Mary Ellen Hughes

"When a local bed & breakfast owner is found dead, killed by a pair of vintage scissors, music box store owner Callie Reed teams up with a visiting author to defend the victim's estranged wife and unearth the real killer." --

Recently widowed, Jo McAllister has set up Jo's Craft Corner in the small town she now calls home. But when the clown she's hired for opening day is murdered at the store, Jo realizes that no town is too small for secrets, scandal-even murder.

Baltimore high school math teacher, Maggie Olenski, feels burned out, and a resort in the mountains of western Maryland seems like the perfect get-away spot - until she stumbles on the body of a former student near the tennis courts. There's been more than one suspicious death at the Highview. Can Maggie find out who's behind it all before she becomes the next victim?

Cedar Hill sounds like the perfect place for Maggie to write her math puzzle book--a small New Hampshire town whose biggest problem should be keeping roads to the adjacent ski slopes clear of snow. The first town meeting, however, proves otherwise. Bitter arguments break out over Jack Warwick's proposal to buy the financially-struggling ski resort and turn it into a granite mine. Maggie thinks she can keep out of it all, until Jack drops dead of poison...

"Business is booming at Piper's Picklings in Cloverdale, New York. But not all is sweet in the life of Piper's number one customer and friend, local caterer Sugar Heywood. Sugar is dating wealthy realtor Jeremy Porter, but his family doesn't approve. After their unscrupulous accountant finds some dirt on Sugar, the family quickly urges Jeremy to throw her out like rotten fruit. Things are further spoiled after the accountant is found poisoned, and...