by Sunny Frazier

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Jealousy Filled Donuts by Ginger Bolton, featured in a past Coming Attractions.

This month we celebrate Halloween. Several authors put out seasonal books ahead of time, but I saved them up for this column. Have scary fun with them!

To set the mood, sample several authors included in the anthology Curses and Cauldrons: April Aasheim, Elle Adams, Amorette Anderson, Misty Bane, Morgana Best, Stephanie Damore, Bella Falls, Danielle Garrett, Tegan Maher, Ava Mallory, Mona Marple, Jenna St. James, K M Wall, and ReGina Welling. Also, enjoy spooky stories by Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, and Barbara Ross the Haunted House Murder omnibus.

OUT LAST JULY
The town of Fairly Falls holds a hell of a Halloween celebration. Blair Wilkes is hosting leaders of witch covens. When a scepter is stolen from her house, Blair has to track it down. However, she’s trying to teach an apprentice familiar dealing as well as hauntings all over town. Plus bodies are turning up due to the scepter. Witch Out of Time is the seventh Blair Wilkes mystery by Elle Adams.

There’s a Hidden Entity in Brenda Sheffield Rivers’ bed and breakfast. She and her staff have decorated with spooky figures for Fright Night. But when a room is ransacked, Brenda’s detective husband combs the room for evidence of an intruder. He believes someone has done a Halloween prank. While Brenda gives tours of the “haunted” mansion, a cough is heard from the walls. When the party’s over and the couple go to bed, scream rings out. The guest in the ransacked bedroom is dead. His wife swears it’s her father who escaped from a mental hospital. Investigating, Brenda finds a secret panel and follows the passageway and discovers a wild-looking man with a knife. Wendy Meadows delivers the shivers in the fourteenth Sweet Fern Harbor Mystery.

OUT LAST AUGUST
Kathi Daley is Haunting in the Hallway in her fourth The Inn at Holiday Bay mystery. Earlier in the series Abby Sullivan bought a seaside mansion in Holiday Bay, Maine, and was adopted by Maine Coon cat Rufus, a giant dog Ramos, and a drifter named Georgia. In this book, a banker is found dead in his own grave. He was unpopular in the community for making changes after his father died. Meanwhile, the Inn is throwing a Halloween murder mystery party, and it’s all fun and games until the guests start hearing ghostly noises.

Author Maya Corrigan brings us the sixth in her Five-Ingredient Mystery, Crypt Suzette. Val Deniston runs the Cool Down Café in a fitness club in Bayport, Maryland. Suzette Cripps is staying in Val’s granddad’s house, and she’s very secretive about her past. After winning a costume contest at the Halloween party, Suzette is run down by a hit-and-run driver. The more Val talks to the woman’s coworkers and fellow creative writing students, the more she’s convinced it’s murder. And of course, there are recipes included.

OUT THIS SEPTEMBER
It’s late October and time for Mackinac Island’s annual zombie walk. But when Allie McMurphy follows the bloody tracks of her calico cat Carmella, she finds a body behind the Historic McMurphy Hotel and Fudge Shop. Amateur sleuth Allie and officer Rex Manning must use every trick in their treat bag to unmask a killer in disguise. Yummy Fudge Bites is Candy-Mystery #7 by Nancy Coco.

It’s a Wicked Harvest at Oktoberfest in Buttercup, Texas, and Lucy Resnick is ready for bratwurst, craft beer, and German gingerbread at Sweetwater Brewery. But the day takes a bitter turn when one of the brewery owners turns up dead, crushed by a giant sack of barley. The sheriff fingers the brother and co-owner, but Lucy, once an investigative reporter, senses there’s more to the story. This is Karen MacInerney’s sixth in Dewberry Farm Mystery.

The small town of Snowberry Creek, Washington, is gearing up for the Halloween Festival, and Abby McCree is in the planning committee. While picking up pumpkins from an ornery farmer, she finds him in the middle of his corn maze with a knife in his back. The police suspect a homeless veteran who was seen in an argument with the farmer. Abby’s tenant, also a veteran, is sure he’s innocent. Together, he and Abby follow twists and turns to corner the corn maze killer—before someone else meets a dead end. Alexis Morgan’s Death By Jack-0-Lantern, is second in the Abby McCree mysteries.

In another small town, McGill, Georgia, Stella Reid always makes Halloween memorable on a budget for her seven grandkids. After trick-or-treating and a parade down main street, everyone heads to the corn maze. The kids are too scared, but when Granny gets there, she finds a half-buried skull. It’s decades old and related to the unsolved murder of Granny Reid’s mother. G.A. McKevett gives us Murder in the Corn Maze, second in the Granny Reid Mysteries.

BEST OF THE REST
Anne Canadeo—Hounds of the Basket Stitch A Black Sheep & Co. Mystery #3

Elly Griffiths—The Stranger Diaries Standalone Novel

Deborah Crombie—A Bitter Feast Duncan Kincaid & Gemma James Mystery #18

Alice Duncan—Scarlet Spirits Daisy Gumm Majesty Mystery Series #14

Nicola Upson—Sorry for the Dead Josephine Tey Mystery Series #8
Heather Day Gilbert—Belinda Blake and the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing Exotic Pet Sitter #2

Eva Gates—Read and Buried A Lighthouse Library Mystery #6

Elizabeth Kane Buzzell—And Then They Were Doomed Little Library Mystery Series #4

Krista Davis—The Dog Who Knew Too Much Paws and Claws #6

Laura Childs, Terrie Farley Moran—Mumbo Gumbo Murder Scrapbooking Mystery #16

Lynn Cahoon—One Potato, Two Potato, Dead Farm to Fork Mystery #3

Ellie Alexander—Beyond a Reasonable Stout Sloan Krause Mystery #3

Kate Carlisle—Shot Through the Hearth A Fixer-Upper Mystery #7

To enter to win a copy of Jealousy Filled Donuts by Ginger Bolton, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “halloween” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 5, 2019. U.S. residents only. If entering via email please include your mailing address (so if you win we can get the book sent right out to you), and if via comment please include your email address. 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. Also listen to our new mystery podcast where mystery short stories and first chapters are read by actors! They are also available on iTunes/Apple Podcasts and Google Play. A new episode went up this week and this one features a mystery short story told by a black cat-perfect for Halloween.

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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