The New York Times bestselling author of If Catfish Had Nine Lives returns to Broken Rope, Missouri, where ghosts of the Old West seek assistance from country cooks and amateur sleuths Betts Winston and her grandmother. With summer tourists flocking to Broken Rope, locals volunteer to keep chaos to a minimum. Old West skits are running smoothly, actors are behaving, and stagecoach rides are more popular than ever, but when a spectral visitor appears by ghost train, it’s a job only Betts and Gram can handle. Gram soon starts having nightmares about their ghostly visitor’s demise. And if a ghost and the hot summer weather weren’t making things sticky enough, one of the town’s volunteers—a man notorious for having more than his fair share of ex-wives—is murdered. When Jerome, Bett’s otherworldly friend, makes an unsettling appearance, this simmering double mystery becomes a recipe for disaster. Includes delicious recipes!

At Gram's Country Cooking School, Betts and Gram are helping students prepare the perfect dishes for the Southern Missouri Show-Down, the cook-off that draws the first of the summer visitors. Everything is going smoothly until they discover the body of local theater owner Everett Morningside in the school's supply closet, and Everett's widow points an accusatory finger at Gram. Now, Betts has to dig deep into Broken Rope's history to find the modern-day killer-before the last piece of chicken is served...

Looking for a new cozy series? In the latest edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of nine charming cozy mysteries publishing in Winter 2024 for free for easy sampling. The twentieth edition of Cozy Case Files features cozies from the following authors: Ellie Alexander, Rhys Bowen and Clare Broyles, Olivia Blacke, Jennifer Chow, Anastasia Hastings, Olivia Matthews, Gigi Pandian, Mindy Quigley, and Paige Shelton. Cook up some delicious treats with a variety of culinary cozies! On the menu, you'll find killer West Indian pastries in Coconut Drop Dead, deadly deep dish pizzas in Public Anchovy #1, fatal fortune cookies in Ill-Fated Fortune, and suspicious spiced curry buns in A Smoking Bun. Get with the groove and catch a killer while you're at it with Rhythm and Clues. Solve your way out of a deadly booby trap while racing against time in A Midnight Puzzle. Discover the mystery behind an antique Crusader Sword in The Poison Pen. Getaway to the Catskills with In Sunshine or in Shadow. And infiltrate a scandalous cult in historical Britain as you read Of Hoaxes and Homicide.

Looking for a new cozy series? In the new edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of six charming cozy mysteries publishing in Winter 2021 for free for easy sampling. The eleventh edition of Cozy Case Files features the latest cozies by the following authors: Ellie Alexander, Vivien Chien, Mariah Fredericks, Diane Kelly, Elizabeth Penney, and Paige Shelton. It’s 1914 New York, and a killer is stalking Broadway in Death of a Showman. A treasure hunt through Edinburgh gives way to a search for a villain terrorizing the city in Deadly Editions. It’s the end of a beautiful Maine summer in Bodies and Bows, and apron shop owner Iris Buckley must track down a killer before her best friend is arrested for murder and everything unravels. In Murder with a View, the body of a popular country music singer turns up in Nashville carpenter Whitney Whitaker’s latest real estate investment. Oregon’s favorite bakery Torte’s newest venture - a pop-up ice cream shop - is swirling into a nightmare in Chilled to the Cone. And in Fatal Fried Rice, a delectable cozy set in Cleveland, Ohio, Lana Lee may be next on the chopping block when her cooking class turns deadly and Lana is forced to investigate to clear her name.

Looking for a new cozy series? In the new edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of six charming cozy mysteries publishing in Winter 2022 for free for easy sampling. The fourteenth edition of Cozy Case Files features the latest cozies by the following authors: Korina Moss, Gigi Pandian, Diane Kelly, Ellie Alexander, and Paige Shelton. Feeling hungry? Check out these two series debuts. In Cheddar Off Dead, a cheesemonger discovers that her new home in a small Sonoma Valley town is ripe for murder... something here stinks to high heaven, and it's not the cheese. An impossible crime. A family legacy. The intrigue of hidden rooms and secret staircases. Under Lock & Skeleton Key layers stunning architecture with mouthwatering food in an ode to classic locked-room mysteries. Continuing with the architecture theme: Nashville’s killer real estate market returns in Batten Down the Belfry: Here is the church, here is the steeple... Open the doors, and see all the trouble. Celebrate the greats in these next two offerings. Bake, Borrow, and Steal finds Oregon’s favorite bakery, Torte, catering an authentic feast to celebrate a museum’s unveiling of Shakespeare’s lost manuscript. After being invited to a traditional Scottish celebration to honor poet Robert Burns, bookseller Delaney Nichols faces off against an elusive arsonist in The Burning Pages. Travel to 1907, New York: Beloved heroine Molly Murphy returns in Wild Irish Rose, from New York Times bestselling author Rhys Bowen, now writing in partnership with her daughter, Clare Broyles.

The fourth installment in the gripping, atmospheric Alaska Wild series, Paige Shelton's Winter's End. It’s springtime in Benedict, Alaska, and with the warmer weather comes an unseasonably somber local tradition...the annual Death Walk. At the end of each brutal winter, citizens gather downtown and then break into groups to search the community for those who might have somehow gotten stuck at home. Beth Rivers sets off with her friend Orin and dog Gus, toward the cabin of an elderly resident, intending to check on him. When they reach the cabin, the old man is alive, but not in the best shape. Beth stays with him while Orin hurries to town for help, but it’s not Orin who returns. Gril comes back with shocking news, and it soon becomes clear that Orin has also vanished. When they discover that their friend has been doing some top-secret research, they start to worry he’s been exposed, or worse. Meanwhile, Beth continues on her own search, for her father, who allegedly is alive in Mexico, but won't return her calls. Still, she's making progress in healing from her own trauma, though can't quite shake the feeling she's being followed...

In Fateful Words, the eighth Scottish Bookshop Mystery from beloved author Paige Shelton, bookseller Delaney Nichols stakes her reputation—and her life—when a literary tour turns deadly... When Edwin, Delaney’s boss at the Cracked Spine bookstore, leaves town on secret business, Delaney is called upon to guide his yearly literary tour around Edinburgh. But on the first night of the tour, at the inn where the tour group is staying, the inn manager falls—or is pushed—off the roof of the inn, and killed. Then, one of the tour members disappears, leaving a trail of puzzles in her wake. In a race against the clock, Delaney sets out on the expedition of her life, following clues around Edinburgh to get to the bottom of this mystery. Exploring sights from Greyfriars Bobby to the Royal Mile to the Sir Walter Scott Monument, she'll have to put the pieces together quickly, or the bookstore's survival could be on the line...as well as her own.

Looking for a new cozy series? In the new edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of five charming cozy mysteries starting in December 2019 for free for easy sampling. Travel cross country – and across the ocean – with the latest cozies by the following authors: M.C. Beaton, Vivien Chien, Diane Kelly, Elizabeth Penney, and Paige Shelton. Start in Cleveland in Egg Drop Dead, where a dinner party catered by Ho-Lee Noodle House has deadly consequences. From there pop down to Nashville, where the real estate market is to die for, in Dead in the Doorway. Travel to Maine in series debut Hems & Homicide; this apron shop will have readers on pins and needles! You’ll finish your journey across the pond. In The Stolen Letter, pandemonium ensues in Edinburgh when bookseller Delaney Nichols meets a woman who believes she is Mary, Queen of Scots, reborn. And in Beating About the Bush, Agatha Raisin must investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems.

A treasure hunt through Edinburgh gives way to a search for a villain terrorizing the city in the sixth Scottish Bookshop Mystery. It’s a quiet, snowy morning at The Cracked Spine bookshop, when bookseller Delaney Nichols receives a mysterious visitor, a messenger. He presents her with a perplexing note: an invitation to a meeting with eccentric socialite Shelagh O'Conner, who requests Delaney’s participation in an exclusive treasure hunt. Delaney is intrigued, but also cautious: Shelagh, while charming in person, has a reputation for her hijinks as a wealthy young woman in the '70s. She was even once suspected for the murder of a former boyfriend, though ultimately cleared of all charges. But Delaney is enticed by the grand prize at the end of the treasure hunt: a highly valuable first edition copy of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. The winner is also to receive the contents of Shelagh's vast library, and all participants will earn a large sum of cash. The night after the first meeting of the treasure hunters, however, several homes in Edinburgh are robbed in a manner reminiscent of Shelagh's old tricks. And when a man connected to Shelagh is killed, suspicion builds. Except Shelagh herself has disappeared from her home, seemingly kidnapped by the villain. Terror mounts throughout the city as Delaney attempts to solve the mystery, while trying to evade the killer's clutches. But it’s hard to know who to trust when around every corner, a new monster could be lurking.

The Poison Pen, the ninth installment in the Scottish Bookshop series by Paige Shelton, set in a specialty bookstore in Edinburgh called The Cracked Spine. Edinburgh is mourning recent the death of Queen Elizabeth II when Bookseller Delaney Nichols's boss comes to her with a most unusual assignment. An old friend of his, living in an estate in the village of Roslin, has found what could be a priceless relic on her property, and Delaney is tasked with investigating. Could Jolie possibly have an item of breathtaking Scottish historical significance in her possession? But when Delaney arrives at Jolie's estate, she is greeted by a legal team with a vested interest in the property. Jolie manages to remove the interlopers, but as they're examining the priceless item, they hear a scream, and meet a much less welcome discovery: a body. As Delaney digs deeper, she discovers Jolie's own fascinating history. Jolie's mother had long claimed that her daughter was the rightful heir to the throne, not Elizabeth II, because of an affair she claimed to have with King Edward VIII. The only evidence, however, is in the form of a purported journal that one of Edward’s secretaries kept. The puzzles become more confusing when a connection is uncovered between this far-fetched story and the murdered man. Delaney will have to read between the lines to put together the pieces...or become history herself.