by Sunny Frazier

This month we have a giveaway of an ARC of Death Rang the Bell by Carol Pouliot and a copy of Spirits and Sourdough by Bailey Cates, both featured in past Coming Attractions columns. Details on how to enter below.

Husbands and boyfriends need to remember Valentine’s Day. Along with flowers, bring her what she really wants: books and a sweet treat from Hannah Swensen’s bakery!

Fenella Woods left Buffalo, New York, for a quiet life on the Isle of Man. The island is only thirty miles long, small enough where everyone knows everybody’s business. When she and her police inspector boyfriend go to the cafe for a meal, their plans go up in flames when the manager accidentally starts a fire. The ashes are barely cold when the local undertaker decides to make a deathbed confession. He said a decade ago, while arranging a man for burial, he heard the wife say how she murdered him. The body is exhumed and poison is found. Now Fenella wants to help solve the murder as well as take a closer look at the restaurant fire. What she doesn’t want is the aid of the ghost of her dead aunt or meddling from Katie the kitten. It’s Umbrella and Undertakers in Diana Xarissa’s Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy twenty-first book.

Another couple, Robbie Jordan and her new husband, went to the park to enjoy an evening with fireworks and friends in South Lick, Indiana. The folks from the assisted living facility are there as well. One of them is blind but is part of the knitting circle where he enjoys being around the ladies. At the end of the light show, the knitter next to him is found dead with a puncture wound in her neck. It echoes the death of the man’s wife, still an unsolved murder case. Some things are Batter Off Dead according to Maddie Day in her tenth Country Store Mystery.

Should we be afraid of people with needles? In the Knit and Nibble Club in Arborville, New Jersey, Pamela Paterson has organized a weekend conference about fiber arts and crafts at the local college. But the keynote speaker, a pompous professor with a reputation for philandering, can’t resist flirting with the women. After snacks of coffee and cookies, he collapses. If the food was poisoned, why didn’t anyone else get sick? Pamela must unravel the Death of a Knit Wit, the eighth Knit and Nibble Mystery created by Peggy Ehrhart.

Another pompous man meets his maker in Joanne Fluke’s latest, Caramel Pecan Roll Murder. Hannah Swensen welcomes a chance to get out of The Cookie Jar kitchen when asked to bake pastries for a Lake Eden, Minnesota, fishing tournament. But, the event goes belly up when the body of the renowned celebrity spokesperson is found on a runaway boat. The man wasn’t humble about his ability to reel in big fish, as his overworked sidekick can testify. Did he finally get revenge on his boss or did a jealous contestant do the deed? This sweet murder is number twenty-five in the series. Features over a dozen cookie and dessert recipes.

Best of the Rest

Sofie Ryan—Totally Pawstruck: Second Chance Cat Mystery #9
Sara Rosett—Murder at the Mansions, a 1920s Historical Mystery: High Society Lady Detective #7
Catherine Bruns—Killer View: Cindy York Mystery #4
Diane Kelly—Batten Down the Belfry: A House-Flipping Mystery #4
Laura Childs—Haunted Hibiscus: A Tea Shop Mystery #22
Paige Shelton—Deadly Edition: Scottish Bookshop Mystery #6

To enter to win copies of Death Rang the Bell by Carol Pouliot and Spirits and Sourdough by Bailey Cates, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “desserts” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen February 5, 2022. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please also include your mailing address in case you win. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

Check out other mystery articles, reviews, book giveaways & mystery short stories in our mystery section. And join our mystery Facebook group to keep up with everything mystery we post, and have a chance at some extra giveaways. Be sure to check out our new mystery podcast too with mystery short stories, and first chapters read by local actors. A new episode went up last week.

Or click on this link to take you to Mysterious Galaxy’s website where you can purchase any of these books & a portion will go to help support KRL:

Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases.