by Sunny Frazier

This week we have a giveaway of Mistletoe, Moussaka & Murder by Tina Kashian and Wine Tastings Are Murder by Libby Klein-both featured in a past Coming Attractions column. Details on how to enter below.

It’s always good to start a series with the first book, so this month I’m announcing four new ones by authors you might recognize. Enjoy!

Hope Taylor, a 42-year-old widow, along with black Labrador Bogie, arrive in Apple Springs, California, as the first female pastor of Faith Chapel Episcopal Church. But where is the rector who was supposed to meet her? While searching she finds a church elder with his skull crushed by a burial urn. The man was as wicked as he was wealthy, as petty as he was pious. He threatened that she would be pastor over his dead body. Which makes her the prime suspect. Hope, Faith, and a Corpse is the first in the Faith Chapel Mysteries by Laura Jensen Walker.

Nancy Coco is starting a new venture with her Oregon Honeycomb Mysteries. Wren Johnson is having success with her Let It Bee honey boutique. While taking a walk on the beach with her cat Everett, she stumbles across the body of the town’s queen of the craft fairs. In her hands the victim holds a label of Wren’s beeswax and honey lip balm. Wren becomes a suspect and must comb the town for clues before someone else gets stung. Death Bee Comes Her also includes recipes.

When kitchen witch Mia Malone finds herself single and unemployed, she moves in with her grandma in Magic Springs, Idaho. It’s a town where witches and warlocks are welcome. She starts a gourmet dinner and delivery business, with a touch of magic in her recipes. At her first catering gig she finds a body stabbed and stuffed under the table. Mia is not only a suspect but also next on the killers list! One Poison Pie is the first Kitchen Witch Mysteries in a new series from the pen of Lynn Cahoon, but check out the #0.5 Chili Cauldron Curse. Recipes included.

We all miss going to bookstores during the pandemic, but we can read about them. In CeeCee James’ new Secret Library Cozy Mysteries we meet Laura Lee. When she took a summer job as a housekeeper at a very creepy mansion, her employer warned her to mind her own business and just clean. But she finds fun secrets and shares them with her cat and her book club. The death of a chauffeur puts Laura smack in the middle of a murder investigation. Can she and the book club clean things up? It’s all about the Tall Tails Secret Book Club.

Seems like book club members can’t help but play sleuth. In A Tourist’s Guide to Murder, V.M. Burns sixth Mystery Bookshop. Samantha Washington joins her Shady Acres Retirement friends for a mystery lovers tour in London. It’s a great way to celebrate the new publishing contract for her mysteries. She’s excited to see where Sherlock Holmes was conceived, Agatha Christie was inspired, and Jack the Ripper murdered. When the owner of the tour company is found dead, the guide insists the tour must go on. It takes the mysterious death of a tourist to get Samantha and the Shady Acres ladies into action.

Gemma Doyle, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop in Cape Cod, tells a young girl that she is not a detective and can’t find a lost kitten. Her dog, Violet, locates the feline in a neighbor’s shed. A few days later the child gives her $10 and wants Gemma to investigate when her mother is a suspect in a murder. Mom was accused of vandalizing the shed of the reigning gardening diva and a fight ensured. The woman was then found dead. A Curious Incident is the sixth in the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries by Vicki Delany.

The Fire and Ice festival in the New England town of Greyborne Harbor is keeping Addie Greyborn busy in her Beyond the Page Bookstore. She’s planning the fireworks display and ice-carving competition, as well as dog sitting for a friend. When she goes to the friend’s house, she notices a copy of The Secret Garden on the nightstand. It’s a first edition and belongs to her assistant. When she also finds a body behind the bakery next to her shop and the valuable book missing, Addie wonders if the two are connected. A Page Marked for Murder is the fifth in the Beyond the Page Bookstore Mysteries by Lauren Elliott.

?During the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the people of Key West deal with an onslaught of tourists. A wealthy man who loves Key Lime Pie puts on a contest with the Key Lime Key to the City as a prize. Local newspaper food critic Hayley Snow is set to cover the competition. But at home, her husband announces his crusty mother is coming to visit. To entertain her, Hayley takes her mom-in-law on the Conch Train Tour. All goes well until the corpse of a controversial pastry chef is found among the glittering palm trees. Lucy Burdette gives us The Key Lime Crime in the tenth outing of her Key West Food Critic mysteries.

Best of the Rest
Alexis Morgan—Death By Intermission Abbey McCree #4
Lily Harper Hart—A Ghostly Wedding Harper Harlow Mystery #17
Kathi Daley—Finding Shelter Rescue Alaska #5
Deanna Chase—Vision of the Witch Witches of Keating Hollow #10
T.M. Cromer—Enchanted Magic The Thorne Witches #10
Alexis Morgan—Death by Intermission Abby McCree Mystery #4
Sara Bourgeois—Stormy Sky Magic Familiar Kitten #9
Alice Duncan—Angels Adrift Mercy Alcutt #6
Joanne Fluke—Coconut Layer Cake Murder Hannah Swenson #25
Sofie Ryan—Undercover Kitty Second Chance Cat Mystery #8
Laura Childs—Lavender Blue Murder A Tea Shop Mystery #21
Laura Childs—Egg Shooters Cackleberry Club #9
Catherine Coles—Murder in the Churchyard: A 1920s Cozy Mystery A Tommy & Evelyn Christie Mystery #3
Ellie Alexander—Chilled to the Cone Bakeshop Mystery #12
Tonya Kappes—Paddlers, Promises & Poison A Camper and Criminals #16
Amanda M. Lee—Long, Hot, Witchy Summer Moonstone Bay Cozy Mystery #7
G. A. McKevett—Murder at Mabel’s Motel Granny Reid Mystery #3

To enter to win copies of Mistletoe, Moussaka & Murder by Tina Kashian and Wine Tastings Are Murder by Libby Klein, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “new year” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen December 26, 2020. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest is over. 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 Christmas 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.

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