Series: A Willa Honeycutt Cozy Mystery
The Book: Candlesticks and Corpses
Willa Honeycutt only meant to drop off cookies. Harmony Hollow's charity haunted house at Wexler House is full of fake bodies, and she was there for the fundraiser, not the scares. Then she overhears Evan Wexler give the charity director a deadline, "until Sunday or else," and a few hours later Evan is dead. He is not one of the fake ones.
Sheriff Jack Gilmore would prefer Willa stay out of it. She doesn't. Neither does her Aunt Syl, who saw someone creeping around in a ghostly bride costume before the haunt ever opened, and who then found a note under her windshield wiper telling her to stop talking about it. Aunt Syl has no intention of stopping. She has backup, too: her friends Gertie and Shirley, who make up the town's self-appointed War Council.
The charity director had plenty to lose if Evan talked. Evan's brother has been nursing a family grudge for years. Willa's German Shepherd, Sadie, keeps nosing at a hidden passage in the old house, and Shirley's dog, Walter, mostly keeps objecting to his yellow sweater. Then somebody traps Aunt Syl inside that passage under a pile of collapsed shelves, and it's clear the killer isn't bluffing.
Rating: 4.9 out of 5 stars (17 ratings)
What Readers Are Saying: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ "The War Council was 1000% committed to the Halloween season." — Susan Estrada
“A haunted house full of fake bodies, one real one, and an aunt who got a written warning to stop talking and took it as encouragement. If you’ve ever met an Aunt Syl, you already know who the killer should be worried about.”
Love Small-Town Mysteries?
If you enjoyed this spotlight, you'll love the Maple Grove Gazette—my weekly blog where a certain town archivist reports on the latest incidents in Maple Grove (there are always incidents), and I share the cozy mystery authors and books I think you need to know about.
👉 Read the latest Maple Grove Gazette
Want free early copies of my books? My ARC team, The Inner Circle, gets every new release before it hits Amazon — in exchange for honest reviews.
👉 Apply for Willow's Inner Circle | Get Ghosts Don't Use Blueprints on Amazon