It's time for another Cozy Con! We are teaming up with the always wonderful Ashland Theatre to bring you SIX cozy mystery authors. Kelly will lead a chat about Culinary Killers and Andi will lead the discussion on Serious Sleuths. All tickets include a $10 coupon to use towards book purchases that day!
TICKETS HERE!
About the Authors & Books:
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the US. She is currently writing four cozy mystery series: The Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year Round Christmas mysteries, and as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series. A past president of the Crime Writers of Canada and a co-organizer of Women Killing it, a crime writing festival, her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. She is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario and can be found online at VickiDelany.com.
Lily Roberts’s Cape Cod tearoom is hosting a bridal shower—until a gruesome gift sends the guest of honor running in fear . . .
Members of the Reynolds and Hill families are staying at Lily’s grandmother’s bed and breakfast, and now they’ve gathered at Tea by the Sea to sip some delicious blends while they shower bride-to-be Hannah Hill with presents. But the last package Hannah unwraps contains a beheaded Raggedy Ann doll and triggers a bloodcurdling scream. A doll like this was the last gift from her father before he died long ago, and she’s chilled to the bone.
Lily senses that the shocking anonymous gift just might be related to other tensions she’s picking up on. The mothers-in-law have been sniping at each other—and then Lily, out walking her dog, overhears the groom’s father, Ralph, offering his son a very sizable bribe to call off the wedding. She’s relieved when Greg angrily turns him down, but with so many people steamed at each other, can this event possibly go smoothly?
The answer is no. It suddenly has to be postponed—when Ralph is found dead in his bed, a bottle of whiskey beside him. When tests indicate the booze was infused with a lethal substance, it becomes a murder case, and of course, accusations are flying wildly with the guests all too willing to believe the worst about each other. Now, to find out whether all this family drama led to a fatality, Lily will have to turn up the heat . . .
Lynn Cahoon is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Kitchen Witch Mysteries, the Cat Latimer Mystery series, the Tourist Trap Mysteries, the Farm-to-Fork series, and the Survivors' Book Club Mystery series. Originally from Idaho, she grew up living the small-town life she now loves to feature in her novels. A member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers, she lives with her husband and two fur babies in a small historic town on the banks of the Mississippi River. Visit her at LynnCahoon.com.
Bookshop owner Rarity Cole is living her best life after surviving cancer—hosting book clubs, classes, and parties at her store, The Next Chapter, and giving back to her community in Sedona, Arizona. But an awkward outing to an art gallery is about to add a dark slant to the picture . . .
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…
The evening proceeds without any social disasters. But the featured artist—who struck Rarity as more of a spoiled playboy—is later found dead with an arrow in his back. Any lingering tensions must be set aside so the amateur sleuths can find an archer who may have taken the idea of pointed criticism a bit too literally . . .
Valerie (V. M.) Burns is a mystery writer whose novels and short stories have been finalists for the Agatha, Anthony, Edgar, and Next Generation Indie Book Awards. She is the author of the Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, RJ Franklin, and Baker Street Mystery series, as well as the Bailey the Bloodhound Mysteries under the name Kallie E. Benjamin. Valerie is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and the Crime Writers' Association. She is also an adjunct professor in the Writing Popular Fiction Program at Seton Hill University in Greensburg, PA. Born and raised in northwestern Indiana, Valerie now lives in the southeastern United States with her two poodles. Connect with Valerie at VMBurns.com.
In this feisty new culinary cozy mystery from Agatha and Edgar Award-nominated author Valerie Burns, social media influencer Maddy Montgomery is adjusting to her new life after moving to small-town Michigan to run a bakery and take care of a gigantic English mastiff—all while solving the murder of a one-time nemesis...
Thanks to Maddy’s social media savvy, Baby Cakes Bakery is becoming a huge success—so much so that she’s attracted the attention of her former nemesis, the fiancé-stealing Brandy Denton. When Brandy blows into New Bison like an ill wind and disrupts a vlog Maddy’s filming, their argument goes viral. After Brandy’s body is found at Baby Cakes, Maddy instantly goes from viral sensation to murder suspect.
As Maddy is still reeling from the murder, a stranger shows up in the bakery claiming to have been a friend of Octavia. He believes Maddy is in danger. When a second body washes up on the lake shore, it seems clear someone’s out to K*ll to keep a secret—and it may have to do with her great aunt.
Maddy rallies her aunt’s friends, the Baker Street Irregulars; Sheriff April Johnson; and her veterinarian boyfriend Michael—not to mention her English mastiff Baby—to do some digging and root out whoever’s behind the killings . . .
Katie Siegel is a former wannabe child detective who eventually realized that writing mysteries was more fun than trying (and failing) to solve them. In addition to writing the Charlotte Illes books and creating content for @KatieFliesAway on Tiktok, Instagram, and Youtube, she writes and produces the fantasy radio advice show podcast, Dear Liisphyra. She graduated from Rutgers University with a degree in journalism and currently lives in New Jersey. Visit her online at KatieFliesAway.com.
The déjà vu is strong for 25-year-old former kid detective Charlotte Illes when she lands back in Frencham Middle School – this time as a substitute teacher with a sideline in sleuthing – in the second zany mystery based on the much-loved TikTok web series from @katiefliesaway.
For fans of “Poker Face,” “Knives Out,” Elle Cosimano’s Finlay Donovan Series, and anyone seeking to satisfy their Harriet the Spy, Encyclopedia Brown, or Nancy Drew nostalgia!
Mention “returning to the scene of a crime,” and people don’t usually picture a middle school. But that’s where kid detective Lottie Illes enjoyed some of her greatest successes, solving mysteries and winning acclaim—before the world of adult responsibilities came crashing in . . .
Twentysomething Charlotte is now back in the classroom, this time as a substitute teacher. However, as much as she’s tried to escape the shadow of her younger self, others haven’t forgotten about Lottie. In fact, a fellow teacher is hoping for help discovering the culprit behind anonymous threats being sent to her and her aunt, who’s running for reelection to the Board of Education.
At first, Charlotte assumes the messages are a harmless prank. But maybe it’s a good thing she left a detective kit hidden in the band room storage closet all those years ago—just in case. Because the threats are escalating, and it’s clear that untangling mysteries isn’t child’s play anymore . . .
Molly MacRae is the award-winning author of the Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries, the Highland Bookshop Mysteries, and the new Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. Born and raised in Illinois, MacRae spent twenty years in the foothills of Tennessee’s Blue Ridge Mountains, where she was the director of the history museum for Jonesborough, the state’s oldest town. During that time, MacRae and her family started taking vacations to North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where she fell in love with Ocracoke Island, the setting for her Haunted Shell Shop Mysteries. MacRae, a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, has won the Sherwood Anderson Award for short fiction, and several of her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. She currently lives in Champaign, IL with her family. For more information on Molly and her books, please visit MollyMacRae.com.
From Molly MacRae, acclaimed author of the Highland Bookshop Mysteries, the first in a charming new series set on a beautiful barrier island off the coast of North Carolina and featuring a widowed folklorist, a seashell shop, and the ghost of an 18th century pirate…
As a professional storyteller, Maureen Nash can’t help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it’s the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop’s owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she’ll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery . . .
In Maureen’s first hours on the storm-lashed island, she averts several life-threatening accidents, stumbles over the body of a controversial Ocracoke local, and meets the ghost of an eighteenth-century Welsh pirate, Emrys Lloyd. To the untrained eye, all these unusual occurrences would seem to be random misfortunes, but Maureen senses there may be something connecting these stories. With Emrys’s supernatural assistance, and the support of a few new friends, Maureen sets out unravel the truth, find a killer, and hopefully give this tale a satisfying ending . . . while also rewriting her own.
Alex Erickson is the author of the Bookstore Cafe Mystery Series, the Furever Pets Mysteries, and the Cat Yoga Mystery Series. He lives in Ohio with his family and resident felines, who provide endless amounts of inspiration. When he’s not writing, he enjoys spending his time gaming or playing music. Visit him online at AlexEricksonBooks.com.
From the bestselling author of the Bookshop Cafe Mysteries, the first in an exciting new series featuring a young female entrepreneur who’s just opened her dream business – a yoga studio filled with adorable, adoptable cats! If only helping humans fund balance and felines find homes didn’t also require she investigate the purrfect murder…
Sure to appeal to fans of Miranda James, Cate Conte, Eileen Watkins, Laurien Berenson, and all lovers of cozy mysteries featuring animal companions!
Finding this killer will be a real stretch . . .
Ashley Branson has a lot to prove with her new cat yoga studio, A Purrfect Pose. It's a place for humans to find inner wellness—and adopt adorable cats from the local shelter. It’s also a chance for Ash to run her own life, out from under her overbearing mother and a stifling relationship. So far, so successful. Until she discovers one of her new clients, a much-disliked college professor, dead in her studio, locked in child’s pose . . .
To make matters worse, Ash’s hapless always-in-trouble brother, Hunter, instantly becomes the cops’ prime suspect. Determined to clear his name and save her business, Ash does a deep lunge into the surprising—and strange—connections the victim had with her other clients. But countless suspects, contradictory leads, not to mention people desperate to see her studio shut down, mean Ash will have to stretch to the max to outthink a clever killer who’s ready to strike her red in tooth and claw . . .
Event Venue
Ashland Theatre, 205 England St, Ashland, VA 23005-2014, United States,Ashland, Virginia
Tickets
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