An Alaskan tour guide is bracing for winter when she realizes that the wolves aren’t the only predators on the prowl.
With boat tours off the coast of Alaska shut down for the winter, tour guide Stacie Calder is joining the dedicated team at the Juneau Wildlife World, a wild animal sanctuary. Along with Sasha, her husky companion, she’s prepared to spend the long season in the scenic park. But not everyone is so chipper about the newcomers—least of all, Stacie’s new manager, Oliver Brownling. He constantly gives Stacie a hard time, specifically because she brought Sasha along with her. That is, until his mauled body is found in a remote part of the sanctuary containing wolves.
When it becomes clear that a human was responsible for the brutal murder, all eyes are on Stacie.
With the weather worsening, Stacie and Sasha are forced to stay at the sanctuary with the wolves—and her colleagues. As the storm gets worse, it’s clear that this killer has a taste for blood and may strike again. Will Stacie be able to find the murderer, or will the hunter become the hunted?
Lark O. Jensen is the pseudonym of Linda O. Johnston, a former lawyer who is now a full-time writer. Lark wrote Bear Witness, the first Alaska Untamed mystery for Crooked Lane Books, in 2022, and the second in the series, Cry Wolf, has just been published. Linda has also written the Barkery & Biscuits Mystery series and the Superstition Mysteries for Midnight Ink and the Pet Rescue Mysteries and Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. Linda additionally writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, and her stories often involve dogs.
Alaska tour boat guide Stacie Calder faces the deep freeze in this scenic cozy series debut perfect for fans of Paige Shelton.
No nine-to-five cubicle career will suit Stacie Calder—the naturalist much prefers working in the great outdoors. Specifically, the spacious and spectacular Alaskan wilderness, whose rugged charms she shares with sightseers on the top deck of the tour boat where she works. But one May afternoon, Stacie’s passengers see more than glittering glaciers, frolicking harbor seals, climbing bears and soaring seabirds…they also witness a man lying dead in the frigid Alaskan waters. And it seems likely that someone gave him a fatal push.
Lark O. Jensen is the pseudonym of Linda O. Johnston, a former lawyer who is now a full-time writer. Lark has written Bear Witness, the first Alaska Untamed mystery for Crooked Lane. Linda has written the Barkery & Biscuits Mystery series and the Superstition Mysteries for Midnight Ink and the Pet Rescue Mysteries and Kendra Ballantyne, Pet-Sitter mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. Linda also writes for Harlequin Romantic Suspense, and her stories often involve dogs.
Lanie Anders has a perfectly-ordered life. From her half-foam morning latte to her high-powered executive job – she controls every outcome. But when her house burns to the ground in mysterious circumstances, her life is thrown into confusion.
Searching for some kind of purpose, she stumbles across a century-old mystery and flees to Piney Falls, Oregon, an oceanside hamlet with a curious past. But something isn’t quite right in the picturesque town. Her neighbor speaks in riddles, the death rate is alarmingly high and the impossibly handsome town baker is hiding something.
With each clue she unearths in the present and the past, she becomes more convinced that the townspeople are in imminent danger.
Will Lanie be able to solve both mysteries without putting her own life in jeopardy?
Find out why readers are calling Welcome to Piney Falls “immensely immersive and totally gripping.” Don’t miss the first in this exciting new mystery series!
Joann Keder spent most of her years in the Midwest, growing up and raising a family on the Great Plains of Nebraska. She worked for sixteen years as a piano teacher before returning to school to receive a master’s degree in creative writing. A mid-life move to the Pacific Northwest lead her to re-examine her priorities. She now creates stories about life and relationships in small towns while her ever-patient husband encourages her.
When Alice Mongoose sails from India to a sugar plantation on the Big Island of Hawaii, she is shocked to learn what her new job entails. She decides instead to strike out on her own. When she meets the gentle and dapper Alistair Rat, she knows that she has found a friend in her new Hawaiian home.
Download Alice Mongoose and Alistair Rat in Hawaii and 20 more free books and book samples through July 18!
[1] Parts of Mary Pfaff’s biography are verifiable. The Hawaiian Gazette was a semi-weekly publication of the Honolulu Advertiser. The Pacific Cable was completed in 1903, enabling news to travel across the ocean almost instantaneously. Editor Roderick O. Matheson did move to Japan around 1918, where he took the position of news editor of the Japan Times & Mail and served as the Chicago Tribune‘s foreign correspondent in Tokyo. However, Mary Pfaff, her family, and her books were crafted as part of the Professor Molly literary universe.
Kent Lovely was well into middle age, and dressed in defiance of the plain fact. His midnight-black hair was gelled to a crisp. His aloha shirt was unbuttoned low enough to show off his wiry physique and his cinnabar tan. A tiny zircon stud sparkled in one leathery earlobe. “Ciao, Molly.” Kent caught Emma and me in a hug, one in each arm. “Emma, Ai watashi kon’nichiwa.” His culturally-sensitive salutations out of the way, Kent released us from his cologne-drenched embrace and pushed ahead of us. He pulled two plates off the stack, and started loading them up. Emma and I took one plate apiece, and followed Kent as he mowed his way through the salads, to the hot dishes, and finally over to the dessert table. He was William Tecumseh Sherman, and the buffet table was Atlanta. Kent paused his historical re-enactment to turn back and address us. “So, ladies.” (Here he paused to lick his fingers.) “Who do you think is gonna get the teaching award today?” “Who else was nominated?” I asked. “Besides you?” Kent helped himself to the last two slices of haupia cheesecake, balancing them atop the mounds of pastry, roast pork, rice, waffles, and fruit piled on his plates. “Let’s see.” One of the slices of haupia cake started to slide off its summit. Kent pushed it back up into place and licked his finger again. “It was me, Bob Wilson from history, and that minority chick from the psychology department.” Emma stared at him in disbelief. “Sorry Emma-chan, minority lady. Wish me luck, girls. Oh look, brownies.”
Professor Molly feels more relief than grief when Mahina State’s one-man hostile work environment keels over at a faculty retreat. She has no desire to get involved with the case, so it's an unpleasant surprise to find she already is involved. Now Professor Molly has to fight to keep the wrong person out of prison—and herself off the unemployment line.
If you like Dorothy Parker, Sarah Caudwell, P.G. Wodehouse, or E.F. Benson’s Mapp and Lucia stories, you’ll enjoy this tale of passion, pilferage, and petty politics in the middle of the Pacific.
Professor Molly Barda and her best friend Dr. Emma Nakamura brace themselves for yet another boring faculty retreat at Mahina State University (“Where Your Future Begins Tomorrow”). But when the lecherous Kent Lovely, Mahina State’s one-man hostile work environment, collapses face-first into his haupia cheesecake, the afternoon goes from dull to disastrous. Now Molly has to fight to keep an innocent out of prison—and herself off the unemployment line. If you like cozy mysteries with a touch of snark, you’ll enjoy this tale of passion, pilferage, and precarious labor in the middle of the Pacific.
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Life has always been sweet on Georgia’s Peach Cove Island, but a case of murder has Marygene Brown down in the pits . . .
For generations, the women of the Brown family on Peach Cove Island have been known for their Southern sass and sweet homemade desserts at their beloved Peach Diner. Since their mother’s passing two years ago, Marygene has been stuck in Atlanta while her sister Jena Lynn has been running the family business. Now Marygene has left her husband and returned to her hometown, where she can almost feel Mama’s presence.
But all is not peachy back home. Marygene has barely tied on an apron when a diner regular drops dead at the counter. When it turns out the old man’s been poisoned, Jena Lynn is led away in handcuffs and the family eatery is closed. Now, to save her sister and the diner, Marygene must find the real killer. With some startling assistance from her Mama’s spirit, Marygene will be serving up a special order of just desserts . . .
Includes Seven Recipes from Marygene’s Kitchen! Enter the giveaway here. (Void where prohibited)
Kate Young writes humorous southern mystery novels. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and the Guppy Chapter. Kate lives in a small town in Georgia with her husband, three kids, and Shih Tzu. When she is not writing her own books, she’s reading or cooking.
In Dorothy St. James’s third delectable Southern Chocolate Shop mystery, a new batch of chocolate and troubles of the heart cause a string of disasters for the Chocolate Box’s new owner, Charity Penn.
The vintage seaside town of Camellia Beach, South Carolina seems like the perfect place for romance with its quiet beach and its decadent chocolate shop that serves the world’s richest dark chocolates. The Chocolate Box’s owner, Charity Penn, falls even further under the island’s moonlit spell as she joins Althea Bays and the rest of the turtle watch team to witness a new generation of baby sea turtles hatch and make their way into the wide ocean.
Before the babies arrive, gunshots ring out in the night. Cassidy Jones, the local Casanova, is found dead in the sand with his lover Jody Dalton—the same woman who has vowed to destroy the Chocolate Box—holding the gun. It’s an obvious crime of passion, or so everyone believes. But when Jody’s young son pleads with Penn to bring his mother back to him, she can’t say no. She dives headfirst into a chocolate swirl of truth and lies, and must pick through an assortment of likely (and sometimes unsavory) suspects before it’s too late for Penn and for those she loves in Dorothy St. James’s third rich installment of the Southern Chocolate Shop mysteries, In Cold Chocolate. Enter To Win a 12-piece Godiva Patisserie Truffle Chocolate Flight (US Only)
Author Interview
Dorothy, welcome to Island Confidential! Can you tell us about the protagonist of In Cold Chocolate?
Charity Penn (just Penn to her friends) is chocoholic living her dream. She owns a chocolate shop on the small beach-side community of Camellia Beach in South Carolina. She’s a little nutty. She owns a small Papillon dog (Stella) who will occasionally bite her and anyone else. Because of her rocky past, she is slow to trust others. But she’s generous and always willing to lend a helping hand. Are you and Penn anything alike?
Probably the only thing I have in common with Penn is that we both have trouble in the kitchen. I don’t know what it is. I try to follow a recipe, but things seem to go wrong on their own. How would you feel about meeting her in real life?
I think that’d be awesome. I hope we’d get along. Maybe become best friends even. I’d love to get some free chocolates from her shop. Do your characters change and evolve throughout consecutive books in the series? My characters change quite a bit from book to book. Charity Penn most of all. She starts out in book one quite broken and lost. In every book she learns more about her purpose in life and gains more confidence. Like in real life, our experiences change us. Have you ever thought of killing someone that you know in real life–on the pages of a murder mystery, I mean?
Well, yeah! Hasn’t everyone? There’s one person in my life that really gets under my skin. I decided not to kill her, but translate her crazy and hurtful actions into the actions of a character in my books. I’m not going to kill her. No, that’s too good for her. I’m going to keep her alive and torture her a bit instead. (Rubs hands together with maniacal glee.) Well now I have to try to figure out who that is! And speaking of using real life in fiction, do you take liberties with your setting, or is it fairly realistic?
My Southern Chocolate Shop Mysteries are set on a fictional island, Camellia Beach. The place is loosely based on the real town of Folly Beach, which is located near Charleston, SC. I chose to set the book in a fictional town so I could turn back time and depict the town as it had existed before it turned so touristy. I lived on Folly Beach for 20 years and love its quirky, artsy ways. I always knew I wanted to set a series there. What’s the worst and best advice you’ve heard or received as an author?
The best advice I’ve ever gotten as an author is to write. If you write one page every day, by the end of the year, you’ll have finished a book. Everyone can write at least one page. The worst advice I’d ever heard was that an author needed to buy this or that advertising campaign in order to guarantee success. Yes, some ads are worth the price. But there are plenty of pathways to success. And since every book is different, no one can guarantee what it takes to get your book noticed. Just keep talking with people and your passion. The readers will eventually find you.
About the author
A lover of puzzles and perhaps a bit too nosey about other people’s lives, Dorothy St. James is a former Folly Beach beach bum. She now lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina with her husband, precocious daughter, slightly (OK, terribly) needy dogs, and the friendliest cat you’d ever meet. She has degrees in Wildlife Biology and Public Administration and as an urban planner, worked for many years telling the stories of small southern towns.
Author of a dozen novels, Dorothy enjoys writing both cozy mysteries and romance. Her works have been nominated for many awards including: the Southern Independent Bookseller’s Alliance Southern Book Prize, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, Reviewers
International Organization Award, National Reader’s Choice Award, CataRomance Reviewers’ Choice Award, and The Romance Reviews Today Perfect 10! Award. Reviewers have called her work: “amazing”, “perfect”, “filled with emotion”, and “lined with danger.” Author Links Website:www.dorothystjames.com Facebook:www.facebook.com/dorothystjames Twitter:www.twitter.com/dorothymcfalls Purchase Links Indie BoundAmazonKoboGoogle PlayBarnes & NobleBookBub
Choose from twenty-five free cozy mysteries. What is a cozy mystery? Cozies generally feature amateur sleuths, small towns, humor, minimal sex or violence, and brains over brawn.
My Professor Molly short, Trust Fall, is in there. Trust Fall is for anyone who loves mysteries and loathes team-building retreats.
Over fifty short stories in a variety of genres: mystery, romance, thriller, speculative, true adventure, science fiction, humor, and more. My Professor Molly short, Trust Fall, is in there too. Trust Fall is for anyone who loves mysteries and loathes team-building retreats.
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