There you are! Thanks so much for waiting! I hope I didn’t keep you too long at the counter. Goodness, we’re usually better than this. My niece, Roxy, is off handling whatever new issue we have going here, so I’ll be taking care of you and getting you to your room at The Charmed Inn.
Let me see, what am I supposed to be doing? Oh yes, right! I’m Hellen and I help out around here, filling in as needed. The inn has been in our family for a number of years and there are so many little touches that you could get lost in the aesthetic. Roxy has done a wonderful job preserving our history here on the banks.
Oh, but that’s not why you’re here! You’re here to check in and I’m trying to give you a lesson on our history. My apologies. I can only tell you so much anyway, as we have some family secrets that just can’t be let out of our circle. However, between you and me, I’m a little off my game because we have a writers’ retreat this weekend and I’m all aflutter about one of the attendees.
You don’t need to know about that, though. So, welcome to our little home away from home. We’re happy to have you here and hope you love your stay. We have the very last crossing on the Susquehanna River via a ferry just down the hill. It’s beached right now since we’re off season, but if you come back in a few weeks it’ll be up and running.
Well, at least I hope so. We had a bit of an issue with a… um… well, I hope it won’t change your mind about staying with us but I suppose I should be upfront and let you know that the police might be in and out of here over the next few days. There was an… incident, yes an incident, but hopefully it will be figured out soon. If you see Roxy talking to herself or seeming to ask questions and reading a book for the answer, you can just ignore that.
That’s everything then for your stay. I hope it’s wonderful and that nothing else bad happens while you’re here. One can always hope, anyway.
By Hook or By Book – A Charmed Inn Mystery, Book 1
Genre: Cozy Mystery w/paranormal elements
Release: June 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link
Roxy Gleason, an innkeeper by trade and a bibliomancer by birth, has lived in the same small town on the Susquehanna River in Central Pennsylvania for her entire life. Tradition is strong here. Roxy understands the rules and is willing to play by them most of the time. She runs the Charmed Inn, which has been in her family for decades.
The inn is all set to host a writers’ professional business weekend that’s been planned down to the very last hand-folded napkin, and Roxy is ready for the influx of creatives. She knows she’ll have a lot of different and sometimes unusual personalities to deal with, but this is a yearly function, so she’s not expecting anything to go awry.
Her expectations are completely tanked when she finds a dead body on her daily walk by the river’s shore. Owen Schultz had checked in for the conference a few hours ago, and she’d last seen him having tea with her aunt in the dining room.
How did he get down here on the ferry, and who killed him?
About the author
Misty Simon always wanted to be a storyteller…preferably behind a Muppet. Animal was number one, followed closely by Sherlock Hemlock… Since that dream didn’t come true, she began writing stories to share her world with readers, one laugh at a time. Touching people’s hearts and funny bones are two of her favorite things, and she hopes everyone at least snickers in the right places when reading her books. She lives with her husband in Central Pennsylvania where she is hard at work on her next novel or three. She loves to hear from readers so drop her a line at misty@mistysimon.com.