Searching for something to read? Check out some of the new titles releasing the week of October 4 – 10 with three debut series. I hope a few of these books take you on a reading adventure!

OCTOBER 6
Where There’s Smoke by Rachel Louise Adams (Traditional Mystery)
A lot has happened in Dolores Hawthorne’s life since the events of last Halloween. She’s divorced, traded being a forensic pathologist for a job as a medical examiner, and now lives in small-town Wisconsin, close—but not too close—to her family. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Dramatic Murder by Elizabeth Anthony (Traditional Mystery)
Dimpson McCabe—Dimpsie—has invited all of his closest friends of the theatre world to join him for Christmas at his castle on a private island a few hours’ drive from Edinburgh. The festivities have barely had a chance to begin when poor Dimpsie is found draped atop the Christmas tree, electrocuted by the lights with which it is festooned. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

The Claus Conspiracy by Tamara Berry (Cozy Mystery)
Amber Winslow thought she’d left chaos behind when she traded bounty hunting for small-town life in Arizona. Between her job as a barista and recording a true-crime podcast with a lively group of retirees at Seven Ponds Retirement Community, life has finally settled into something resembling calm. Until a battered, amnesiac teenager crashes into it—literally. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Murder on Thin Ice by Laurie Cass (Cozy Mystery)
It’s winter in northwest lower Michigan, which means librarian Minnie Niswander and her cat, Eddie, are staying cozy in the bookmobile. But not everything is as it should be. When an elderly housebound patron, Gerald Arnold, fails to answer his door, Minnie knows something is wrong. Her fears are confirmed when the police discover Gerald’s body beneath the surface of a small frozen lake. Format: Digital, Print

Haunting in the Hamlet by Kathi Daley (Cozy Mystery)
Autumn arrives with a bang as Holiday Bay transforms into the first-ever Halloween Hamlet, an immersive live role-playing event where ghosts and goblins mingle with the everyday visitors who come to shop, compete in festive contests, indulge in seasonal treats, and dance the night away. Format: Digital, Print

Raven by Lyndsay Faye (Thriller)
Raven Helen Allan has always been haunted by witchcraft. Since the death of her beloved mother, she has soothed herself by speaking words into spells—a proclivity enhanced by time spent with her aunt’s library of occult books. She also finds a self-destructive solace in transmuting the pain in her heart onto her flesh. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Murder on 34th Street by Mariah Fredericks (Historical Mystery 1930s)
race Verlander is the secret beating heart of Macy’s. She’s the “assistant to the assistant to the someone who’s in charge”, the go-to person for keeping everything running smoothly behind-the-scenes at the famous, bustling store. It’s not every day you get a letter from Santa Claus, but three days before the Macy’s annual Thanksgiving Day Parade, Grace arrives at work to find a note from the store Santa Claus in her locker: someone has sent him a death threat. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Where the Road Ends by Brian Freeman (Police Procedural)
Jonathan Stride’s partner, Maggie Bei, is driving home after midnight when a call comes in: shots fired at the home of a Duluth judge. Moments later, she finds Gordon and Tracy Hartwick murdered in their bed. But someone is hiding in the judge’s house, and as Maggie lays chase, she’s forced to make a split-second decision that leaves the intruder dead. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Murder by Jacqueline Frost (Cozy Mystery)
New parents Holly White and Sheriff Evan Gray are sleep deprived but incandescently happy to be celebrating their baby’s first Christmas. Their family, friends, and neighbors are spoiling the newest addition. Adding to the perfect holiday season is the recent completion of their newly built home. All that’s left to do is move in and send off those change-of-address cards. But their cup full of cheer turns sour when Holly discovers a dead body. Format: Digital, Print

The Speculative Detective Agency edited by Matthew David Goodwin and Richie Narvaez (Crime / Science Fiction Mystery Anthology)
A wildly entertaining collection of interconnected stories filled with monsters, myth, and personal mysteries – blending speculative and crime fiction – that reflects our fractured yet shared global reality in which borders blur, consequences ripple, and no one and no story exists in isolation. Format: Digital, Print

The Body at the Airfield by Kate Hardy (Cozy Mystery)
A visit to Foxwood Airfield’s heritage museum with her best friend, Sybbie, should have been nothing more than an afternoon of history and homemade cake. But when Georgina’s spaniel unearths a human hand in the nearby woodland, that changes fast. The remains belong to Jimmy Tipton, an ARP warden officially killed in an air raid eighty years ago – except, as Georgina soon learns, he was shot at point-blank range instead. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

A Serving of Hope by Hisashi Kashiwai (Cozy Mystery)
Down a Kyoto alleyway, near Higashi Honganji Temple, the Kamogawa Diner attracts lost souls. The father-daughter “food detective” duo of Chef Nagare and Detective Koishi help their clientele who seek meaning in their lives by helping them access lost memories through the food of their past. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Petrified Dreams by Joe R. Lansdale (Private Investigator Mystery)
The sun never sets on justice, but it may finally be setting on the beloved crime fighting duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. The two opposites—brothers from another mother—have called the detecting business quits, but when a prop plane holding the bodies of several kidnapped women crashes into their favorite watering hole, the boys know they’re in for one last effort. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Holmes Away From Home by Samantha Larsen (Historical Mystery 1910s) *first book in a new series*
Althea Adler receives a mysterious postcard with just four words, ‘Holmes away from home.’ Surely her mother, notorious thief and opera star Irene Adler, is instructing her to break into Sherlock Holmes’s safe? But when she does, Althea makes a shocking discovery . . . Format: Digital, Print

Murder at the Movies by Alicia Malone (Cozy Mystery) *first book in a new series*
When Audrey Sullivan moves to Pine Island to take over her family’s theater, the Starlight Movie Palace, following the death of her grandmother, not everyone is thrilled with her arrival. A mysterious note is left at her doorstep telling her to return to L.A. While she’s a little spooked, Audrey is all the more determined to make opening night a success. But when the movie ends and the lights go on, there’s more than popcorn to clean up … Format: Digital, Print, Audio

The Christmas Stocking Murders by Denzil Meyrick (Traditional Mystery)
Inspector Frank Grasby and Superintendent Arthur Juggers are investigating a puzzling murder in the remote village of Uthley Bay—a fisherman has been found dead on the beach, a stocking twisted around his throat. Any remaining holiday cheer vanishes when a blizzard isolates the village from the rest of the country. The villagers refuse to talk, leaving Grasby and Juggers chasing false leads in the snow. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Hometown Halloween Homicide by Rosalie Spielman (Cozy Mystery)
It’s the spookiest time of year in New Oslo, Idaho, and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Tessa Treslow is looking forward to spending time with her aunt and their friends as they give away candy at the New Oslo community Trunk-or-Treat event. But first she agrees to accompany local salon owner, Becky Baker, to a funeral home to style the hair of a recently deceased woman—where they are both in for a surprise! There’s a note addressed to Tessa in the decedent’s bouffant do, asking Tessa to solve her murder. But was her death even a murder? Format: Digital, Print

Do You See What I See by Peter Swanson (Psychological Thriller)
When author Nicholas Child is dropped by his publisher, his agent sends him to spend the holidays at the Cape Cod mansion of her other client, Marco Tavares. Marco needs to finish the long-overdue follow-up to his bestselling novel, and Nicholas is going to help him. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

Murder with a Side of Red Velvet by Skylar Warren (Cozy Mystery)
At the centre of Jessie’s pitch-perfect dinner table sits a tiered red velvet cake, decorated in pearly-white icing and delicate pink roses, just waiting for its moment to shine. But when groom Tommy Prescott takes a bite, he immediately slumps to the floor, dead. His wedding toast becomes his eulogy as his bride collapses in a sobbing heap of tulle and lace beside him. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

The River Runs Black by Tessa Wegert (Police Procedural)
After the recent death of a teenager by overdose, a record drug seizure along the Canadian border is a game changer for New York State’s criminal investigation team. The detectives are relieved that the haul will never make it to the idyllic small-town streets of Alexandria Bay. But drugs are still circulating, and the lab results confirm it: the cocaine that killed the teenager and the cocaine from the bust are not the same. Format: Digital, Print

OCTOBER 7
Dead in Starlight Ridge by Kat Bellemore (Cozy Mystery)
When Maddie and Benji meet their grown children for a family vacation in the idyllic coastal town of Starlight Ridge, everything seems picture-perfect—sunny beaches, ocean breezes, and even a charming seaside bakery run by two elderly sisters. Until a body washes up on shore. Format: Digital, Print

Death Hits the High Notes by GG Calpo (Cozy Mystery)
Trouble is brewing at Whitman’s Port Choral Society as choir members drop dead and Detective Jonathan Storm raises more questions than answers in his investigation. When Stefan, the choir’s soloist, gets weaker by the day, Meg and her friends take matters into their own hands. And if a murder investigation was not enough to elevate anyone’s blood pressure, Meg finds herself in danger tied to her past that she’s struggling to understand. Format: Digital, Print

Killer Day in Paradise by J.C. Kenney (Cozy Mystery)
Wild animal removal specialist Elmo Simpson is spending the holidays playing Santa at the community park—and his girlfriend is about to head out of town to visit family, leaving him to a quieter-than-planned Christmas. Then a child makes one simple wish: bring her father home for Christmas. The problem? Her father is in hiding—accused of murdering a shady investment banker with a long list of enemies. Format: Digital, Print

Shepherd’s Pie by J.D. Webb (Private Investigator Mystery) *first book in a new series*
Mike Shepherd—self-proclaimed Chicago’s number one private detective—never expects his next case to blow past him on the freeway. But when fugitive Ferlin Husky Lewis speeds into view, Mike sees more than a criminal… he sees a payday he desperately needs. The pursuit costs him everything: his only decent suit, a crucial date with Diana, and any chance of keeping this case under control. Because Lewis isn’t just running—he’s leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Format: Digital, Print

OCTOBER 8
A Christmas Bookstore Murder by Sue Minix (Cozy Mystery)
It should be the most wonderful time of the year, but when a stranger turns up dead after a Christmas party, the festive season is about to be anything but merry for the small town of Riddelton…luckily local crime writer turned amateur sleuth Jen is on the case. When Jen’s friend Angus is arrested for the murder, she knows he must be innocent, but can she prove it? Format: Digital, Print

Death at the Elephant House by Paul Waters (Humorous Mystery)
The world’s most unlikely crime solving duo is back – and this time Irish nun Sister Agatha Murphy and Indian hotel owner Avtar Mehta discover that family secrets are the most deadly. When the tyrannical head of one of Delhi’s richest families is found dead inside a locked room within the historic Elephant House, Sister Agnes and Avtar must solve an impossible murder. Format: Digital, Print, Audio

OCTOBER 9
Death Camas edited by Christine Bagley, Susan Oleksiw, Ang Pompano, & Leslie Wheeler (Short Story Anthology)
Every reader comes to a story with their own assumptions. One of them is the doddering senior citizen. In “Safe?” by Bonnar Spring an elderly woman has a fall and immediately finds herself fending off the advice to give up her independence. But she was just getting started. Format: Digital, Print

The Final Volume by Syl Finch (Cozy Mystery)
When Odessa “Odie” Callahan uncovers a final trail hidden within the records of The Marbled Page, she realizes every case she’s solved has been leading to one impossible truth. A respected bookseller died protecting a secret. A gifted young clerk vanished without a trace. Format: Digital, Print

After The Fall by Wendy Roberts (Domestic Thriller)
Amber clings to the wreckage of a shattered life; a hermit drowning in the ghosts of what used to be. When someone dumps a mutilated body on her wilderness property, a cryptic clue makes her the prime suspect. To clear her name, she must confront the dark secrets of her tragic past while a shadowy executioner is closing in. Format: Digital, Print

Simply Living and Dying by Rachel Rose (Cozy Mystery)
Summer in Patterstown should be simple: iced coffee on Main Street, kids riding bikes, neighbors waving from their porches. But when a sudden death shakes one of the town’s most powerful families, Detective April Carter knows the calm won’t last. Format: Digital, Print

OCTOBER 10
The Marked Page by Tracy O’Shields (Cozy Mystery)
When DCI Thomas Rowe tells Maggie about two suspicious deaths in Truro, she learns that books were found at both scenes — each with a deliberately marked passage. The passages speak of broken vows, waiting, and hope, and Thomas suspects the choices may mean something. Format: Digital, Print

Note: in some cases, print releases for digital titles will be forthcoming.
Publication date subject to change