by Sunny Frazier

This week we have a giveaway of a $20 Amazon gift card provided by mystery author Valerie Burns. Her book A Tourist’s Guide to Murder was featured in last month’s Coming Attractions. by Details on how to enter below.

Chocolate bonbons go with books, and February offers these reading confections. Why are so many set in Maine? Also, Amanda Flower starts a new series for us to enjoy. Sweet!

Shiloh Bellamy returned home to Michigan to turn Bellamy Farms organic. Her father was against it, so when her investor is found dead at the farmers market, suspicion falls on her family. Now Shiloh has to track down a killer before her dreams wilt. Farm to Trouble is the first in Amanda Flower’s Farm to Table Mysteries.

In Queens, New York, Mia Carina runs the Belle View Banquet Manor, where her friend plans to hold her baby shower at the catering hall. But there’s also a shower her rich stepmother, Tina, is throwing at an upscale venue. Mia tags along to snoop on a competitor. However, when the Belle View shower happens, a fight breaks out. While unwrapping presents, a valuable stolen painting is uncovered. Tina is shocked to see it, but not as shocked as Mia when a body of a party guest is found floating in the marina. Maria DiRico adds Italian recipes to her second Catering Hall mystery, Long Island Iced Tina.

Meanwhile, over at the Country Cottage Inn in Cider Cove, Maine, Bizzy Baker has the ability to read minds, including those of animals. To “celebrate” Valentine’s Day, two podcasters and their fans decide to symbolically hold a funeral for all the bad relationships they’ve had. Things get real when two bodies are found on the grounds. With the help of her kitten Fish and dog Sherlock Bones, the trio sets out to solve the mystery. Sealed with a Hiss is the unlucky thirteenth Country Cottage mystery by Addison Moore and Bellamy Bloom. Recipes included.

Also set in Maine on the island town of Eastport, bakers Jake Tiptree and Ellie White are gearing up for the Great Downeast Snickerdoodle Bake-Off. Their bakery, The Chocolate Moose, is expected to beat the competition. Then a local curmudgeon is murdered, not that he didn’t deserve it after swindling widows and orphans, but evidence points to a member of the Tiptree family. When a series of fires cuts off access to the mainland, Jake and Ellie wonder if someone is trying to burn the truth. Death by Chocolate Snickerdoodle is book four in Sarah Graves’ Death by Chocolate mysteries.

In Shucked Apart, someone has stolen two buckets of oyster seed worth $35,000. The victim contacts Julia Snowden, pseudo-sleuth of Busman’s Harbor, Maine. Suspects include a rival oyster farmer, a former employee, a summer resident who hates the ugly oyster cages, a lobsterman protecting his territory, and an ex-partner. Before the case gets going, the pearl farmer is found stabbed with a shucking knife. This is the ninth Maine Clambake mystery from Barbara Ross.

There are sightings of a woman and a mountain lion near Lockleer Mountain. She only shows up at the moments of crisis. Deputy Nate Darling thinks it’s his sister who has been missing for three months. The people on the reservation believe she’s the Spirit Woman sent to protect the community against a big box store, housing development, and secret facility being built close by. The Spirit Woman of Lockleer Mountain is a stand-alone by Elaine Faber.

BEST OF THE REST

J.A. Jance—Missing and Endangered (Joanna Brady #6)

Sara Bourgeois—Honeymoon Magic (Familiar Kitten #10)

Krista Davis—Big Little Spies (Paws & Claws #7)

Helena Dixon—Murder in the Belltower (A Miss Underhay Mystery #5)

Lily Harper Hart—All the Pretty Witches (A Hannah Hickok Witchy Mystery #6)

Lorraine Bartlett & Gayle Leeson—Dead Man’s Hand (Victoria Square Mystery #8)

To enter to win a $20 Amazon gift card, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “february” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen February 6, 2021. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter.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 this 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.

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