Southern Cozy

CJ Turley is excited to begin her new life as overseer of Heavenly Acres, a tiny house community in the Ozark mountains. As she's handed the keys to her new house by a woman who seems far too eager to leave the job to someone else, CJ is told the community is experiencing a rash of burglaries and that she should visit the nearby park ranger for help.

Haley and Nana return in a second heartwarming adventure! Having embraced her new meta class, Haley is ready for anything... except, possibly, a plague of seafood! It turns out it's harder than she thought to sit back and let other people handle the problems she really, really wants solved.... This second installment in the adventures of a post-apocalyptic world with a game system imposed on it by magical aliens contains yet another recipe, because (once again), that's the kind of story this is. Curl up with some cornbread and watch Haley craft her way through another quick read!

Private investigator Hannah Huntsford just wants to have a relaxing Christmas with her detective boyfriend. But holiday trouble is brewing in the small town of Treasure Trove.

During the day when there is a break in the day’s labor or in the evenings when the sunlight is waning, stories are told from Texas porches. Although these are usually short stories, they can be long, and thus continued at the next porch sitting. They contain humor, sadness, suspense, mystery, philosophy, and instruction about the human condition and, in general, the journey of living. The storytellers find the rhythm of life for themselves, and the listeners hear valuable lessons and truth. Tales from the Texas Timberlands, Volume 1 celebrates this storytelling about East Texans with ...

Five years ago, award-winning actor Rhett Crawford threw a Halloween party. On the third night of the party, the groundskeeper found the body of one of the guests bludgeoned and left in the toolshed. It was eventually determined that the victim’s date had most likely killed the woman before fleeing the scene of the crime.

With a classical series sold and a portrait commissioned, Cherry Tucker's art career is in Georgia overdrive. But when the sheriff asks Cherry to draw a composite sketch of a hijacker, her life takes a hairpin as the composite leads to a related murder, her local card-sharking buddy Max Avtaikin becomes bear bait and her nemesis labels the classical series "pervert art". While she seeks to help the misfortunate and save her local reputation, Cherry's hammer-down attitude has her facing the headlights of an oncoming killer.

Annie Jordan’s new lease on life has taken a turn. With a new brother on the scene—one that everyone she knows is practically accusing of being a criminal element—she’s also found herself with a new roommate. It goes without saying that Bogart’s not happy about the roommate sitch. Of course, neither is Sam, and especially not Melanie. But hey, she’s got Mildred, and it seems she’s the only one who doesn’t hate Annie’s newly found brother. Prompted by curiosity—it killed the cat, right? Not humans?—Annie and Tyler submit their saliva for some DNA testing. They have ...

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 ...

When Assistant Professor Millicent Anderson determines to help her childhood friend and colleague, Will Pollard, prepare for an interview at a major university, she has no idea how difficult or dangerous a task it will be. She soon realizes that to help him, she must stay ahead of a cunning villain determined to drive Will over the edge—perhaps literally—twenty years after an intruder murdered his fiancée and stole an antique porcelain calico cat. Tenure obstacles, an unexpected love tangle, and the reappearance of the missing figurine complicate Millicent’s task of saving Will’s ...

Late one night, a car burns on a lonely rural road, and the discovery of a body - charred beyond recognition - in the driver's seat sets in motion a series of deadly events. And when the wife of the supposedly deceased driver demands her husband's million-dollar life insurance payout before the autopsy can be completed, fraud investigators Julia Jackson and Mark Vincent must determine exactly how the victim died and at whose hands.

Annie Jordan’s newly opened can of worms sends her and Tyler on a trip. Two trips, as a matter of fact. They need to sort out the family matter. Whose father is who? Does what was in the past stay in the past or can Annie and Tyler unearth the mystery of their parentage? What about the mysterious woman who’s left her a message. Who is she? How does she fit in with Sam? Does she? Annie’s trying not to be overtly curious, but can you blame a girl—ahem, woman!—for wondering about this newly arrived stranger? Then there’s the matter of all the bad luck she’s been having. And the ...

Fifty-three years ago, Francine Kettleman was found dead in a cemetery 50 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 13 women over a 10-month period from 1964 to 1965.

Have you ever said something you really wish you hadn’t?Catherine Wittiken is learning that even what is said in jest…tossed out in a moment of levity…can have real consequences. Her only intention was to get a few laughs…not a few votes…or worse than that…more than a few votes. But that is exactly what happened. And in a single moment her life changed… Then on her first day in her new job as mayor of the small town of Highlands Lake…when Catherine didn’t think things could get any worse than the dark and gloomy atmosphere of her new office…it did. There wasn’t much ...

The gang from the Gull Island Writers Retreat take on the case of a man who is currently doing time for the murder of a woman he swears he did not kill. After speaking to the man, Alex determines that he is most likely telling the truth, so he enlists the help of the gang to prove it. As they work together to sort fact from fiction, they realize there may be a lot more going on than they originally thought.

Sunshine, massages, and drinks with little umbrellas in them. That's what cruises are all about, right? Maybe, unless you're a witch with a habit of finding trouble. When Noelle and crew go on a cruise to celebrate the death of the town's biggest bully, they find themselves in the middle of a robbery gone awry. Can they help a new friend get her grandma's pearls - and her life - back before the ship gets back to port?

After Windsor Ebonwood’s love life and successful career as a book conservator vanish in one fell swoop, she’s determined to begin anew. Win moves to Darkly Island off the coast of Louisiana, where she’s been bequeathed an unusual bookshop and a charming home on the edge of a dark swamp. Win gets to work settling into her new life in the sleepy Southern town but discovering Darkly’s heartless town alderman impaled on a gravestone wasn’t on the books. Nor was finding out about her family’s legacy as powerful witches responsible for protecting the bookshop at all costs.

Pegasus Quincy, a rookie deputy on temporary assignment in a sleepy mountain town, expects a quiet summer citing jaywalkers and writing traffic tickets. Fate intervenes when a dead body turns up in an old copper mining pit. The man is a three-time loser disowned by even his own mother. Peg’s sheriff boss declares the death an accident and tells her to “move on”. She wants to agree, but then her office is ransacked and her assistant kidnapped...Will they find the killer before he strikes again?

Things are finally looking up for Sarah Blair following her unsavory divorce. Settled into a cozy carriage house with her sassy Siamese cat, RahRah, she has somehow managed to hang on to her modest law firm receptionist job and - if befriending flea-bitten strays at the local animal shelter counts - lead a thriving social life. For once, Sarah almost has it together more than her enterprising twin, Emily, a professional chef whose efforts to open a gourmet restaurant have hit a real dead end. The president of the town bank and city council is murdered after icing Emily's business.

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...

That brash decision lands Pegasus Quincy in the midst of a hostile murder situation. She alienates her new partner and almost gets him killed. She ignores regulations and jeopardizes an ongoing investigation. Just when she thinks things couldn’t get worse - they do! She encounters the Nettle family: an insanely jealous wife, a banished son, and a sister whose little girl has been traumatized by an explosion at the illicit family whiskey still.