Minerva Biggs
Welcome to Bryd Hollow, where murder is a thing of the past.
Mystery Repeats Itself
Delighted by the promise of living and working in a glittering Gilded Age mansion, Minerva Biggs moves to idyllic Bryd Hollow, North Carolina with her dog Plantagenet. She’s looking for a new beginning; what she finds is five quite possibly deranged people, four French bulldogs, two distracting dimples attached to one inconvenient man … and one murder.
Nope, make that two murders. When Minerva makes a connection between her new employer’s fatal fall and the death of his celebrated great-grandfather in the same spot more than a century before, she doubts that either was an accident. Delving into old secrets and new grudges, she begins to unravel the twisted threads that bind past to present. Right up until she tangles them around the wrong guy. Oops.
With a trial looming, a scandal raging, and her job prospects dwindling, Minerva races to solve both crimes. Preferably before her new beginning comes to an unfortunate end.
Old Knives Tale
When Minerva identifies a murder weapon as a priceless sixteenth-century artifact, she’s sure her eyes must be deceiving her. Even by Bryd Hollow standards, five hundred years seems like an absurd amount of time to hold a grudge.
The knife can’t possibly be real. Can it? Each bizarre secret she uncovers leaves Minerva more determined to get to the bottom of the blade’s origins. But the deeper she digs, the more she angers and alienates her new friends. And the police. And possibly a few unsavory criminals.
With nobody left on her side except her dog (and even he’s getting a little mad), Minerva will have to risk everything to reveal the truth and unmask a killer. Her almost perfect new life might just depend on it.
Past Resort
Flapper dresses, sidecar cocktails, and jazz: what more could a girl and her dog want?
Minerva is thrilled at the chance to spend a week at the resort, managing a Gatsby-themed role-play event—and chilled when one of the players turns up dead. With a killer on the loose, everyone from the police chief to her overprotective boyfriend wants her to back off and go home.
But Minerva can never resist the call of the past. When she hears the haunting echoes of not one but two long-forgotten crimes, she’s more determined than ever not to abandon her guests. Unfortunately for her, someone else has joined the effort to discourage interference.
And unlike the others, the murderer is not asking nicely.
The Guest is History
Minerva figured an old, wealthy family like the Bairds would have a few skeletons in the closet. She just didn’t expect the tree guy to dig one of them up. But when the century-old remains of a mysterious Baird relation are found on the grounds of the family’s famous estate, Minerva is eager to once again delve into history and unearth the truth.
Until the murdered woman’s granddaughter comes to Tybryd, and winds up murdered herself. Now the deeper Minerva digs into the past, the more dangerous the present becomes. And the more bizarre. As she and her indomitable dog Plantagenet sift through the secrets buried with those bones, they dredge up arcane treasures, enigmatic maids, the Titanic, and … witchcraft?
Impenetrable as the terrain may seem, Minerva will have to uncover the pieces of two women’s lives, broken and buried more than a hundred years apart. Because if she can’t, she might just end up six feet under.
Somewhere in Crime
Wedding bells are ringing for Minerva Biggs, but they hit a sour note when an heirloom music box vanishes on her watch. What’s a girl to do when Something Borrowed becomes Something Stolen?
For Minerva, the answer can always be found in Something Old. The siren song of yesteryear leads her to an impossible photograph of both the music box and one of the suspects—years before either is supposed to exist. Past and present seem to have fallen out of time, and the mysteries are multiplying with every beat.
The groom’s ex-girlfriend is sabotaging, the bride’s grandmother is scolding, the ring bearer is slobbering, and now the maid of honor is swearing there’s time travel afoot. Can Minerva restore harmony and walk down the aisle on a high note? Or will her wedding march become a funeral dirge?.
Story Island
Welcome to Story Island, where not everyone lives to tell the tale.
Died and Prejudice
Fleeing the press and the public eye after a scandalous divorce, Eliza Crumb runs home to coastal North Carolina. But these aren’t the healing waters she remembers. Someone’s poisoned the well in Story Island.
A blogger calling herself Poison Penelope is choking the town with a noxious brew of shameful fact and scurrilous fiction. When the subject of a particularly venomous post turns up dead, an apparent suicide, Eliza is convinced things aren’t as they seem. Armed with old friends, a new beagle, and the Southern sass she thought she’d lost, she’ll stop at nothing to find the one antidote that can save Story: the truth.
If she can’t, this might just be where her own story ends.
The Drowned and the Fury
For Eliza Crumb and her trusty beagle Mr. Tumnus, the past few months have been smooth sailing. But a storm breaks over their settled life when a hurricane washes the mayor’s body ashore, and one of Eliza’s best friends becomes the top suspect in his death.
As if the seas weren’t rough enough, the victim’s even more obnoxious brother blows into town, asking questions and demanding satisfaction. He seems more interested in revenge than justice, and he’s not particularly picky about where he gets it.
To protect her friends and her home, Eliza will have to risk everything to bait a killer … or sleep with the fishes.
The Crepes of Wrath
A year and a half after coming home to Story Island, Eliza has all the ingredients for her second chance at happiness: a beagle, a bookshop, all the blessings of family and friends, and a blossoming future with her beau. But the serenity of her sweet life is spoiled when a celebrity dies at the local crêperie, the apparent victim of an allergic reaction to seafood. The problem? There’s no seafood in the triple-berry delight.
Mix a heaping cup of suspicion with a whole can of worms. Fold in a starstruck best friend, a harried boyfriend, and his flaky ex-wife. Broil under the flame of dogged press and angry fans, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Can Eliza turn down the heat and rescue her happy ending—before it burns?
Wags to Witches
Welcome to Poplar Knot, where murder is a misspelling.
The Perils of Pernicious Potions
Welcome to Poplar Knot, North Carolina, cast resort of spell raisers and deep bark secrets. Looking for a potion? Autumn Trelayne and her trusty familiar Gravy can whip up the best in town.
Until someone dies after drinking one of those concoctions. Now Autumn is in a whole cauldron of trouble, while the real killer is out there brewing up the next murder. As if that weren’t noxious enough, the Inquisitors throw themselves into the mix, including the one she never called back after their first and only date. Autumn is their prime suspect, and witch justice is never kind.
Caught between a murderer and what might be an even worse fate, Autumn needs to conjure up some answers fast. Before somebody gets her—and her little dog, too.
A Calamity of Contagious Curses
There’s toil and trouble ahead for Autumn and Gravy when a client turns up dead, mere hours after calling Autumn to rant about a curse and demand a cure. It wasn’t the woman’s first unreasonable request. But it would be her last.
Make that double toil and trouble. By the time Autumn arrives in the victim’s hometown, all spell has broken loose. The enigmatic curse seems to be spreading, pitting neighbor against neighbor, friend against friend, and bringing all manner of vice and violence bubbling to the surface.
Powered by a lot of caffeine and a little min pin, Autumn races to cure a town gone mad, before the curse strikes again. Because the next life it claims might just be her own.