Steeped in Murder

A cozy paranormal mystery for readers who like their murders served with tea, a talking cat, and a slow-burn sheriff.

"I did not die in my sleep."

Juniper Whitfield was supposed to be in Hemlock Harbor for six weeks. Settle her grandmother's affairs. Sell the cottage on Sea Glass Lane. Close the herbal shop on Harbor Street. Drive back to Boston before the lilacs turned.

Then she finds Iris's last letter.

And on the third night in the cottage, the Edwardian black cat curled at the foot of the stair opens his mouth and speaks. Mr. Pemberton - in a voice of tweed and velvet - informs Juni that someone in this small Maine harbor town killed her grandmother. And they are still here.

Six mornings later, a neighbor turns up dead in the toolshed next door.

With three suspects, fifty years of her grandmother's diaries, a sheriff who keeps showing up on her porch with coffee from the Salty Mug, a bookshop owner who has been waiting forty-one years to tell the truth about Iris, and a cat who would frankly rather not speak to people at all - Juni follows old griefs and small, careful magic into a question she did not come north to ask.

Steeped in Murder is the first novel in the Hemlock Harbor Mysteries - a cozy paranormal series in the tradition of Heather Blake, Madelyn Alt, and Juliet Blackwell.

What's inside:

• A cottage witch in coastal Maine
• A talking cat with strong opinions
• A slow-burn small-town sheriff (no on-page heat)
• Herbal magic kept to kitchen scale
• A real-feeling Maine harbor town
• A clean cozy: no graphic violence, no profanity, no spice

Pour a cup. Lock the back door. Begin.