Showing results by author "Susan Wittig Albert" in All Categories

For more than 20 years, Susan Wittig Albert has been delivering "some of the best-plotted mysteries on the market" ( Houston Chronicle). In Bittersweet, China is hoping to spend a peaceful Thanksgiving in Pecan Springs. But the holiday turns treacherous after a deadly accident. And when a local vet is shot, China and game warden Mack Chambers suspect a connection to fawns stolen from a nearby ranch.

Ruby Wilcox, owner of the Crystal Cave, Pecan Springs’ only New Age shop, has always tried to downplay her psychic gift - until she experiences a horrifying nightmare that just won’t stop. Again and again, she dreams that a woman is abducted on the hike-and-bike trail and knows that the victim is in deadly danger. Prodded by her friend and partner, China Bayles, Ruby goes to the police - only to find that her dream has already become far too real.

It's 1905, and to recover from the loss of her fiance, Potter moves into a small farmhouse in Sawrey. Populated by colorful characters, both humans and critters, her new life is full of promise. That is, until a villager dies and murder is suspected. Now it's up to this amateur sleuth to find a killer roaming the English countryside.

In the exciting new mystery from the New York Times best-selling author, China Bayles fears for her husband's life as an escaped convict targets him. A killer McQuaid put away years ago has busted out of Huntsville Prison and appears to be headed for Pecan Springs. China wants to stay by her husband's side and keep him from harm, but McQuaid insists that she get out of town and go to the Last Chance Olive Ranch, where she's agreed to teach a workshop on herbs.

As the Christmas decorating season approaches, Thyme & Seasons proprietor China Bayles feels overwhelmed. While she tries to balance her new roles of wife and step-mom with the demands of her thriving herbal shop, her business partner and best friend, Ruby, mysteriously disappears. Soon China's cantankerous mistletoe supplier Carl turns up dead. With Ruby missing and friends suspected of murder, China must investigate before tragedy strikes again.

While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender.... Soon, strange happenings start to occur in Thyme and Seasons: misplaced items, a ringing bell, and the appearance of lavender sprigs in odd places. When a customer mentions seeing a mysterious woman picking flowers nearby and then suddenly disappearing, China must finally admit what Ruby has always known - their building is haunted. But by whom?

When a prominent animal researcher is found hanged in the midst of angry protests against his experiments, suspicion falls on biology professor Dottie Riddle. Known as the Cat Lady of Pecan Springs, Dottie's sympathy for strays—and the victim's distaste for them—gives the police reason to think she may be capable of murder. But China Bayles doesn't think so. She hires a lawyer for Dottie and starts looking around for clues. But she soon discovers that digging up old evil is a dirty and dangerous business...

In Bloodroot, best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert transports listeners to a haunted house oozing with family secrets.

When a man dies soon after her Great Aunt Tullie bashes his head with her cane, China's estranged mother frantically calls for her daughter's help. Rushing to her family's Mississippi plantation, China must determine if Tullie is guilty of homicide. She must also face the possibility of developing the same terrifying disease that tortures Tullie.

When AP political reporter Lorena Hickok - Hick - is assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1932 campaign, the two women become deeply involved. Their relationship begins with mutual romantic passion, matures through stormy periods of enforced separation and competing interests, and warms into an enduring, encompassing friendship documented by 3,300 letters.

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.

Nominated for both the Agatha and Anthony awards, national best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert introduces a garden club of lady sleuths in Depression-era Alabama. The Darling Dahlias have just inherited a new clubhouse and garden, complete with two beautiful cucumber trees. But before long, these genteel ladies must unravel the mystery about what’s buried beneath one of these trees and the enigma of the dead body that soon turns up.

In this 16th entry in the best-selling China Bayles series, our teashop owning heroine discovers a dead body while gathering herbs by the railroad tracks. On top of that, her brother unearths new evidence suggesting their father's death was no accident, and China is soon dragged into both mysteries.

Herbalist China Bayles' latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book - A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s - is missing, and Dorothea is under suspicion.

This 19th mystery in the China Bales series is a cozy herbal treat from national best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert. While Pecan Springs bustles back to life in the warmth of spring, one woman’s life is tragically brought to an end. Assigned to cover the story, an intern from the local paper gets too deeply involved. When she disappears, China is determined to find her—before the young journalist becomes headlines herself.

Best-selling author Susan Wittig Albert is especially beloved for creating herbalist and ex-lawyer China Bayles, hailed by Publishers Weekly as “in a class with lady sleuths V.I. Warshawski and Stephanie Plum.” In Widow’s Tears, China has urgent business to discuss with Ruby, a friend gifted with extrasensory perception. Meeting Ruby at a supposedly haunted house, China soon uncovers a mystery that may be linked to a deadly robbery that very night.

Kate Ardleigh is everything the Victorian English gentlewoman is not - outspoken, free-thinking, American...and a writer of the frowned upon penny dreadfuls. Soon after her arrival in Essex, England, a body is unearthed in a nearby archeological dig - and Kate has the chance to not only research her latest story but to begin her first case with amateur detective Sir Charles Sheridan.

It looks like the music has ended for Darling's favorite barbershop quartet, the Lucky Four Clovers, just days before the Dixie Regional Barbershop Competition. Another unlucky break comes when there's a serious foul-up in Darling's telephone system - and not a penny for repairs. And while liquor is legal again, moonshine isn't. Sheriff Buddy Norris needs a little luck when he goes into Briar Swamp to confront Cypress County's most notorious bootlegger - and what he finds upends his sense of justice.

When local real estate shark Edgar Coleman is murdered and "good riddance" is the response from every Pecan Spring resident, China Bayles quickly learns that Coleman was no stranger to adultery and blackmail. China's fiancé, the interim police chief, is immersed in the investigation, and the suspect list grows steadily longer. China puts her honeymoon plans aside and starts hunting for the killer. As her investigation gets underway, she digs up dirt and secrets on people she knows.

China Bayles gave up jurisprudence to settle down in small-town Texas and set up shop as an herbalist. But crimes that need solving keep coming her way, so China's back in action in this seventh book of the best selling, critically-acclaimed herbal mystery series. The story centers around an annual chili cook-off where a judge dies of a severe allergic reaction...to a peanut. Everyone knows peanuts don't belong in a bowl of Texas chili, so it's up to China to uncover the truth.

When ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles’s friend Jo dies of an apparent suicide, China looks behind the quaint façade of her new home of Pecan Springs, Texas, and takes a suspicious look at everyone. And though she finds lots of friendly faces, China is sure that one of them hides the heart of a killer.