When Lee hires a free-spirited employee with a tie-dyed, troubled past, she discovers that even the counterculture can conceal a killer.... As much as the chocolate concoctions at TenHuis Chocolade can tantalize people’s tongues, Lee’s newest hire is more likely to make them wag. Forsythia “Sissy” Smith is the granddaughter of Warner Pier’s resident hippie, but the fact that Sissy is a third-generation flower child is the least of Lee’s concerns. The previous winter, Sissy’s husband, Buzz, was found dead, and even though her alibi was airtight, the gossips are still pointing their fingers at her. Then the chief gossip is found dead, with Sissy on the scene. Was she lured there? Or is she the killer? Lee has a sneaking suspicion that someone is out to keep a dark secret from coming to light. And they would have no problem killing a certain clever chocolatier who might uncover the truth.... With Tasty Chocolate Trivia!

In this eighteenth mystery in the national bestselling Chocoholic series, a gang of crooks with a wicked sweet tooth wreaks havoc on the resort town of Warner Pier, and it's up to Lee Woodyard to rout the hungry rascals. A frantic late-night phone call from her right-hand woman Dolly Jolly brings Lee Woodyard to the scene of a break-in at the Warner Pier jewelry store next door to TenHuis Chocolade. To her shock, the suspect being held at gunpoint by police is Dolly's boyfriend, Mike Westerly, who was recently hired as a night watchman specifically to prevent break-ins. Dolly hopes Lee can help straighten out the crazy misunderstanding. Even crazier? The thieves took nothing of value from the jewelry store, only swiping some snacks. It's another in a series of break-ins by burglars the media has dubbed the Cookie Monsters. They've been hitting shops selling everything from sunglasses to shoes but stealing only sweets: lollipops, cookies, even chewing gum! It all seems pretty funny--until the discovery of a dead body. With her friends and community in danger, Lee must stop one very sour killer before someone else comes to a bitter end.

From the national bestselling author of The Chocolate Falcon Fraud comes an Easter candy caper featuring chocolatiers Lee Woodyard and her Aunt Nettie, and a killer who’s hopping mad... The approach of Easter means a rush of business at TenHuis Chocolade, and Lee and her Aunt Nettie need all the help they can get to make their famous chocolate bunnies. Unfortunately, new hire Bunny Birdsong is a clutzy basketcase dropping everything she picks up. But to Lee’s surprise, she’s a whiz with computers and fixing the store’s website so they decide to keep her. However, Bunny receives a few visitors they could do without: her soon to be ex-husband Beau, his wealthy aunt Abigail, and his new girlfriend and her brother all descend on the shop one day and have a bitter argument. Lee hopes they can find a peaceful way to settle their dispute and not bring any more trouble to TenHuis. But when Abigail’s body is discovered in the vacant store next door, it’s clear to Lee there’s a bad egg in her midst. Now she’s on the hunt to find out who it is... Includes tasty chocolate trivia!

In the newest mystery from nationally bestselling author Joanna Carl, a dive into house flipping becomes a deadly flop.... When a house near Lee and Joe's home goes up for sale, the couple teams up with Lee's aunt and uncle, Nettie and Hogan, to buy it, remodel it, and resell it for a sweet profit. But after the owners of the house, the Baileys, accept their offer, a local developer, Richard "Spud" Dirk, suddenly swoops in with a higher one, and it seems their dreams might be snatched away. Lee, never as passionate about the plan as her husband and uncle, is anxious to get back to focusing on managing TenHuis Chocolade. But when a long-hidden gun is found behind a pipe in the Baileys' basement, she begins to suspect a mystery is afoot. And when Spud turns up dead in the Baileys' carport a few days later, it becomes clear there's something rotten at the foundation.... To solve the murder, Lee will have to strip away layers of secrets--that is, if someone doesn't level her first....

From the bestselling author of The Chocolate Clown Corpse, it’s murder, my sweet, for a chocolatier whose love of old crime films plunges her into a real-life murder where the motives aren’t so black and white… The Warner Pier tourism board is kicking off its Tough Guys and Private Eyes film festival with The Maltese Falcon, and Lee Woodyard and her Aunt Nettie are preparing a delicious chocolate noir tie-in at TenHuis Chocolade. What Lee isn’t prepared for is a face from the past: Jeff Godfrey, her former stepson. The last time Jeff showed up in town, he wound up being accused of murder. Now he says he’s only in Warner Pier to see Bogart on the big screen. Honest. Jeff may now be a college grad, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less naïve than the kid Lee had to bail out of trouble earlier. There are all those strange phone calls, a girlfriend who’s secretly on Jeff’s tail, and a pack of suspicious-sounding acquaintances right out of Dashiell Hammett. Then Jeff goes missing, the Falcon theme is haunting everyone, and a body falls at Lee’s feet when she opens the front door – just like in the movie. Now Lee is under deadline to rewrite the ending of a cunning killer’s increasingly convincing murder plot… Includes Tasty Chocolate Trivia!

Revenge is sweet for a killer on the loose—and it all started with the murder of Warner Pier’s most hated clown.... Everyone who knew the bozo wanted him dead. Odd, then, that a complete stranger was accused of bursting Moe Davidson’s balloons. But it’s been a month since the miserable shop owner of Clowning Around was killed, and everybody’s moving on, including Lee Woodyard. Her chocolate shop, TenHuis Chocolade, is next door to Moe’s shuttered tourist trap, and it’s giving her delicious ideas to expand. But over whose dead body? Moe’s widow, Emma, and her two stepchildren list the property for sale, but when Lee tours the building, she finds Emma unconscious. Now Lee wonders whether Moe’s real killer is still at large and is taking care of unfinished business. Unfortunately, since the town is celebrating Clown Week, there are so many potential suspects in grease paint and floppy shoes it’s not even funny. For Lee, protecting Emma, freeing an innocent man, and rolling out hundreds of her clown-themed chocolates is a pretty tall order. But so is staying alive long enough to find out which one of her neighbors is a killer in disguise. Includes Tasty Chocolate Trivia!

When it turns out a member of Warner Pier’s library board has been living on borrowed time, Lee is determined to discover who wrote the victim’s final chapter… Running TenHuis Chocolade keeps Lee McKinney Woodyard busy enough, but now she’s been offered two different positions in the town of Warner Pier—one on the tourism committee and another on the library board. To decide between the two, she goes to Warner Pier’s historic library to check out the board’s monthly meeting. As usual, rumors are flying through the small town—this time, they’re about the rugged new library director, Henry “Butch” Cassidy, and the changes he allegedly plans to make. Butch is indeed attractive—but Lee doesn’t get a chance to find out about his proposed changes. A few minutes into the meeting, the discussion is interrupted by the terrified screams of the library clerk. She has discovered the lifeless body of Abigail VanRoostock, a prim and proper retiring member of the board, crumpled in a heap at the bottom of the basement stairs. Suddenly, everyone in attendance, including Lee, is suspected in her murder. And as Lee finds out, they’ve all got something to hide… INCLUDES TASTY CHOCOLATE TRIVIA!

From the national bestselling author of the popular Chocoholic Mystery series comes the “intriguing…exciting”* story of a crimesolving reporter who is about to become the lead story… In the Southwestern city of Grantham, Bo Jenkins takes his young son hostage and demands to talk to the press. Enter Nell Matthews, a reporter for the Grantham Gazette, who becomes a hostage herself before finally turning the tables on her captor. But when Bo Jenkins dies under suspicious circumstances, Nell initiates an investigation that could bring down an entire city—and just might implicate Mike Svenson, the charismatic cop with whom she’s begun a secret romance. As Nell moves dangerously closer to the truth, she realizes that her beat is getting too close to home… “Fascinating…A strong and unique character.”—Sue Henry “Sandstrom writes with confidence. An impressive debut for a wonderfully conflicted heroine.”—New York Times bestselling author Margaret Maron “A good book with great characters, and a twisting plot.”—I Love A Mystery *Publishers Weekly Includes a preview of The Homicide Report and JoAnna Carl’s The Chocolate Book Bandit.

Eve K. Sandstrom’s The Violence Beat was “an impressive debut.”* Here the national bestselling author of the Chocoholic Mystery series brings back crime reporter Nell Matthews in a novel about a crimesolver’s secret past—and a killer’s hidden motive… Crime reporter Nell Matthews doesn’t have to go far for a gripping lead story. In fact, the Grantham Gazette’s own basement pressroom has become the scene for the paper’s next explosive headline. Nell and her boyfriend, Detective Mike Svenson, have stumbled on a trail of press ink leading to the body of copy editor Martina Gilroy. And just before dying, she whispered one final word: Alan. Alan was Nell’s father—a man who vanished from her life when she was a child…a man who was implicated in the murder of her mother. For Nell, investigating the story behind Martina’s death means sifting through her own past to discover the truth about her father, exposing a long-buried secret, and surviving the deadline—her own. “The Nell Matthews series will attract legions of new fans. A nicely plotted mystery…[Sandstrom] knows her way around the pressroom.”—The Sunday Constitution “Thoroughly enjoyable.”—I Love A Mystery *New York Times bestselling author Margaret Maron Includes a preview of The Smoking Gun and JoAnna Carl’s The Chocolate Book Bandit.

From the national bestselling author of the Chocoholic Mysteries—the series that has #1 New York Times bestselling author Charlaine Harris raving, “I’m proud to stand up and say, ‘My name is Charlaine, and I’m a Chocoholic!’” A split-second judgment and a single bullet turn a routine assignment into murder for reporter Nell Matthews and officer Mike Svenson. The shoot-out at the Grantham Women’s Shelter may have liberated a woman from her knife-wielding husband, but it also left Mike holding the gun and targeted for scandal. Especially when it turns out that the deceased was the son of the most powerful matriarch in town. Now Nell finds herself with an unexpected key to the dead man’s past—a key that links him to a bizarre conspiracy and will lure Nell into the crosshairs of a killer still on the loose… The Nell Matthews Mysteries are... “Strong and unique.”—Sue Henry “Beguiling and wicked.”—Boston Herald “Hooks you on the first page and never lets go.”—William Bernhardt Includes a preview of The Violence Beat and JoAnna Carl’s The Chocolate Book Bandit.