by Sunny Frazier

Bookstore owner, matchmaker, detective, food blogger, chef, librarian, stationary store owner, and caterer. These ladies do it all!

Summer’s over, but Maggie Blackburn’s first Beach Reads mystery is one last trip to the shore. Shakespeare professor Summer Merriweather goes back to Brigid’s Island, North Carolina, to attend her mother’s funeral and close up the Beach Reads bookstore. She finds a note to her mother: “Sell the bookstore or die.” There’s no evidence of murder, but Summer is on a quest to find the culprit. A Little Bookshop of Murder is the perfect “Summer” read.

Author Elise Sax has a new spin-off series from her Matchmaker books. After Gladie Bolton gets married, her grandma decides to expand the business in Cannes, California, to wedding planning. Gladie is going to be in charge. Their first couple want ax-throwing, tractor parade, and a bull at their wedding. Of course, someone is going to have an “accident,” but Gladie’s psychic sense tells her it’s murder. Gored of the Rings is the first in the Matchmaker Marriage Mysteries.

Lee Hollis brings us Murder at the PTA, the first in her Maya and Sandra Mysteries. At Portland High, in Maine, someone has put up a website called Dirty Laundry. The latest target is PTA president Sandra Wallage. When she runs into school mom (and PI) Maya Kendrick, Maya has uncovered the poster. They go to confront the woman and discover she’s dead. Because she left a confession, the police rule it as a suicide. The women rule it as a homicide and a new partnership develops.

Hope Early blogs about food on her site “Hope at Home.” She’s teaching her first blogging class at the Jefferson, Connecticut, Library. She’s also learning about podcasts from a childhood friend. The friend started a true crime podcast fueled by mother disappeared twenty years ago. Now she’s back to solve the mystery. The next day Hope discovers her friend missing, the woman’s apartment ransacked, and the laptop with all the research gone. Later her friend’s body is found in a car wreck. But is it an accident? The Corpse Who Knew Too Much is fourth in Debra Sennefelder’s Food Blogger mysteries and includes recipes from Hope’s kitchen!

At another library in Connecticut, a woman walks into the Clover Ridge library and tells librarian Carrie Singleton she’s a psychic. Evelyn, the library ghost, warns Carrie there’s more to the mystery woman. She grew up in the town and years ago her brother killed Dad. With a movie being shot locally, and after the psychic mingles with the movie people, she’s found dead. Carrie, ghost Evelyn and feline Smoky Joe investigate. Checked Out for Murder is the fourth in the Haunted Library series by Allison Brook.

Vivian Conroy brings us the second in her Stationery Shop Mystery. WANTED is Delta Douglas’ shop in Tundish, Montana. She’s getting ready to conduct a 3D workshop for a socialite’s birthday party. But then a threatening present shows up and the socialite’s sister-in-law is found dead. Turns out the birthday girl had a long list of enemies. Delta and her Paper Posse must find the killer, For Letter or Worse.

In the small town of Normalton, Illinois, small business owner Dani Sloan is asked to cater the engagement party of the richest guy around. But when a storm hits the party after guests arrive, the bride-to-be is found dead. It turns out her ex-husband is Dani’s almost-boyfriend. Now she must follow clues to save her business, her man, and catch a criminal. It’s Winner Cake All in Denise Swanson’s third Chef-to-Go Mysteries.

BEST OF THE REST

Stephanie Blackmore—Veiled in Death Wedding Planner #6

Debra Sennfelder—What Not to Wear to a Graveyard Resale Boutique Mystery #3

Leslie Meier—Gobble Gobble Murder Prequel to Lucy Stone series

Andrea Penrose—Murder at Queen’s Landing Wrexford & Sloane Mystery #3

Julie Mulhern—Field’s Guide to Dirty Money Poppy Fields Adventures #6

Catie Murphy—Death on the Green Dublin Driver #2

Anna Lee Huber—A Pretty Deceit Verity Kent #4

Ellie Alexander—Beyond a Reasonable Stout Sloan Krause #3

Ellie Alexander—Without a Brew Sloan Krause #4

Sofie Kelly—A Case of Cat and Mouse Magical Cats Mystery #12

Jenn McKinlay—One for the Books A Library Lover’s Mystery #11

Krista Davis—Big Little Spies Paws & Claws Mystery #7

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.