Happy Friday!
Are you ready to get your spook on? Halloween is just a few weeks away and it’s the perfect time to curl up with a Halloween-themed book. Nightfall is coming earlier, it gets dark here about 7pm and that’s when I usually make a cup of tea, gather the pups on the sofa and settle in with a book. This month I’m reading spooky cozies mysteries. 🙂
Go grab a cup of your choice of hot beverage, dim the lights (but not too dim) and sink into a deliciously spooky cozy mystery.
Stirring the Plot by Daryl Wood Gerber (A Cookbook Nook Mystery)
Halloween in Crystal Cove, California, is a big deal, involving a spooky soiree where the Winsome Witches, a fund-raising group, gather to open up their purse strings and trade superstitions. But party magicians, fortune-tellers, and herbalists are only the beginning of this recipe for disaster…
Jenna Hart has packed The Cookbook Nook chock-full of everything from ghostly texts to witchy potions in anticipation of the annual fund-raiser luncheon. But there’s one unexpected addition to the menu: murder.
When the Head Priestess of the Winsome Witches is found dead under mysterious circumstances, there’s no logical answer and plenty of blame to go around. With her aunt, Vera, unable to call on her ability to foresee the future, Jenna will have to use more than just sleight of hand and a few magic tricks to conjure up the truth…
Dial Meow for Murder by Bethany Blake (Lucky Paws Petsitting Mystery)
Even an experienced pet sitter like Daphne Templeton can be fooled by animal behavior: how can an adorably tiny fuzz ball named Tinkleston be capable of sudden flying leaps with cat claws bared? But human behavior remains even more mysterious, especially when Tinkleston’s owner is murdered on the night of a gala fundraiser for Fur-ever Friends Pet Rescue.
Accompanied by her unflappable basset hound, Socrates, Daphne plans to take charge of Tinks the Terror and leave the crime-solving to handsome detective Jonathan Black. But while luring the prickly Persian out of hiding, she uncovers clues that might take suspicion off her own mother. Maeve Templeton already has a reputation as a killer—in real estate. How far would she go to bag Sylvan Creek’s most coveted property, the Flynt Mansion?
To expose the truth, Daphne finds herself donning a deranged clown costume on an autumnal adventure that might just be crazy enough to work—if it doesn’t get her killed.
The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer by Krista Davis (A Paws & Claws Mystery)
Wagtail, Virginia, the top pet-friendly getaway in the United States, is gearing up for a howling good Halloween—until a spooky murder shakes the town to its core..
Holly Miller doesn’t believe in spirits, but the Sugar Maple Inn is filled with guests who do. The TV series in development, Apparition Apprehenders, has descended on Wagtail’s annual Halloween festivities to investigate supernatural local legends, and Holly has her hands full showing the ghost hunters a scary-fun time.
But the frights turn real when Holly’s Jack Russell, Trixie, and kitten, Twinkletoes, find a young woman drowned in the Wagtail Springs Hotel’s bathhouse—the spot of the town’s most infamous haunting. The crime scene is eerily similar to the creepy legend, convincing Holly that the death wasn’t just accidental. Now she’ll have to race to catch a flesh-and-blood killer—before someone else in town gives up the ghost…
Grave Errors by Carol Perry (A Witch City Mystery)
For residents of Salem, Massachusetts, the day after Halloween brings empty candy wrappers, sagging pumpkins, and a community-wide identity crisis. That is, until Lee Barrett’s TV production class suggests extending the spooky season with the traditional Mexican celebration Dia de Los Muertos. But when the students discover not all of Salem’s dead are resting in peace, the post-October blues don’t seem so bad after all . . .
As if a series of haunting graveyard visits isn’t disturbing enough, Lee and her policeman boyfriend connect the crime to an unsolved missing person case. Driven by a series of chilling psychic visions, Lee calls on her cleverest allies—including her shrewd cat, O’Ryan—to go underground and dig up the evidence needed to put a lid on a cold case forever . . . before the latest headstone in town has her name on it!
Deadly Brew by Karen MacInerney (Dewberry Farm Mysteries)
It’s Halloween in Buttercup, Texas, and reporter-turned-farmer Lucy Resnick is up to her ears in more than goats and wayward cows. Not only has her well dried up, but it turns out the old house Lucy recently moved to the farm has a reputation for spooks… and they are disturbingly active. Then a tarot card reading at a local mead winery foretells death… only to have exotic game ranch owner Bug Wharton turn up dead. Cause of death? Murder, by a fatal dose of bee venom. When the dimwitted sheriff fingers local witch and mead winery owner Seraphine Alexandre, Lucy gets involved… and soon discovers that all kinds of things are brewing in Buttercup. And some of them are deadly.
There you have it, a few good books to take you through the month of October. When I curl up with my tea I’m now using a new mug, perfect for fall and for a mystery author.
What’s your favorite book to read this time of year? Are you currently reading a Halloween themed cozy that’s not on this list? If so, what is it?
Happy Reading!
Debra
