When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flaky crust. But her pies aren't just delicious. They're having magical effects on the people who eat them, and the public is hungry for more. Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe.

Tucked away in the rolling hills of rural western Virginia lies the storybook resort of Storyton Hall, catering to book lovers who want to get away from it all. To increase her number of bookings, resort manager Jane Steward has decided to host a Murder and Mayhem week so that fans of the mystery genre can gather together for some role-playing and fantasy crime solving.

Miracle Springs is a place of healing. Strangers flock there hoping the natural hot springs, five-star cuisine, and renowned spa can cure their ills. And, if none of that works, they often find their way to Miracle Books, where, over a fresh-baked scone from the Gingerbread House bakery, they exchange their stories with owner Nora Pennington in return for a carefully chosen book. That's Nora's special talent. But when a visiting businessman reaches out to Nora for guidance, he's found dead on the train tracks before he can keep their appointment.

Molly Appleby is a young writer for Collector's Weekly, and when the attractive reporter isn't covering auctions and antique shows all over the South, she's trying to get her new relationship with a coworker off the ground. When her latest assignment takes her to North Carolina pottery country to cover an exclusive kiln opening, she's certain that the show promises surprising offerings and rare finds. What she doesn't expect to find is a dead body.

James Henry, a kind-hearted professor of English literature, is forced to move back home to Quincy's Gap, a tiny town in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, to care for his aging father. Shortly after moving into a house that hasn't changed since his childhood, the overweight, divorced, book-loving cheese puff addict accepts a position as head librarian and joins a supper club for dieters who call themselves the "Flab Five". Avoiding carbs is almost impossible in this deep-fried, all-you-can-eat Southern town.

In the seaside town of Lighthouse Cove, everyone knows the best man for the job is actually a woman - contractor Shannon Hammer. But while Shannon can do wonders with a power drill and a little elbow grease, her love life needs work. On a blind date with real estate agent Jerry Saxton, she has to whip out a pair of pliers to keep Jerry from getting too hands on.Shannon is happy to put her rotten date behind her, but when Jerry's found dead in a run-down Victorian home that she's been hired to restore, the town's attractive new police chief suspects that her threats may have laid the foundation for murder.

After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder.

In the first book of the series, Sprinkle with Murder, Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaurae are finally the proud owners of the Fairy Tale Cupcakes bakery, but their first big client is a nightmare. She's a bridezilla who wants 500 custom cupcakes for her wedding.

Few can compete with the Natasha Smith when it comes to entertaining, but her childhood rival, Sophie Winston, certainly tries. While Natasha is known for her intricate centerpieces and painstakingly prepared gourmet meals, Sophie likes to keep things simple...real simple.

Summer is busy season for Mackenzie "Mac" Almeida's bicycle shop, nestled in the quaint, seaside hamlet of Westham, Massachusetts. She's expecting an influx of tourists at Mac's Bikes; instead she discovers the body of Jake Lacey. Mac can't imagine anyone stabbing the down-on-his-luck handyman. However, the authorities seem to think Mac is a strong suspect after she was spotted arguing with Jake just hours before his death. Mac knows she didn't do it, but she does recognize the weapon - her brother Derrick's fishing knife.

Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library - she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town....

The streets of San Francisco would be lined with hardcovers if rare book expert Brooklyn Wainwright had her way. And her mentor wouldn't be lying in a pool of his own blood on the eve of a celebration for his latest book restoration. With his final breath he leaves Brooklyn a cryptic message, and gives her a priceless - and supposedly cursed - copy of Goethe's Faust for safekeeping.

If Avery Chambers can’t fix you in 10 sessions, she won’t take you on as a client. Her successes are phenomenal—she helps people overcome everything from domineering parents to assault—and almost absorbs the emptiness she sometimes feels since her husband’s death. Marissa and Mathew Bishop seem like the golden couple—until Marissa cheats. She wants to repair things, both because she loves her husband and for the sake of their eight-year-old son. After a friend forwards an article about Avery, Marissa takes a chance on this maverick therapist.

College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe's life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran-and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder.

Refusing to believe that she would be abandoned as a young child, Jenna searches for her mother regularly online and pores over the pages of Alice's old journals. A scientist who studied grief among elephants, Alice wrote mostly of her research among the animals she loved, yet Jenna hopes the entries will provide a clue to her mother’s whereabouts. Desperate to find the truth, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest.