Detective John Jordan sought peace in the quiet corners of Florida, deliberately choosing a backwater posting far from Atlanta’s chaos and the tumultuous past he left behind. He wanted tranquility, distance from violence, space to heal from whatever drove him away from his former life. Florida’s forgotten regions seemed like the perfect place to disappear into routine work and gradually rebuild himself. But tranquility proves elusive when you’re someone who notices things, who can’t turn away from injustice 🌴A shocking event at the state prison—the bizarre death of an inmate under circumstances that don’t make immediate sense—thrusts John back into the world of serious investigation he tried to escape. Murder, accident, or suicide? The facts don’t align cleanly with any simple explanation, and the prison authorities seem content with whatever conclusion requires the least scrutiny. John is reluctantly drawn back into detective work, unable to ignore the questions multiplying around the inmate’s death 🔒
Then the desperate pleas of two young children reach him, begging for help finding their missing mother, Candace Miles. John can no longer pretend he’s just a cop going through motions in a sleepy jurisdiction. These children need someone who cares enough to actually investigate, not just file paperwork and move on. As he delves into Candace’s disappearance, he realizes the cases might be connected—the dead inmate and the missing woman somehow linked in ways that aren’t immediately obvious 👥
Michael Lister launches the John Jordan mystery series with a protagonist carrying visible and invisible scars, someone who chose exile but can’t escape his fundamental nature as an investigator. John must unravel whether the inmate’s death was murder requiring justice, a tragic accident requiring closure, or a sinister suicide requiring understanding—all while racing to find Candace Miles before her disappearance becomes permanent. The cases intertwine in a web of deceit and danger, forcing John to confront exactly what he was running from when he fled to Florida’s quiet corners 🔍
What makes this compelling: A Florida-set mystery featuring a detective seeking peace who’s pulled into investigating a bizarre prison death and a missing mother’s case that prove dangerously connected. Perfect for readers who appreciate flawed protagonists with troubled pasts, Southern settings, and mysteries where personal demons complicate professional investigations. First in the John Jordan Mysteries series. 🌊
She’s little. She’s feisty. Spoiler alert: she’s not the killer. Becky Robinson had a plan when she moved to Hollywood—catch her big break, land a role that showcases her talent, become the movie star she’s dreamed of being since childhood. Nowhere on her carefully constructed to-do list does it say “discover a dead body” or “become the prime suspect in a murder investigation.” Those were definitely not part of the Hollywood dream 🎬Becky’s first day on set is anything but the glamorous introduction to show business she imagined. Between running coffee for demanding actors and walking the star dog (yes, the dog has better billing than she does), she stumbles upon the body of a prominent actress. It’s not exactly how she pictured seeing her name in the papers—and to add insult to injury, they didn’t even spell “Robinson” correctly. The media attention is immediate and unwelcome, transforming Becky from aspiring actress to notorious body-finder overnight ☕
After discovering evidence at the crime scene that the police find highly suspicious, Becky finds herself on the cops’ radar while a Hollywood hunk she admires is in the hot seat as a potential suspect. Clearing her name becomes essential not just for her freedom but for her career—nobody’s going to hire the murder suspect for their next production. To discover whodunit and restore her reputation, Becky must navigate Hollywood’s insider world, rubbing elbows with Tinseltown elite who view her as somewhere between a suspect and a curiosity 🐕
Brittany E. Brinegar launches a cozy mystery series with Hollywood glamour and an adorable puppy sidekick. With help from her best friend and an increasingly important canine companion, Becky attempts to expose the killer before he claims his next victim—all while trying to maintain her innocence, protect the Hollywood hunk she’s convinced is being framed, and somehow salvage her acting dreams from this nightmare scenario. Sometimes breaking into Hollywood means solving murders, not just landing auditions 🌟
Why this grips from page one: A Hollywood-set cozy mystery where an aspiring actress discovers a prominent actress’s body on her first day, becomes the prime suspect, and must solve the murder to clear her name—coffee runs, star dogs, and celebrity suspects included. Perfect for readers who love entertainment industry settings, adorable animal sidekicks, and amateur sleuths with big dreams. First in the Hollywood Whodunit series. 🎭
Katarina blames herself for her husband’s death, carrying guilt that shapes every decision she makes and defines how she moves through the world. Her only solace, her only remaining connection to the future they planned together, is running the beachfront bed and breakfast they always dreamed of opening. The B&B represents more than just a business—it’s the promise she made to him, the tangible proof that their shared vision didn’t die when he did, the one thing she can still control when everything else fell apart 🏖️But now a big city property developer has targeted the building, making Katarina’s landlord an offer she can’t refuse. Sterling Knightley plans to buy the property and bulldoze the B&B to make way for something more profitable, more modern, more in keeping with his vision for Haven Bay’s waterfront development. For Katarina, losing the B&B means breaking her promise to her late husband, abandoning the dream they built together, admitting that she failed at the one thing she had left 💔
The only way Katarina can keep her promise is to somehow persuade the aloof, businesslike Sterling Knightley to partner with her instead of destroying what she’s built. It’s an uphill battle—Sterling holds all the cards, controls the property’s future, and has no apparent interest in preserving a small B&B when he could build something far more lucrative. He’s calculating, distant, focused entirely on profit margins and return on investment. Everything about him screams that sentiment has no place in business decisions 💼
But Katarina doesn’t expect to be charmed by the man beneath Sterling’s prickly, all-business exterior. She doesn’t anticipate discovering that his aloofness masks complexity, that his drive stems from something deeper than greed, or that spending time negotiating with him would reignite feelings she thought died with her husband. Sterling challenges her, frustrates her, and unexpectedly makes her feel alive again in ways she’d given up hoping for. Yet no matter how tempting she finds him or how much he seems to soften toward her, Katarina can’t risk losing her B&B—or opening her battered heart to the possibility of loss again 🌅
What makes this special: A small-town romance featuring a widow fighting to save her beachfront B&B from a property developer who wants to bulldoze it—grief, guilt, and second chances collide when she discovers the aloof businessman might be worth the risk. Perfect for readers who love emotional healing journeys, opponents-to-lovers dynamics, and heroines learning to live again. First in the Haven Bay series. 💕
Not My Husband
Today is the first day of my honeymoon, and I should be the happiest woman alive. Paradise surroundings, ocean breezes, the man I love beside me—everything perfect. But as I roll over in bed to face my new husband Jay, ready to start our married life together, my scream shatters the morning silence. The man lying next to me is not the man I married yesterday 😱I beg him to get out, backing away in horror, demanding to know who he is and where Jay went. But instead of confusion or alarm, he laughs—a casual, amused laugh that makes my blood run cold. He tells me I’ve always had an overactive imagination, that I’ve been under a lot of stress with the wedding planning, that my mind must be playing tricks on me. He’s so calm, so confident, so completely wrong. This is not my husband 💍
Then he starts describing details from the wedding—me walking down the aisle, specific moments from the reception, things only Jay could possibly know. My head spins. I’m certain this stranger isn’t my husband, but how does he know so much? How can he recall intimate details from yesterday? Am I losing my mind? Is this what a breakdown feels like? I rush out of the beautiful suite, ignoring the warm ocean breeze and tropical flowers, desperate for help 🏨
At hotel reception, I beg the staff to call the police, to help me, to understand that something terrible has happened. But instead of taking me seriously, they exchange those worried looks that say crazy person. They think I’ve lost it. Then the strange man who is definitely not my husband walks up behind me and drapes his arm around my shoulders with terrifying familiarity. “Don’t make a fuss,” he whispers in my ear, and my heart races with pure terror. I’m trapped in paradise with a stranger who’s stolen my husband’s identity, and nobody believes me 🌴
What makes this a must-read: Cathryn Grant delivers a mind-bending psychological thriller where a bride wakes up on her honeymoon to find a stranger in her husband’s place—and nobody believes her. Perfect for readers who love unreliable narrators, gaslighting plots, and high-concept psychological suspense that questions reality itself. 🔒
This one looked like a slam dunk case for homicide lieutenant Milo Sturgis: a young woman found dead at her kitchen table, DNA evidence on cigarette butts linking directly to an ex-boyfriend who already has a criminal record. Open and shut, right? Quick arrest, solid evidence, case closed. Then everything changed, and what seemed like a straightforward domestic violence murder transformed into something far more complex and mind-bending. That’s when Milo made the call to psychologist Alex Delaware—his best friend and the consultant he brings in for “those cases,” the ones that refuse to make sense 🔍Then there’s another body. An old woman discovered brutally murdered, her corpse stashed in a deep freeze and subjected to disturbing mutilation. The level of violence suggests rage or madness, but the careful concealment suggests planning. When Milo learns the victim’s identity, he’s stunned into silence—this is someone he once knew personally, someone from his own past. The case becomes unavoidably personal in ways that complicate everything about the investigation 🥶
The victim’s home adds another layer of nightmare to the case: it’s an extreme hoarder’s dwelling, virtually impassable due to years and years of accumulated trash, newspapers, objects with no apparent meaning or value. The sheer volume of stuff makes investigating nearly impossible—how do you process a crime scene when you can’t even access most of the rooms? But as Alex and Milo carefully pick their way through the debris, they discover envelopes of cash stashed strategically among the garbage. This wasn’t just compulsive hoarding; there was method beneath the madness 💰
As they dig deeper into these seemingly unrelated crimes—the young woman and her ex-boyfriend, the murdered hoarder from Milo’s past—shocking connections begin emerging. The victims are linked in ways nobody could have predicted, and Alex and Milo realize they’re facing a labyrinthine puzzle where every piece they place reveals three more missing connections. Jonathan Kellerman crafts his signature psychological complexity with multiple intersecting mysteries that ultimately form a deadly picture only Alex Delaware’s insight can decode 🧩
What makes this essential: Jonathan Kellerman’s latest Alex Delaware thriller weaves together seemingly unrelated murders—a kitchen table victim with DNA evidence and a brutally murdered hoarder from Milo’s past—into a labyrinthine psychological puzzle. Perfect for longtime series fans and readers who appreciate forensic detail, psychological depth, and complex plotting. 🕵️
Haley Richardson and her search and rescue dog Jax are recruited by the FBI to search for a missing 11-year-old boy in Alaska’s vast wilderness. On the surface, Haley appears to be just another highly skilled SAR handler with an exceptionally well-trained dog. But there’s a secret that explains her extraordinary success rate: as a child, she sustained a head injury that gave her a dog’s superior sense of smell, including the ability to detect human emotions through scent. It’s a gift she’s never revealed to anyone, carefully hiding her abilities while using them to save lives 🐕She’s paired with a local volunteer who knows Alaska’s backcountry terrain, someone whose familiarity with the area should make the search more efficient. At first, everything seems routine despite the challenging environment—Alaska is unforgiving, but Haley and Jax have handled difficult searches before. But as they trek deeper into the wilderness, the volunteer’s sinister motive for helping becomes horrifyingly clear. This person isn’t trying to find the boy—they’re trying to ensure he’s never found, and now Haley knows too much 🏔️
Forced to abandon her supplies to save herself, Haley flees into Alaska’s backcountry with nothing but what she’s carrying and her extraordinary abilities. She’s now navigating unknown territory while continuing to search for the missing boy, because abandoning him isn’t an option even though she’s now a target herself. There’s no way to let authorities know where she is or what’s happened. She’s alone in one of the most dangerous environments on Earth, hunted by someone who knows the terrain better than she does 🐻
NJ Litz creates a cozy animal mystery that becomes genuine survival thriller as Haley faces Alaska’s wildlife, natural disasters, and a human predator simultaneously. She must depend on two strangers she encounters in the wilderness—people she has no reason to trust but no choice but to rely on. And she faces a daunting choice: she can save herself by revealing her secret abilities, or she can maintain her carefully guarded anonymity while trying to rescue the boy. Her gift might be the only thing that saves them both, but using it could cost her everything 🌲
Why this deserves your attention: A cozy mystery that transforms into survival thriller featuring a SAR handler with secret superhuman smell abilities, a missing child, and Alaska’s unforgiving wilderness. Perfect for readers who love unique protagonist abilities, strong dog-handler bonds, and stories where cozy elements collide with genuine danger. 🔍