Cozy Monday -- 10 Spooky Series

Beaufort & Company mysteries by Mary Stanton (Berkley Prime Crime).

Defending Angels (2008), Angel's Advocate (2009), Avenging Angels (2010), Angel's Verdict (2011), Angel Condemned (2011).


Elizabeth Chase mysteries by Martha C. Lawrence (St. Martin's/Minotaur).

Murder in Scorpio (1995), The Cold Heart of Capricorn (1997), Aquarius Descending (1998), Pisces Rising (2000), Ashes of Aries (2001).


Ghost Hunter mysteries by Victoria Laurie (NAL).

What's a Ghoul to Do (2007), Demons are a Ghoul's Best Friend (2008), Ghouls Just Haunt to Have Fun (2009), Ghouls Gone Wild (2010), Ghouls, Ghouls, Ghouls (2011), Ghoul Interrupted (2014), What a Ghoul Wants (2015),


Haunted Guesthouse mysteries by E.J. Copperman (Berkley Prime Crime).

Night of the Living Deed (2010), An Uninvited Ghost (2011), Old Haunts (2012), Chance of a Ghost (2013), The Thrill of the Haunt (2013), Inspector Specter (2014), Ghost in the Wind (2015).


Haunted Home Renovation mysteries by Juliet Blackwell (Berkley Prime Crime).

If Walls Could Talk, (2010), Dead Bolt (2011), Murder on the House (2012), Home for the Haunting (2013), Keeper of the Castle (2014), Give up the Ghost (2015).

Ophelia & Abby  mysteries by Shirley Damsgaard (Avon).

Witch Way to Murder (2005), Charmed to Death (2006), The Trouble With Withches (2006), Witch Hunt (2007), The Witch is Dead (2007), The Witch's Grave (2008), The Seventh Witch (2010).


Sugar Maple Chronicles by Barbara Bretton (Berkley).

Casting Spells (2008), Laced With Magic (2009), Spun by Sorcery (2010), Spells &Stitches (2011).

Undead series by MaryJanice Davidson (Penguin Group).

Undead and Unwed (2004), Undead and Unemployed (2004), Undead and Unappreciated (2005), Undead and Unreturnable (2006), Undead and Unpopular (2007), Undead and Uneasy (2008), Undead and Unworthy (2009), Undead and Unwelcome (2010), Undead and Unfinished (2011), Undead and Undermined (2012), Undead and Unstable (2013), Undead and Unsure (2014).


Witch City mysteries by Carol J. Perry (Kensington).

Caught Dead-Handed (2014), Tails, You Lose (2015), Look Both Ways (2015).

Witchcraft mysteries by Juliet Blackwell (Berkley Prime Crime).

Secondhand Spirits (2009), A Cast-Off Coven (2010), Hexes and Hemlines (2011), In a Witch's Wardrobe (2012), Tarnished and Torn (2013), A Vision in Velvet (2014), Spellcasting in Silk (2015).

Frightening Friday - Five Paranormal Books for Teens

The Nightmare Affair (Arkwell Academy #1) by Mindee Arnett (Tor Teen hardcover, 2013).

Sixteen-year-old Dusty Everhart breaks into houses late at night, but not because she's a criminal. No, she's a Nightmare. Literally.

Being the only Nightmare at Arkwell Academy, a boarding school for magickind, and living in the shadow of her mother's infamy, is hard enough. But when Dusty sneaks into Eli Booker's house, things get a whole lot more complicated. He's hot, which means sitting on his chest and invading his dreams couldn't get much more embarrassing. But it does. Eli is dreaming of a murder.

Then Eli's dream comes true.

Now Dusty has to follow the clues--both within Eli's dreams and out of them--to stop the killer before more people turn up dead. And before the killer learns what she's up to and marks her as the next target.

Dream a Little Dream (Silver Trilogy #1)  by Kerstin Gier (Henry Holt & Co. hardcover, 2015).

Mysterious doors with lizard-head knobs. Talking stone statues. A crazy girl with a hatchet. Yes, Liv's dreams have been pretty weird lately. Especially the one where she's in a graveyard at night, watching four boys conduct dark magic rituals.

The strangest part is that Liv recognizes the boys in her dream. They're classmates from her new school in London, the school where she's starting over because her mom has moved them to a new country (again). But what's really scaring Liv is that the dream boys seem to know things about her in real life, things they couldn't possibly know--unless they actually are in her dreams? Luckily, Liv never could resist a good mystery, and all four of those boys are pretty cute....


The Name of the Star (Ghosts of London #1) by Maureen Johnson (G.P. Putnam’s Sons BFYR hardcover, 2011).

The day Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London marks a memorable occasion. For Rory, it's the start of a new life at a London boarding school. But for many, this will be remembered as the day a series of brutal murders broke out across the city, gruesome crimes mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper in the autumn of 1888.

Soon "Rippermania" takes hold of modern-day London, and the police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man police now believe to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him. Even her roommate, who was with her at the time, didn't notice the mysterious man. So why can only Rory see him? And more urgently, why has Rory become his next target?

Razorhurst by Justine Larbalestier (Soho Teen hardcover, 2015).

Sydney’s deadly Razorhurst neighborhood, 1932. Gloriana Nelson and Mr. Davidson, two ruthless mob bosses, have reached a fragile peace—one maintained by “razor men.” Kelpie, orphaned and homeless, is blessed (and cursed) with the ability to see Razorhurst’s many ghosts. They tell her secrets the living can’t know about the cracks already forming in the mobs’ truce.

Then Kelpie meets Dymphna Campbell, a legendary beauty and prized moll of Gloriana Nelson. She’s earned the nickname “Angel of Death” because none of her beaus has ever survived knowing her. Unbeknownst to Kelpie, Dymphna can see ghosts, too, and she knows that Gloriana’s hold is crumbling one henchman at a time. As loyalties shift and betrayal threatens the two girls at every turn, Dymphna is determined not only to survive, but to rise to the top with Kelpie at her side.

The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman (Alfred A. Knopf hardcover, 2012).

One night is all it takes to change Nora Kane's life forever. Her best friend is dead; her boyfriend has vanished. And the trail of blood leads straight back to her: The person who might be responsible. The person who might be next.

Desperate to save the people she loves and determined to find justice for the ones she's lost, Nora unearths a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. Something to which Nora herself might hold the key. It turns out her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries—and solving it may be the only way she can save her own life.

Cozy Monday

A Wee Murder in My Shop (ScotShop Mystery #1) by Fran Stewart (Berkley Prime Crime mass market, 3 March 2015).

Peggy Winn owns a Scottish imports store called ScotShop in the fictional small town of Hamelin, Vermont, and take regular buying trips to Scotland for stock.

Walking around the highland village of Pitlochry, she stumbles upon a tiny shop she'd never seen before and buys a beautiful antique handwoven shawl.  When she wraps the shawl around her, a burly, bearded man in a kilt appears. It doesn't take her long to realize that he was the husband of the woman who wove the shawl in the Fourteenth Century, and that where the shawl goes, so does he.

Back home, she's still adjusting to having a ghost (whom she now calls "Dirk") follow her around when she goes into her shop and finds the dead body of her ex-boyfriend, Mason.  

After that, things just get more and more complicated.  Dirk proves extremely helpful as she tries to figure out why Mason was there, why her shop has been torn apart, and what the cryptic note found in his pocket means.

Fran Stewart's approach to the connection between ghost and object is unconventional, but it works.  It will be interesting to see how Dirk's constant presence in Peggy's everyday life affects her more corporeal relationships, particularly romantic ones. I look forward to reading more about them.



The publisher has generously offered a copy of A Wee Murder in My Shop to one of my readers.  Please comment below before midnight on March 9th, including a VALID EMAIL ADDRESS.  Entries from the US only, please.  


FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy of the book.

Welcome Guest E.J. Copperman!

“Where do you get your ideas?”

Writers get this question all the time. It’s an honest question asked by readers and in some cases interviewers who want to know about the process. I understand the impetus behind the question.

I just don’t have an answer for it.

The fact is, if I had a formula, a foolproof means of finding a good idea for a novel, I could get one whenever I wanted and this job would be… well, I’d still have to write the book, so “easy” might be something of an overstatement. But it wouldn’t be as hard, by a discernible margin.

My latest book, Inspector Specter, is the sixth in the Haunted Guesthouse series. You’d think after five other books with the same characters it would be a struggle to find something for them to do. Not at all. This one came from the characters, which is the best place to start.

Alison Kerby owns a guesthouse on the Jersey Shore and it happens to have two ghosts haunting it. They get along okay, but that’s a long story all by itself. She also has a PI license, and in this book is asked by Lt. Anita McElone (rhymes with “macaroni”), with whom she has sort of a grudging professional relationship, to use her “ghosty connections” to solve the murder of McElone’s ex-partner, whom we met in another book in the series.

Because the story came from the characters, I could concentrate on how it affects their relationships. I knew the story would be workable because it was about the people readers have gotten to know, and new readers will find accessible even without reading the other books in the series (although would that be so bad?).

For those who want to be published writers, I can’t offer a simple way to get an idea. They tend to hit when you least expect them, so the best piece of advice is not to expect one and see how that goes. I have gotten book ideas in the shower (it’s best not to picture some of these), while trying to fall asleep, while walking the dog and while watching baseball on television. The baseball ones don’t tend to work very well, as my concentration is completely elsewhere. Some of the others haven’t been bad.

The trick, really, is to be able to tell a good idea—a sustainable one that will make it through a whole book and not just up to Chapter Six—from a bad idea (the opposite of that). And that is where some experience can actually be helpful.

Consider this: When you get a story idea, can you image what the middle of the book will be like? Beginnings are easy; they are the story idea all by themselves. Endings should take care of themselves because a premise demands a resolution. What about the middle? Can you think of a really impressive, important, fun scene that’s going to happen somewhere about halfway through your story? If so, you might have a workable idea on your hands.

Who are your characters? One common mistake with writers is that we get a terrific idea for a twisty plot, but we don’t know who’s going to populate the book. Remember that you character is the reason for the story—if it’s not specific to the personality you’re creating, your story could happen to anybody, and your reader won’t care as much about what happens. Think of the person you most want in that situation, and then maybe create a character who’s the opposite of that.

If you’re trying to start a series, think hard about sustainability. Sure, you have a great idea for this book, but if you want to bring the character back time and again, is it plausible that s/he could get into another situation worth writing about? Do you have more than one premise in your head? Do you know what you’ll do for Book #2? I once wrote a series about the owner of a one-screen movie theater that showed only comedies.

Who solved crimes. Try coming up with more than one story idea for that series sometime. It can be a challenge. (Although that series was a lot of fun to write.)

How interested are you in the story? How charged up? If you’re not desperate to get this book out before someone else hits on the same idea, if you don’t feel moved to get to the keyboard right now and start pounding it out, maybe this isn’t The Idea.

If you’re writing something because you think it’s going to be commercial, because that’s the trend in publishing right now, because hey, hot teenage vampires from Dubuque are what it’s all about now and you can make a movie deal, stop. You’ll write something even you don’t want to read, and besides, by the time your book is ready to be shown to editors, the trend will be talking scarecrows who fight crime and search for love in the big city.

Don’t write something because it’ll sell. Write something that will sell because you believe in it.

There are good ideas and bad ideas. I’ve gotten both. Hopefully, Inspector Specter turns out to be one of the good ones, but ultimately you get to decide that when you read the book. In your own writing, you do your best and hope the readers agree with your assessment.



The publisher has generously offered a copy of Inspector Specter to one of my readers. Please comment below, WITH A VALID EMAIL ADDRESS, before midnight onDecember 17, 2014. Entries from the US only, please.