"China Bayles had finally agreed to marry Mike McQuaid - and then he'd been paralyzed in the line of duty. Fully committed, she knows she'll tough it out, no matter how long his recovery might take."--BOOK JACKET. "The annual chili cook-off sounds like a nice respite from the stress, so China gladly accompanies her wheelchair-bound sweetheart to the event. But tragedy strikes when cook-off judge Jerry Jeff Cody dies of a severe allergic reaction -...

Things really go to seed in the newest novel in the New York Times bestselling Book Retreat mysteries...
 
There is a hidden garden bordering the grounds of Jane Steward’s book-themed resort—a garden filled with beautiful but deadly plants such as mandrake and nightshade. Tucked away behind ivy-covered walls and accessible only through a single locked door, as described in the pages of Frances Hodges Burnett's...

When an anonymous source makes shocking allegations of improper behavior on the part of local high school football coach Tim Duffy, China Bayles is called in to conduct a discreet investigation into the charges, but her probe uncovers more than she had ever expected about a case involving betrayal, forbidden desire, and the mystery surrounding a young woman's death.

Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.

From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast, and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story. In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home's new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin ten-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline...

China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual "Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop," always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief's desk, is investigating the death of a botany...

Hamish Macbeth, Scotland's most laconic and low-tech policeman, senses a dark cloud of evil hanging over his Scottish village. Newcomer Catriona Beldame has cast a bewitching spell over the town, causing the local men to visit her cottage at all hours. Before Hamish can prove that she is wicked, she is brutally killed.

Former attorney-turned-herbalist China Bayles finds her busy life further complicated when her teenage son discovers the skeletal remains of the victim of a not-so-accidental death during a dig in a cave and a local gathering is interrupted by murder.

Lawyer-turned-herbalist, China Bayles returns to the deep south, where her family's legacy of silence is at last briken-and the past finally, unforgettably, speaks the truth....

Charges of heresy and murder are complicated by the contents of a mysterious treasure chest In the summer of 1143, William of Lythwood arrives at the Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter and St. Paul, but it is not a joyous occasion-he's come back from his pilgrimage in a coffin. William's body is accompanied by his young attendant Elave, whose mission is to secure a burial place for his master on the abbey grounds, despite William's having once been reprimanded...