Looking for something to read? Check out some of the new titles releasing during the week of August 4 – 10, 2024. I hope a few of these books take you to an exciting place. Have fun reading!

AUGUST 5
The Case of the Disappearing Diner by JC Savoy (Cozy Mystery)
In the quaint town of Mapleview, Connecticut, my café is the go-to spot for escaping the chilly November air and catching up on all the latest gossip. But just as I’m enjoying a peaceful morning, Carla Sands bursts in with some jaw-dropping news: our beloved local diner and its owner, Emory Draper, have vanished into thin air. Format: Digital, Print to come soon

AUGUST 6
Running in the Shadows by Skye Alexander (Historical Mystery 1920s)
A spring equinox party at the mansion of a rich, flamboyant, and controversial art collector promises New York jazz singer Lizzie Crane and her band a fat paycheck, lucrative connections, and plenty of fun. She’ll also have an opportunity to reconnect with a handsome Boston Brahmin she fancies. Format: Digital, Print to come

The House on Cold Creek Lane by Liz Alterman (Domestic Thriller)
When Laurel and Rob West move into their new home in New Jersey, it seems too good to be true. But Laurel can’t shake off her old feelings of anxiety. The neighbor who pays far too much attention to the Wests’ two young children . . . Rob watching her every misstep . . . and there’s something people aren’t telling her about this house . . . Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Between A Flock and a Hard Place by Donna Andrews (Cozy Mystery)
Meg’s neighbors, the Smetkamps’, have won a makeover for their old home from Marvelous Mansions, a flashy, yet dubious company, focused on making historic homes more “modern.” The company already several days into its makeover of the Smetkamps’ house, and tensions are running high–not only between the officious, demanding Mrs. Smetkamp and her neighbors, but also between her and the renovation crew. Meg, who is trying to keep the peace and prevent the makeover crew from trampling on every clause of the county’s building code, arrives at the Smetkamps to find that Caerphilly’s resident flock of feral turkeys has moved into their yard–or been relocated there by someone who wanted to cause them trouble. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The Rose Arbor by Rhys Bowen (Historical Mystery 1960s)
Liz Houghton is languishing as an obituary writer at a London newspaper when a young girl’s disappearance captivates the city. If Liz can break the story, it’s her way into the newsroom. She already has a scoop: her best friend, Marisa, is a police officer assigned to the case. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Booked on Murder by Allison Brook (Cozy Mystery)
Carrie Singleton is ready to kiss the single life goodbye. Her wedding to Dylan Avery is just a few weeks away, and a happy ending is about to be hers. But when a body is found on the lawn of their wedding venue, happily-ever-after is looking deadlier than ever. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

To Err is Cumin by Leslie Budewitz (Cozy Mystery)
Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

A Poisonous Palate by Lucy Burdette (Cozy Mystery)
When food critic Hayley Snow receives an intriguing email about a mysterious, decades-old disappearance, her curiosity is piqued. Writer Catherine Davitt has returned to the Keys to research a book about Hemingway’s wives, but she’s also on the hunt for the truth about her missing friend. Hayley quickly agrees to help investigate and they hit the road to see what clues they might find. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Reading Between the Lies by Lynn Cahoon (Cozy Mystery)
Rarity is grateful for many things and people in her new life, including her friend Shirley, who is helping to provide backpacks and supplies for kids going back to school. But Shirley needs a big favor. With her husband in a memory-care home, she wants to attend an art opening with a male friend but fears local gossip. She asks Rarity, her friend Sam, and their boyfriends to come along as cover. It would be fun if not for the fact that the two couples are barely speaking…Format: Print, Digital, Audio

No Paw to Stand On by Laurie Cass (Cozy Mystery)
When a heat wave hits northern Michigan, Minnie, Eddie, and their bookmobile head to the beach to catch some rays and some customers. But library business is put on hold when Minnie’s restaurant-owning best friend, Kristen, calls. The specialty ice cream cone treat she’d been serving to patrons was sabotaged, making some customers horribly sick. Kristen needs Minnie to sniff out the culprit fast, or the restaurant’s reputation will be destroyed forever. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The Body Next Door by Maia Chance (Domestic Thriller)
Hannah McCullough’s life is far from perfect, but you’d never know it by looking at her. Instead, you’d see a beautiful young mother wholly devoted to her two children and a docile wife utterly besotted with her self-made millionaire husband, Allan. You’d see the designer clothes she wears, the luxury car she drives, the dewy-eyed au pair she employs. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Peach Tea Smash by Laura Childs (Cozy Mystery)
During the Mad Hatter Masquerade, a fundraiser hosted by the Friends of the Opera on the grounds of the old Pendleton Grist Mill, Harlan Sadler, husband of Cricket Sadler, the chairwoman, is killed. He’s been hit in the head with a croquet mallet, and his body hung on the chains and paddles of the grist mill. Nobody can figure out why since Harlan was much beloved by everyone. It’s only after Cricket and Delaine beg Theodosia to investigate that she realizes the killer might have mistaken Harlan for his crazy son, Duke. After all, Duke is a slum landlord and recently injured a woman in a boating accident. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

A Sister Thing by Kathy Daley (Cozy Mystery)
Ainsley Holloway had come to Gooseberry Bay to find answers about her past. She’d come to find an explanation for the dreams that haunted her after the death of the cop who’d both rescued and raised her. And she’d come to identify the family she couldn’t remember but knew in her heart she’d once belonged to. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The Outlier by Elisabeth Eaves (Psychological Thriller)
Kate Winter, at 34, is a wildly successful neuroscientist and entrepreneur who has invented a cure for Alzheimer’s that will improve the lives of millions. On the verge of selling her biotech company for an obscene sum, she is also about to become very rich. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The River View by Jamie Harrison (Traditional Mystery)
Jules Clement is back in Blue Deer, working as an archaeologist and private investigator. He’s a mostly happy man: he’s a new father, and he and his wife Caroline are building their dream house on an idyllic patch of river bottomland. But everything that can go wrong will, in terms of money, love, and murder. The horrible neighbors enlist Jules to spy on each other. The county hires him to find out if a road runs over some misplaced bodies in a long-abandoned potter’s field. A former priest with a side hustle in extortion ends up very dead. A crew of Russians in fast cars is running amok through the Montana landscape. All this as an old nemesis returns, pulling Jules back to confront what he’s been avoiding his entire life: the death of his father. Format: Print, Digital

The Lost Coast by Jonathan and Jesse Kellerman (Thriller)
Cut loose from his former life at the coroner’s office, Clay Edison has set up shop as a private investigator. It’s steady, safe work. Until it isn’t. The trouble begins when a young man, tasked with managing his grandmother’s estate, hires Clay to examine some minor financial discrepancies. What starts off as a case of simple fraud rapidly explodes into a web of deception, an elaborate con game stretching back decades and involving countless victims. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Saving The Guilty by Liz Milliron (Traditional Mystery)
When defense attorney Sally Castle agrees to do a favor for an old friend she thinks the case will be simple: present the appeal for a murder conviction and the work is already done. But the more Sally looks into the facts of the case, the more problems she sees. Did sloppy police procedure result in the conviction of an innocent man? Format: Digital, Print to come

A Farewell to Arfs by Spencer Quinn (Cozy Mystery)
Chet the dog, “the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction” (Boston Globe) and his human partner PI Bernie Little are on to a new case, and this time they’re entangled in a web of crime unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. Their elderly next door neighbor, Mr. Parsons, thought he was doing the right thing by loaning his ne’er do well son, Billy, some money to help get himself settled. But soon, Mr. Parsons discovers that his entire life savings is gone. A run-of-the-mill scam? Bernie isn’t so sure that the case is that simple, but it’s Chet who senses what they’re really up against. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Fire and Bones by Kathy Reichs (Thriller)
Always apprehensive about working fire scenes, Tempe is called to Washington, DC, to analyze the victims of a deadly blaze and sees her misgivings justified. The devastated building is in Foggy Bottom, a neighborhood with a colorful past and present, and Tempe becomes suspicious about the property’s ownership when she delves into its history. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Wordhunter by Stella Sands (Traditional Mystery)
Tattooed, pierced, and a bit of a mess, Maggie Moore is a surprising genius when it comes to words, a savant able to solve any linguistic puzzle. The top student in her forensic linguistics class, she’s tapped by local police to use her skills to decipher harrowing notes left by a stalker-turned-rapist—and succeeds brilliantly. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

A Cold, Cold World by Elena Taylor (Traditional Mystery)
The world felt pure. Nature made the location pristine again, hiding the scene from prying eyes. As if no one had died there at all. In the months since Bet Rivers solved her first murder investigation and secured the sheriff’s seat in Collier, she’s remained determined to keep her town safe. With a massive snowstorm looming, it’s more important than ever that she stays vigilant. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Agony Hill by Sarah Stewart Taylor (Traditional Mystery)
In the hot summer of 1965, Bostonian Franklin Warren arrives in Bethany, Vermont, to take a position as a detective with the state police. Warren’s new home is on the verge of monumental change; the interstates under construction will bring new people, new opportunities, and new problems to Vermont, and the Cold War and protests against the war in Vietnam have finally reached the dirt roads and rolling pastures of Bethany. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Errands & Espionage by Sam Tschida (Mystery Romance)
Recently divorced Gabby Greene spends most of her days listening to self-help books while wrangling her loving yet erratic kids. During a decade of marriage, Gabby shoved aside her own career and ambitions to make room for mountains of laundry, running errands, and investigating the case of the missing socks. Her number one suspect: their Bichon Frise, Mr. Bubbles. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

AUGUST 8
Callahan in Action by Susan Yawn Tanner (Cozy Mystery)
Cat Callahan and Dax’s travels put them in North Carolina, where a Civil War Reenactment is setting up. Out at dinner with Dax, Callahan spots a beautiful young woman who’s had way too much to drink, and the wily Scottish Fold cat knows this evening might not end well. The sorrow in her eyes tells Callahan the alcohol she consumed had less to do with entertainment than an effort to forget. He decides to stick with her as a kindly man offers to see her back to her hotel. Format: Print, Digital

 

Note: in some cases, print releases for digital titles will be forthcoming.