Scottie Ramone’s new bakery is up and running, but she’s in desperate need of an assistant. Jack Lucas, a stranger with a troubled past, has moved to town. He also happens to bake cakes that are nothing short of sublime. His qualifications make him the perfect assistant, but Dalton Braddock, the town’s ranger and Scottie’s longtime crush, has advised against it. So, of course, she hires the man but with plenty of trepidation. In the meantime, Scottie has another problem to grapple with. Someone has killed the gingerbread man the town mayor hired for the annual Ripple Creek Holiday Fair. Ranger Braddock is busy up at the Miramont Resort, so Scottie is on the case. As she goes through her list of possible suspects, she finds a name that causes her plenty of angst. It’s her new assistant, Jack. Has Scottie just hired a cold-blooded killer to bake cupcakes? Book 3 of the Scottie Ramone Cozy Mystery series More in the series: Prequel: Banana Chiffon and Bad Deeds Book 1: Heads Will Cinnamon Roll Book 2: Better Off Shortbread Book 3: Dead Gingerbread Man Walking Book 4: Caught Bread Handed

From USA Today bestselling author Catherine Bruns comes a hilarious holiday whodunit! It’s the most wonderful time of the year…Unless you’re Sally Muccio. The full-time baker and sometime sleuth is ready to burst into song. She and her husband are expecting a bundle of joy, her sister’s wedding is just around the corner, and it’s Christmas, her favorite time of year. But when Sal’s the victim of a carjacking by Santa himself and a forgotten item links her to a murder, she doesn’t feel like ho-ho-hoing anymore. Damian Ruger was a drug user, womanizer and first-class jerk. And unfortunately for Sal, she once had a connection to him in high school. The dough really hits the fan when her bakery's gingerbread cookies are found next to his dead body, and Sal's cake server is used as a murder weapon. Someone is trying to frame the expectant mother, but why? Sal has no choice but to try to clear her name...before she and the baby are singing Christmas carols in prison! *Recipes Included!* The Cookies & Chance Mysteries: Tastes Like Murder (book #1) A Spot of Murder (short story in the "Killer Beach Reads" collection) Baked to Death (book #2) Burned to a Crisp (book #3) Frosted With Revenge (book #4) Silenced by Sugar (book #5) A Drizzle Before Dying (short story in the "Pushing Up Daisies" collection) Crumbled to Pieces (book #6) Sprinkled in Malice (book #7) Ginger Snapped to Death (book #8) What critics are saying: "A fantastic cozy mystery!" —InD'Tale Magazine "I want to visit more with all of the quirky characters just to see what crazy and outrageous things they will do next!" —Fresh Fiction "The Cookies and Chance Mystery series is more than just a series....it's a family !! Once you read the first book, you are hooked and feel like a member of the crazy Muccio family." —Cozy Mystery Book Reviews

When Santa is sleighed by a poison gingerbread cookie at a holiday party, Val Deniston's reputation is on the line . . . This holiday season Bayport, Maryland, is a dead ringer for Victorian London. Val and her grandfather are taking part in the Dickens of a Holiday festival. Val is hosting a private tea party serving the festival's costumed volunteers, who range from Dickens divas like Madame Defarge and Miss Havisham to Ebenezer Scrooge and old St. Nick himself. But one costumed reveler may have gotten the holidays mixed up. The winner of the creepiest outfit, robed in black with a gift bag covering the head—okay, Ghost of Christmas Present, Val gets it—hands out gingerbread men with white icing skeleton bones. This year's sour Santa has none of the big fellow's mirth but plenty of his appetite, and it's no secret Santa loves cookies. But when the man in red turns blue, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch before the New Year . . . Includes delicious five-ingredient recipes! PRAISE FOR CRYPT SUZETTE “Grandad is a hoot and his jobs as a food reviewer and part-time detective provide endless possibilities for fun and murder . . . Charming.” —Kirkus Reviews

Top Ten Finisher - P & E Readers Poll 2016Christmas lights shine on ghosts and gore, the Christmas moon shines on rampaging snowmen and glittering blades ... among the decorations and hanging on the tree are things we should not be seeing but which are there - including the bitter darkness of the human heart.This exciting new collection of Christmas horror has surpassed any other seasonal anthology Thirteen have put out, the stories will in turn touch you, shock you, surprise you and make you laugh. What more could you ask for a good read at this time of year?

This title discusses the characteristics of the traditional fairy tale in Europe and North America, and various theories of its development and interpretation.

In this revised and expanded edition of "The Stephen King Phenomenon," Dr. Michael R. Collings re-examines the impact of Stephen King on popular culture.

The life and work of motion picture director Robert Altman (1925-2006) are interpreted from a variety of perspectives in this collection of essays. Actors, historians, film scholars, and cultural theorists reflect on Altman and his five-decade career and discuss the significance of music, history and genre in his films. Two actors who have appeared in some of the filmmaker's most important works are prominently represented, with a statement from Elliot Gould (MASH, The Long Goodbye, California Split) and an essay by Michael Murphy (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, Tanner '88). The collection ends with an essay on the importance of death in the director's final productions The Company (2003) and Prairie Home Companion (2006) by noted Altman scholar Robert T. Self.

Our team of crack historians has uncovered the truth you never learned in school: the living dead have walked among us since the dawn of time. In this collection of gruesome tales from throughout the ages, the ravenous undead shamble through bloody battlefields, plague-ridden cities, genteel country estates, and dusty frontier towns. They emerge from foggy cemeteries, frozen barrows, loamy bogs, cursed mines, and gore-spattered operating rooms to prey on the living. But these zombies don't just eat people. They help painters and writers save their faltering careers. They unwittingly push humankind on the quest for fire. They topple evil capitalists and their corporate empires. They fight crime. They fall in love. Join us on a journey into our zombie-filled past... Neither history nor the living dead have ever been this exciting!

How does a parent cope after the death of a child? Each essay in Always With Me: Parents Talk about the Death of a Child reveals the experiences of parents who have lived through the devastation and upheaval of their child’s death. Parents describe the maelstrom they face in their inner landscapes, coping strategies, and realigned place in the world. The writers in this collection of stories take on such topics as shock and isolation, despair, guilt, and how they attempt to make sense of their shattered lives. They offer insights into how their grief and loss are worked through, and why certain personal connections are severed, others strengthened. Importantly, they describe how, with lives altered indelibly, they try to press forward to find a new place in the world.