Some mornings start with coffee. This one started with a phone call she’d been dreading for two years.
When Sage Holloway’s closest ally turns up dead — accident, say the police, murder, says everything she knows about him — she finally sees the full scope of what Margaret Ashworth has been quietly building for forty years. The evidence is devastating. The proof is almost enough. And Margaret is still three steps ahead.
In Crescent Harbor, the scones are fresh, the secrets run deep, and some long games are just getting started.
Some questions get journalists killed. Diana Mercer’s were about land deals.
When a freelance writer researching Crescent Harbor’s “revitalization story” is found dead in her rental cottage two days before Christmas, the police call it a break-in gone wrong. Sage Holloway calls it something worse—because Diana walked into her bakery asking about property transfers, and the questions she was asking sounded a lot like the ones Sage has been whispering to herself since autumn.
The trail leads to an out-of-town investor with a crumbling alibi and a history of deals that go dirty. But Diana didn’t find him on her own. Someone slipped her an unsigned note. Someone with deep roots, old connections, and the kind of local knowledge that doesn’t come from research.
It comes from running the town for forty years.
Now Sage is sitting across from the most dangerous woman she’s ever met, asking a question no one has asked in four decades. The answer comes wrapped in hypotheticals, delivered with genuine warmth, and followed by a smile that could be fondness or a threat—or both.
You’re the first person in forty years clever enough to see it.
The icy steps were a warning. The fractured friendships are the cost. And the black cat who screamed in the dark is the only reason Sage is still standing.
In Crescent Harbor, the gingerbread is lying, the loyalties are cracking, and some games don’t end when you learn the truth. They’re just getting started.
Some allergies are deadly. This one was deliberate.
When an aggressive property lawyer collapses at Crescent Harbor’s harvest festival, everyone assumes it’s a tragic accident—a man with a known allergy who ate the wrong thing. But Sage Holloway notices what no one else does: the faint golden sheen on his plate that doesn’t match any oil the vendors carry. Walnut oil has a very specific color. And the festival is tree nut free.
The suspect pool is long. Harrison Cross made enemies the way other people made small talk. But one man at that festival wasn’t eating, wasn’t mingling, wasn’t doing anything except standing very still with a cup of cider he never drank—watching Cross die.
Solving the murder should be enough. It isn’t.
Because the deeper Sage digs into the victim’s past, the more she finds—property deals that squeezed old families out of land they’d held for generations. Shell companies with too many layers. A retired teacher’s research that vanished the night she died. And the same name surfacing again and again, buried under enough paperwork to look like coincidence.
Then the most gracious woman in town invites her for tea, pours the Darjeeling, and says something that sounds like concern but feels like a warning.
In Crescent Harbor, the leaves are falling, the pattern is forming, and some alibis only hold up until a baker with a food science degree starts asking the wrong questions.
She’s solved two murders. Now the cat won’t stop staring at the one person nobody suspects—and this time, the danger isn’t what Sage has found. It’s who noticed her looking.
Some nights end with a fall. Eleanor Marsh’s ended at the bottom of stairs she never used.
When a beloved retired teacher is found dead in her own basement, everyone calls it a tragic accident—everyone except her niece, who shows up at Sage Holloway’s bakery soaking wet and certain the police have it wrong. But proving it means tracing stolen silver, marked twenty-dollar bills, and a caretaker who vanished overnight.
Then there are the missing research notes. The old property records that don’t add up. And the most trusted woman in Crescent Harbor, who smiles a little too perfectly every time someone asks the wrong question.
In Crescent Harbor, the sourdough is rising, the secrets go back decades, and some truths are buried under false bottoms for a reason.
She solved one murder. Now the cat’s dragging her into another—and this time, the real danger isn’t at the bottom of the stairs. It’s at the top.
USA Today Bestselling author Tonya Kappes brings you southern and quirky characters in her mystery series. Her stories are charged with humor, friendship, family and life in small southern towns. REALTOR Chelsea O’Connell is found dead in a model home of the new development in Normal. She was not popular in the small tourist town located in the Daniel Boone National Park. The town does not want more development. They fear it will take away more of the forest. Detective Hank Sharp has his own hands full. He should focus on his work. Instead, he worries about his girlfriend Mae West. Her nosey set of friends, The Laundry Club Ladies, also concerns him. Cuts are coming to the Normal Sheriff’s department.
Rumors are swirling around about the Sheriff’s department doing some outsourcing and Hank’s job is one of them. Mae finds herself at a crossroads. Does she help out a friend? Her friend is the number one suspect on Hank’s list. Does she let Hank solve the murder by himself? This way, Hank can prove how valuable his position is to the department.
I’m a Mom, a Grandmom, and a Veteran. Nothing scares me! That’s the saying on my favorite T Shirt. I’m enjoying life too much to let the little things slow me down. If you can’t tell from my Avatar, I live in Florida where I enjoy the sunshine and endure the hurricanes with good grace. Sometimes you have to take the bad with the good!
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