A Date to Die

Nicky Sullivan is the resident manager of a sober living home in Chicago. There she rides herd on ten newly sober addicts and alcoholics, trying to point them in the right direction while keeping their chaos to a minimum. But when one of her residents is murdered, Nicky turns to the investigative skills honed during her past career as a homicide detective. She calls on her old police partner who has been assigned the murder investigation along with his new partner, a woman beautiful enough to give Nicky pause. The body count starts to mount as it becomes clear a serial killer is at work, targeting newly relapsed women, all of whom have some connection to Nicky. Each death makes her feel she’s wielded the knife herself. In the midst of the tragedy, she finds herself falling in love.

With the lives of fragile women in the balance, Nicky finds her own sobriety threatened. Can Nicky save her lover and find the killer? How many others must die before she does?

Ex-Chicago cop and new PI Josie Harper has been hired by an outside group to clear the name of publisher Lauren Wade, recently acquitted of the murder of her lover. That means finding the real killer, a task made more difficult by Lauren's unwillingness to cooperate and a large family problem—Lauren's parents have been kidnapped for a ransom she can no longer pay. Josie has a big challenge of her own: how to redeem herself after losing her job as a detective. When Josie and Lauren join forces to rescue the parents, they discover they make a great team, in more ways than one.

Will Josie's troubled past come back to haunt her? And who did kill Lauren's lover?

When the hallowed halls of academia become the stage for murder, newly appointed Dean Beth Ellis's search for the truth leads her to unexpected discoveries about her own heart.

For Beth Ellis, Grafton College and its faculty and students are her home and family. But the president of the college rubs everyone the wrong way, the new English professor on campus isn't much more popular, and Beth has her hands full trying to keep the peace as various campus factions quarrel. Still, she didn't expect a tenure battle to end in murder.

Sally Sullivan left the Chicago police homicide division and returned to her hometown where, as chief of police, she expected her greatest challenges to be dealing with car accidents and drunk drivers. But faced with a murder investigation with more motives than evidence and an inexperienced staff, Sally finds small-town policing isn't as simple as she thought. Neither are her growing feelings for Beth Ellis.

As Sally and Beth's different worlds collide, their desire to solve the murder is complicated by their unexpected attraction. A second murder on campus places the survival of the college itself, their tenuous relationship, and even their lives in jeopardy.

As a doctor, Mick McVey knows what a mental health crisis looks like. Her own still takes her by surprise. When she inherits a house from the grandfather she’s never met, she puts herself on sabbatical and travels to the small hometown of the mother who abandoned her. It’s a temporary solution.

Mick might not be grieving her grandfather, but to her new neighbor Katy, his death is one blow too many. Mick’s arrival feels like Katy’s chance to forget her ex and her struggling cinema and reinvent herself. She’ll finally get her hot rebound and make this year her year.

When the COVID-19 lockdown traps both women in situations they’d convinced themselves were temporary, they’re forced to face what they really want from their lives, and who they want to share them with.

Kirsten Lindquist has enough on her hands juggling the demands of her work as an orchestral music librarian. Substitute horn player Shay Bradley has been hitting on her for years, but Shay is known for being an operator, so Kirsten avoids her advances, until she can’t resist. She is just beginning to get to know the new personnel manager, Stephanie Wellford, when the orchestra is shocked by the sudden deaths of three musicians and a string of suspicious accidents.

Kirsten, Shay, and Stephanie believe that the events are related, but they aren’t certain how to prove it. Things get more complicated when Shay backs off to hide her depression and Stephanie admits her crush on Kirsten, but they need to stick together to figure out who is responsible for murder—before they become the next victims.

Hannah works for one of the biggest liquor brands in the Northwest and is eager to prove herself and get the promotion she has been owed for so long. There’s just one annoyingly gorgeous obstacle in her way—the beloved local distiller, Alexandra Lang.

Alexandra isn’t afraid of a little competition. Okay, a lot of competition. Everyone knows her distillery is an homage to her late father, and she has the unwavering support of the whole community and tight-knit bar scene. Hannah’s charming sales pitch, endless legs, and big city influence don’t stand a chance. Right?

Ambition and passion go head-to-head as they duel for bar placements, local awards, and overall support for their products. But as sparks of friction and attraction fly, Hannah begins to suspect there might be more to small town life, and to Alexandra, than she thought.

Looks like the liquor will be the least of the hard stuff.