After months of planning, sisters Abigail and Amanda Clark have finally purchased a historic resort property in the Finger Lakes. Abigail has years of experience managing hotels and restaurants, so she's sure she's ready for this new challenge. She isn't even bothered when her sister takes her dream job and decides not to move to Nightshade right away.

When a guest turns up dead in one of the rooms, though, Abigail finds herself caught up in the middle of a murder investigation. That definitely wasn't in her plans.

The dead man had a lot of enemies in the small town of Nightshade, New York, and it isn't long before Abigail has met several of them. Her nosy neighbor is eager to poke her nose into the police investigation, but all Abigail wants to do is find some guests for Sunset Lodge.

Can Abigail fix up the historic hotel on a shoestring budget? Will she be able to find guests who don't mind that a man was murdered in the hotel's annex? Or will Abigail's neighbor say the wrong thing to the wrong person and get someone else murdered before the police find the killer?

When Barry Cuda arrives at Sunset Lodge to talk to Abigail about running a boat rental business for her, she's eager to take a look at exactly what watercraft is left in the boathouse that's been locked up for over ten years.

Neither she nor Barry is expecting to find a skeleton inside one of the boats. When Barry thinks he recognize something that's been left with the body, things dont seem to add up.

It doesn't take the police long to identify the remains, and they're fairly certain the dead woman was murdered. Abigail can only hope that another murder investigation won't interfere with the special Halloween weekend she has planned for her first group of guests. Meanwhile, when Barry offers to supply a group of actors to tell ghost stories on Halloween, Abigail is quick to agree.

But the Nightshade Players all knew the woman who was murdered and Abigail's neighbor, Jessica, is convinced that one of them killed her. Can Abigail get through Halloween night without Jessica sticking her nose right into the middle of another murder investigation?

Abigail is delighted when her sister, Mandy, the co-owner of Sunset Lodge, arrives to spend a week with her. Both sisters are excited to finally have an opportunity to really talk about their plans for renovating, remodeling, and redecorating just about every inch of the main lodge building, the annex, and the cottages in the woods around the lodge. With a laser measure in one hand and a notebook in the other, Mandy wants to take notes on each of the cottages so that she can start sketching out her plans for their improvements.

The dead body in Cottage Four is an unexpected and unwelcome discovery. Abigail, who's already been through two murder investigations, wants to leave the detective work to the police, but Mandy is eager to start asking questions and talking to everyone in the small town of Nightshade.

As Mandy drags her sister around town, doing everything she can to throw them into the paths of various suspects, Abigail knows that their neighbor, Jessica, is busy doing some snooping as well. All Abigail wants to do is get the lodge ready for a special Thanksgiving weekend, but instead she has to worry that a killer might target her neighbor, or even her sister, next.

It's time for the annual Nightshade Winter Festival, and Abigail Clark is happy to volunteer her time to help out at the week-long charity fundraising event. She's only been at the fairgrounds for a short while before she stumbles across a dead body submerged in the carnival dunk tank.

The town's high school principal, Sid Stowe, always spent the week at the festival, helping out as needed and supporting the many school clubs and sports teams that take advantage of the festival's opportunity to raise money. It isn't long before Abigail begins to hear rumors and stories about the man, though.

It appears that Sid wasn't quite as wonderful as most people in Nightshade seemed to think. Not only was the man cheating on his wife, but it looks as if he was stealing money from the school district as well. Those two details seem to provide half of Nightshade with possible motives for Sid's murder. Abigail is committed to spending several days helping out at the festival. Her challenge is to find a way to do that without getting dragged into the murder investigation.

Abigail Clark and her boyfriend, Mark Cooper, are hoping for a romantic dinner together at one of Nightshade's fanciest restaurants. What they get is front row seats for huge drama at the table next to theirs. Spencer Manning's retirement celebration quickly turns into an enormous family argument, and Mark and Abigail get to hear every word.

Someone else in the restaurant records every awful moment and puts it up online, giving the entire world a chance to watch the fight. The footage takes on new significance, though, when Mark and Abigail find Spencer dead in the elevator just outside the restaurant.

Abigail doesn't want any part in the subsequent murder investigation, but she finds herself dragged into it as first one and then another of the suspects decides to move into Sunset Lodge to hide away from a town full of people who've all seen the video. When it seems as if everyone who knew Spencer is better off with him dead, finding the killer is going to be difficult.

It's the weekend before Valentine's Day and the lodge is full of happy couples ready to celebrate over two very special days. The guests include not just Abigail's boyfriend, but also Mandy and her boyfriend. Everyone is having a wonderful time until they all go on a hayride at the local park.

When Mark first spots something out of place in one of the fountains, Abigail tries to tell herself that it's nothing important. But when they stop the hayride to investigate, they find a dead man.

As usual, Abigail doesn't want to get involved, but that doesn't stop most of the dead man's family and friends from seeking her out. In a small town where everyone seems to know everyone and everything, the dead man's mother has been keeping a huge secret for thirty years. Now Abigail can't help but wonder if that secret is the key to finding the killer.

When Abigail and Mandy go on a farm tour with local farmer Herman Black, they're excited to see what they can share with their guests during their upcoming special-event weekend. Their very last stop is at a trio of greenhouses that Herman turned over to his children years ago. A single plant growing in the one disused greenhouse draws Mandy's attention. The skeletal remains under the plant's bench bring the police to the farm.

The dead man had a complicated history in Nightshade, and it isn't long before the sisters find themselves in the middle of another murder investigation. When the farmer's daughter, who was also once romantically involved with the victim, arrives at Sunset Lodge for a short stay, the sisters learn more about both the victim and the many suspects.

Another unexpected guest, more surprise revelations, and an extra helping of dessert lead Abigail and Mandy to the killer in this, their seventh book.

Abigail is happy to spend a day at a shopping mall a few hours away from home with her boyfriend, Mark. They enjoy exploring stores that they rarely get to visit and grab lunch in the food court. When another customer starts shouting and complaining, they both do their best to ignore him while enjoying their time together.

When the fire alarm goes off, getting safely out of the building is their only concern. Security sends them through a door and down a staff-only hallway full of storage spaces for the various stores. They've nearly reached the exit when they see the body.

As Mark tries to help, Abigail calls the police. And they both recognize the victim. The man who'd been shouting at everyone in the food court just a few hours earlier met his untimely end in a dimly lit hallway. And now Abigail and Mark are witnesses in another murder investigation, but this time they're not in Nightshade.

Abigail Clark is excited to go to the grand opening of a new grocery store in a town a few hours away from Nightshade, where she owns Sunset Lodge. Grocery shopping isn't usually her idea of fun, but her younger sister, Mandy, was part of the design team that worked on the store. And the store is supposed to be something quite special. The bakery looks like a French patisserie, the candy section is fenced by giant plastic sweets, and the freezer section is dotted with igloos, both large and small.

Abigail and her boyfriend, Mark, join Mandy and her boyfriend, Scott, for the opening-day celebrations. Their enjoyment is interrupted when one of Scott's former girlfriends greets him with a passionate embrace, making it clear that she's interested in rekindling their romance. When the woman is found dead inside one of the igloos a few hours later, Mandy and Scott join a long list of suspects.

Again, Abigail really doesn't want to get involved, but she's also not going to stand by and see her sister accused of murder. When one of the suspects turns up in Nightshade looking for a place to stay, Abigail is quick to find them a room at Sunset Lodge. And it isn't long before the rest of the suspects come knocking on her door, too. Now Abigail just has to work out which of them murdered Clarissa Weber.

Abigail is doing her best to clear away some of the junk that the previous owners of Sunset Lodge left behind. She and Carl, her handyman, make a trip to Hudson's Junkyard with an entire van full of stuff. When they get there, Stone Hudson, the owner of the yard, is quick to suggest that Abigail might be interested in taking a look at some of the furniture that came from the Xanzibar Hotel, the luxury property that has been standing empty since the eighties.

There are dozens of buildings full of everything from furniture to household goods scattered across the junkyard. Stone sends them to Building Twenty-Nine. Inside the dimly lit building, Abigail and Carl find themselves surrounded by the oversized and overstuffed furnishings from the Xanzibar's lobby. A long row of bookcases that almost divides the room in two catches Abigail's eye, though.

Carl fights his way thought the piles of couches and tables to take a better look at the bookcases. It's what he finds behind them that is the problem, though. The skeleton has clearly been lying on one of the beds in the back half of the building for a considerable amount of time. The first challenge for the police is to work out whose remains have been found. Then they can worry about whether or not the victim was murdered. Abigail doesn't have any idea who they've found, but she's pretty sure she's right at the center of another murder investigation.

When Abigail takes a rare day off in the middle of a busy week, she's expecting a fun day at the beach with her sister, Mandy, and some other friends. When a seemingly empty kayak floats into view, she's quick to suggest that they catch the vessel. Abigail is pretty sure that the kayak's owners are currently guests at Sunset Lodge. Considering everything that has happened since she moved to Nightshade, she probably shouldn't have been surprised that there was a body in the kayak.

Danny Webb was a guest at the lodge. He'd arrived with his wife and a small group of friends for a week of sunshine, sightseeing, and kayaking on Foxglove Lake. He'd seemed a fun, friendly person and for a short while it looked as if no one had a motive for his murder.

It isn't long though, before secrets began to unravel, revealing the man's double life and also his hidden past. It suddenly seems as if nearly everyone he knew had a motive for his murder. And Abigail and Mandy are right in the middle of it all, eager to find the killer before he or she can strike again.

Abigail is asked to accompany her sister, Mandy, and Mandy's boyfriend, Scott Wright, on a tour of a building in nearby Saunders. Abigail's boyfriend, Mark, is invited to come along as well. The building used to be a laboratory that closed under mysterious circumstances when its owner seemingly disappeared some years ago.

With her history of finding dead bodies in unusual places, Abigail is somewhat hesitant to agree, but she's very quickly assured that dozens of people have been through the lab since it went on the market and there are definitely no dead bodies there.

After completing the tour, the group stops to take a closer look at the small library in the missing man's office. When Mark removes a book from the shelves, the wall slides away, revealing a hidden study. And a body. The missing man has been found, but he hasn't been dead for long. Now everyone in both Nightshade and Saunders wants to know why he left, where he's been, why he returned, and how he ended up dead inside a hidden room in his own laboratory.

[Released on 3rd July 2026 and available for pre-order now.]