Looking for something to read? Check out some of the new titles releasing during the week of October 15 – 21, 2023 with one debut series. I hope a few of these books take you to an exciting place. Have fun reading!

OCTOBER 15
Bobbin For Answers by Melissa Bourbon (Cozy Mystery)
It’s autumn in Bliss, Texas, and Harlow Cassidy is creating the perfect costume for her friend Josie’s Halloween party. She hopes she can she sew her own wishes and dreams into the Wednesday Addams dress. But fashion turns fatal when the Halloween party takes a dark turn. One of the party-goers is found dead next to the toppled barrel of apples and so many people have a potential motive, including Harlow’s good friend Orphie. Format: Digital

OCTOBER 16
Happiness Is A Warm Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of the Beatles edited by Josh Pachter (Short story anthology)
For this collection, the lyrics of the Beatles’ inspired the contributing authors to imagine a world in which murder, kidnapping, blackmail, and theft are as common as meter maids and yellow submarines. Each story was inspired by a song from one of the Fab Four’s studio albums: seventeen albums, seventeen songs, seventeen stories—by a total of eighteen authors (since one was written collaboratively by Dru Ann Love and Kristopher Zgorski, two of crime fiction’s leading bloggers). Format: Print, Digital

OCTOBER 17
Leave The Lights On by Liv Andersson (Domestic Suspense)
Cape Morgan, Maine, is the utopian ideal for a charmed life, and Beatrice Wicker knows it. The multi-million-dollar house on the sea coast. The joint bank accounts. The safety and security that go along with being married to an esteemed architect and community leader. The scenic coastline, perfect for her ambitious plan to turn an abandoned asylum into an artists’ retreat. So what if her husband sneaks off to see his second family now and again? Beatrice is willing to look the other way. It’s simply the price she must pay to keep their life together. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Mistletoe and Murder by Connie Berry (Cozy Mystery)
Five days before her wedding to Detective Inspector Tom Mallory, Kate Hamilton finds her friend Sheila in need of her help. Sheila, a soon-to-be bride herself, needs Kate’s help to get Carl Curtis, her fiancé, out of Venezuela. His passport was taken from him by the authorities, and they say he owes them money. Carl says it’s a bribe, but he’s unable to leave unless it’s paid. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Borrowed Trouble by Christine Falcone (Cozy Mystery)
After the murder of her ex-husband is solved, visiting nurse Melanie Bass is confident she will never again cross paths with Detective Sunny Cody. She is shocked when the detective suddenly shows up on her doorstep to ask Melanie for a favor. What starts out as an assignment Detective Cody assures her will be quick and simple, instead soon puts Melanie, her dog Bruno, and Detective Cody herself in serious jeopardy. Melanie quickly becomes increasingly enmeshed in an investigation involving drugs, lies, and danger. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Stalking Around The Christmas Tree by Jacqueline Frost (Cozy Mystery)
For inn keeper Holly White, Christmas time in Mistletoe, Maine, is the ultimate holiday gift. Business at the Reindeer Games Inn is booming, her wedding to Sheriff Evan Gray is nearly here, and the annual parade is about to begin. The town is lucky to have another gift this year with the state’s ballet company staying for several performances of The Nutcracker. But disaster strikes when Tiffany, the lead ballerina, shows up dead on a float during the parade, the Rat King’s mask nearby. Holly will have to spruce up her sleuthing skills if she wants to catch the killer before Christmas—and her wedding day. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The Exchange: After The Firm by John Grisham (Legal Thriller)
What became of Mitch and Abby McDeere after they exposed the crimes of Memphis law firm Bendini, Lambert & Locke and fled the country? The answer is in The Exchange, the riveting sequel to The Firm, the blockbuster thriller that launched the career of America’s favorite storyteller. It is now fifteen years later, and Mitch and Abby are living in Manhattan, where Mitch is a partner at the largest law firm in the world. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

The Harbour Lights Mystery by Emylia Hall (Private Investigator Mystery)
It’s December in Cornwall, and Mousehole harbour is illuminated with its famous Christmas lights. Ally Bright is among the crowd listening to the carol singers—and then to the piercing screams that rip through the darkness. A body has been found, brutally murdered and dumped in a fisherman’s boat. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Sieve and Let Die by Victoria Hamilton (Cozy Mystery)
Vintage cookware collector Jaymie Müller is stunned when an irate woman accuses her pharmacist friend Val of tampering with her prescription. When more unfounded accusations follow, it seems clear the woman has a personal grudge against Val. But before they can figure out why, Jaymie and Val stumble upon the woman’s dead body on the steps of Val’s pharmacy. Given her altercations with the woman and the location of the body, the police naturally suspect Val. Format: Print, Digital

In the Wick of Time by Valona Jones (Cozy Mystery)
December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. With all the festivities—including the traditional riverfront luminary display during the boat parade—twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead, and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Paws To Remember by Sofie Kelly (Cozy Mystery)
When a water leak repair results in a body being found behind the walls of the store run by the artists’ co-op that Kathleen’s friend, Maggie, is part of everyone is completely mystified as to whose body it is and who hid it there. But as the dust settles, her boyfriend, Detective Marcus Gordon, begins to suspect the body could belong to a young woman who disappeared more than thirty years ago. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Home At Night by Paula Munier (Traditional Mystery)
It’s Halloween in Vermont, winter is coming, and five humans, two dogs, and a cat are a crowd in Mercy Carr’s small cabin. She needs more room—and she knows just the place: Grackle Tree Farm, with thirty acres of woods and wetlands and a Victorian manor to die for. They say it’s haunted by the ghosts of missing children and lost poets and a murderer or two, but Mercy loves it anyway. Even when Elvis finds a dead body in the library. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

A Nutcracker Nightmare by Christina Romeril (Cozy Mystery)
Hanna and Alex, owners of the Murder and Mayhem book and chocolate shop, are busy preparing for the Harriston High School’s reunion weekend. Neighbors will connect with old friends and perhaps try to avoid old foes. One person no one can avoid is Kyle, the former star quarterback, who is busy using his entire playbook to try and score with Hanna, even threatening her if she doesn’t play nice. At the reunion, Alex glimpses more drama than nostalgia as insults are flung around like a football at a Friday night game. The party is put on hold when Alex finds the dead body of none other than Kyle himself, bludgeoned to death by a nutcracker that the sisters admired earlier in the night. Format: Print, Digital, Audio

Swimmingly Dead by Michele Scott (Cozy Mystery)
Ella McBane thought the whole murder mystery thing was behind her. Now she’s dating, shooing off former flames who keep intruding on her life, and landing upscale catering gigs left and right. Life is going swimmingly. Until she discovers a body in the pool of a mega mansion she’d just catered an open house at. It also happens to be a home listed for sale by her best friend Noelle. Format: Digital

Christmas Lights and Cat Fights by Heather Weidner (Cozy Mystery)
Christmas has come to Fern Valley, and the town’s decked out with enough glitter and sparkle for a month’s worth of celebrations, each more over-the-top than the previous one. The idyllic setting, filled with laughter, carols, and sweet treats, is shattered, along with some of the decorations, when the current wife and the ex-wife of a big-cat showman have a knock-down, drag-out fight in the center of town. Jules Keene, owner of the Fern Valley Glamping Resort, tries to keep peace among her guests and with the town council, but it turns into a catastrophe when Tabbi Morris, winds up dead in one of her ex-husband’s tiger cages. Format: Digital

Murder by the Seashore by Samara Yew (Cozy Mystery) *first book in a new series*
Southern California is where dreams come true—or so Scarlett Gardner thought. When she moved there and opened the Palm Trees and Page Turners bookshop, she thought her boyfriend and business partner would be part of the story. When he leaves her for a better job, Scarlett finds herself struggling to keep her new business afloat. That’s not the only thing she has to worry about—she discovers something underneath the pier by her bookshop that she didn’t outline for her life’s story: the dead body of a book-buying customer. Format: Print, Digital, Audio