Sussex, 1881. Lady Helena Scott-De Quincy's marriage to Sir Justin Whitcombe, three years before, gave new purpose to a life almost destroyed by the death of Lady Helena's first love. After all, shouldn't the preoccupations of a wife and hostess be sufficient to fulfill any aristocratic female's dreams? Such a shame their union wasn't blessed by children...but Lady Helena is content with her quiet country life until Sir Justin is found dead in the river overlooked by their grand baroque mansion.

Denver homicide detective Nick Ryan and Elizabeth Harper have a history of passionate mistakes and broken trust. They haven’t seen each other in five years after she married the man he despised. Now, her husband is dead, and the evidence points to her as the killer. The woman Nick used to know wouldn’t have killed anyone. Hasty decisions have brought Nick and Elizabeth to a strange and bloody crossroads. He’s worried his feelings for her will help her get away with murder, and she’s worried they’ll land her in prison.

Detective Mary Joe Court sleeps with a shotgun beside her bed and a lovable bull mastiff at her feet. For the past 12 years, she’s hidden from a nightmarish past, but with every passing day, her scars fade, and her heart grows lighter. Now, for the first time in her life, she looks forward to her future. She’s happy. Then she finds the body. Someone shot the victim in her chest and left her to die in a cheap motel. Joe knew her well. She grew up with her. They were sisters, of a sort.

If you've got a problem, Charlie Kingsley probably has a tea that’ll help make it right. Except when it comes to love. She does not do love potions. Not even for Courtney, her pregnant new client who showed up three weeks before Christmas seeking a love potion because her husband was cheating on her.

When a student in Professor Brad Parker's lab at the Maine Translational Research Institute in Wells is wrongfully accused of sharing answers on an exam, he tries to help. Only to encounter a series of unexpected obstacles. Burglary. Bribery. A suspicious suicide. And then the professor who accused the students of cheating is killed. Leaving Brad and his fiancée, FBI Agent Karen Richmond, desperately trying to understand what's going on behind the scenes.