addie reaches Stargaze, there’s no trace of her aunt. Until one night, Aunt Kate’s lifeless body shows up and then disappears from the locked shop. And that’s when ...

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery fifty miles from Gull Island. Her body was found in a graveyard and most believe she was the fourth victim of the Silk Stalking Strangler, a mass murderer credited with killing thirteen women over a ten-month period from 1964 to 1965.

Andy Buckland isn't thrilled when sexpot celebrity chef Lacy L' Amour decides to open a competing ethnic restaurant in small-town Beaverton...right across the street from Andy's pasta shop, the Bowtie Angel. And, matters heat up when L' Amour sets her sights on both Andy's customers and her man, Malcolm Jones, who has been acting strange lately. But, all of that pales in comparison when Andy’s long-lost daughter is suspected of arson. Suddenly the town’s outrage reaches a rapid boil, and the future of the Buckland-Rosetti clan is about to go up in flames.

Some people dream of a gentle retirement enjoying crochet or cricket, but for two sexagenarians, a more cadaverous future awaits… Newly retired teachers, Etta and Dora, take a walk along an old mule track connecting their mountain-top villages, each hoping to soothe the distress she feels at the paltry pension she will receive. Meeting at the fabled Witches’ Cave, they put aside their woes – the naked body of Sibilla, Castelmezzano’s beautiful witch, lies dead at the foot of the old oak tree. Did she plummet from the sky during a Sabbath flight as the superstitious locals are ...

Title: The Quilt That Talked Series: The Stitch & Sleuth Society – Book 5 Author: Lydia Cotton When a vintage quilt is donated to The Cozy Thimble, Ruby and her friends expect to display a charming piece of Sweetwater Falls history. Instead, they find a fresh bloodstain in the center of the folded fabric—and a mystery decades in the making. The Stitch & Sleuth Society is back, and this time, the clues are stitched right into the seams. As Ruby, Bea, Maude, Tilda, and the rest of the crew piece together the puzzle, they unravel more than just fabric. Family secrets, forged identities, ...

Jewel Mantelle is just beginning to get used to the humidity in her new Southern home on Sophia Island, when Turtle Season opens way too early. At least, it's too early according to her friends with Turtle Trackers. Is it a true sea turtle nest found on a stormy April morning? Not likely, when a body is eventually discovered buried where the eggs should be.

Andy Buckland is no stranger to TV. The worst moment of her career happened when a live studio audience got food poisoning from one of her dishes. But when the pasta guru is given a slot in the televised cooking competition Diced Showdown, she sees her chance at redemption. In exchange for the shot at vindication, Andy and her fiancé, Malcolm Jones, are tasked to find the identity of a mysterious blogger who has a nasty habit of revealing detrimental secrets of the show’s top celebrity chefs.

Maxine Bloom has always wanted to try her hand at acting, and when Loretta Bebe is desperate for someone to fill a role in the local play she's directing for the Honey Springs Theater Company, she asks Maxi to fill in. Aunt Maxi leaps at the chance for a big theatrical debut in the charming play. When the producer of the play turns up dead, the play comes to a complete halt until Sheriff Spencer Shepard lets Loretta reopen after the crime scene is fully swept. Roxy finds that she just can't stop from trying to figure out who killed the amateur actress...after all, the show must go on!

The year is 1902, and the world is changing with the new century. Twenty-one-year-old Ava Stanley, the daughter of two celebrated Arcane Taxonomists, has much to live up to—however scarce her magical abilities may be. While her parents draw power from spectacular birds and megafauna, Ava’s connection to the natural world is much smaller, stemming from the microscopic. This is useful in her quest to become a doctor, as she studies the burgeoning links between bacteria and disease, but it means Ava’s power itself is also smaller.

A call meant for someone else. A murder that was never supposed to be solved. Birdie Lou Baxter thought managing the local phone company in the quiet town of Haven Hills was as low-drama as life could get. But when a mysterious phone call comes through a long-dead line, Birdie answers—and overhears what sounds like a murder being planned. Days later, a body turns up. Now Birdie is pulled into a tangle of secrets, ghost lines, and forgotten vaults. The killer thinks no one heard the call—but Birdie did. And someone in her own office may be next on the line. As she uncovers decades-old ...