Showing results by author "Donna Muse" in All Categories

Maybelle and Peter are finally engaged—and her estranged uncle, Harold Wright, insists on hosting a lavish celebration at his waterfront mansion on Lake Erie. It’s the perfect chance to reconnect with long-lost family… and enjoy a weekend of lakeside luxury.

The Wright sisters, Maybelle and Helen, find their lives turned inside out when they inherit their grandmother’s stately Victorian home on East Lake. Amid their grief, they resolve to uphold their family's storied legacy within its cherished walls. However, the house's quiet grandeur is shattered when Maybelle stumbles upon a chilling scene: a woman lifelessly suspended in the dining room.

Still nursing a broken heart after her split from Peter, Maybelle tries to keep her distance—especially now that he's dating someone younger and stunning. But when a deadly car accident and a suspicious house fire happen on the same night, it’s clear something sinister is at play. Peter dives headfirst into the investigation, and Maybelle, sidelined due to their breakup, starts digging on her own. What begins as two separate investigations soon becomes a tangled web of conflicting theories, clashing egos, and unresolved feelings.

Ten years ago, Maybelle made a choice she’s kept hidden—until her estranged husband, Alex Wilkinson, shows up on her doorstep, shattering the life she’s finally rebuilding with Peter. Shocked to learn she’s still legally married, Peter pulls away, unsure what to believe. Before Maybelle can explain, Alex is found dead in his motel room—and all signs point to her as the killer. Now, with a murder charge looming and her past unraveling, Maybelle must fight to prove her innocence. Peter wants to believe in her, but as evidence mounts, even he begins to doubt.

Amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo is once again steeped in drama after she accepts a party invitation. After 10 years in the realtor business, Biff Wellington has finally obtained his PhD in history, and is about to achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a professor. But as often happens in Wrangler’s Hill, the serenity of the evening is shattered by a series of nasty confrontations. Biff has spent his entire life alienating anyone who ever loved him, and now these former friends and family are out for revenge.

Macey Spade is having the worst September of her life. Rumors are circulating that the local cemetery is haunted by a specter of the undead, a wicked creature who glides through the darkness and preys on rabbits, foxes, and people. Macey knows this is all rubbish. But when she and her pooch, Mugsy, set out to prove there are no vampires in Whaler’s Bay Cemetery, she finds herself at odds with a fellow investigator who suspects her of vandalism—and a frightened mob of concerned moms who think she’s engaging in dark magic.

Macey Spade has always loved mysteries. As a girl, she read every crime novel in the school library, and memorized the plots of her favorite British detective shows. A brainy, awkward girl with few friends and a knack for getting into trouble, she dreamed of becoming a sleuth like the heroes of her beloved Agatha Christie novels.

The crime-solving duo Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves are invited to a comeback party hosted by country-music legend Dick Morrow. In the past 20 years, Dick’s style of folksy country had lost favor on the radio, having been crowded out by the louder, more aggressive brands. Dick released an acclaimed bluegrass album that sold approximately three copies, but now he’s ready to reclaim the stage that made him a star.

It’s the hottest part of the summer in Wrangler’s Hill, and Geneva Pomolo has been hired as a consultant on a major film. A new adaptation of Oliver Twist is shooting in town, and Geneva is personally assisting the director, the legendary Tom Jolly, in writing the script.

At an event celebrating Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland novels, amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo is drawn into intrigue when her gentleman friend, George, discovers he has a long-lost, now fully grown, daughter. This daughter lives in the Wrangler’s Hill area and is—or so he hears—in terrible danger. George and Geneva begin a mad scramble to find the girl before the worst happens. But their quest is interrupted by a murder—that of Myrna Nettles, a locally beloved octogenarian who had recently, improbably, become engaged to be married.

In early spring, amateur detective Geneva Pomolo receives a wedding invitation from a friend she hasn’t thought about in 10 years. Gladys Button has already been married six times—five of those marriages ended in divorce or annulment and the sixth ended in death. Now she’s getting married again, and she wants Geneva to be there. Baffled by the invitation, Geneva accepts. But when she and her detective partner Iris Reeves drive up to Fort Wayne to meet Gladys, they learn all is not as it seems. Gladys wants Geneva to investigate a murder—her own.

Temporarily lost on a long walk, Amateur Sleuth Geneva and her crime-solving partner, Iris, stumble across a shocking sight—the body of retired circus performer, Lawrence Lavelle, a man who spent his sunset years alone on a sprawling ranch watching circus movies and dreaming of days past. Lavelle has no shortage of enemies—Shorty Sycamore, who fantasizes about murdering him; Rita Toboggan, who loves and hates him in equal measure, and to whom he leaves all his money; Donald Fenugreek, a former business partner—still smarting from the loss of the girlfriend Lavelle stole from him.

Regina Baldwin was once one of the most famous runners in the world. Back in her prime, she ran a marathon in under three hours. After retiring from sports, she continues to host and MC races all over America. Her podcasts and documentaries have made her a fitness guru to millions. So, it’s all the more baffling when she drops dead whilst overseeing a marathon in Wrangler’s Hill. The evidence points to murder—but who would want to kill such a beloved figure? Amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo and her partner, Iris Reeves, are determined to find out.

Feeling guilty for spending too much time on her phone and wanting to get back into the spirit of literature, amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo attends a Jane Austen-themed party hosted by the Brixton family. Tensions are simmering between Kerri and her husband Jeremy. The party is thrown into disarray when a quarrel erupts between the couple, provoking Jeremy to storm out.

Amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo and her assistant, Iris Reeves, are on a quest to visit every major tourist attraction in Northern Indiana. Their efforts lead them to the town museum, where a meeting of the Cryptid and Paranormal Society dissolves into chaos over disputed sightings of the Wrangler’s Devil. Howard “Hefty” Gulch advocates putting a team together to find the beast, but is shouted down by opponents who feel he’s meddling in things best left alone. When Hefty is found dead on the slopes of a cliff during a routine camping trip, Geneva is certain of foul play.

For nearly 20 years, Chester Claus had run a year-round Christmas-themed diner in Wrangler’s Hill. For many Indiana locals, he was the embodiment of the holidays - gregarious, portly, his eyes radiating amusement as he handed out candy to children. The idea of anyone wanting to murder him was simply preposterous. But when Claus is found dead in his kitchen during the Christmas Feast, poisoned with his own favorite knife, it falls on Indiana’s finest amateur detective, Geneva Pomolo, and her partner, Iris Reeves, to investigate.

When a real murder spoils the opening of an old-fashioned murder-mystery theme park, Mrs. Pomolo and her partner, Iris, go along for the ride. All this intrigue, and right before Christmas!

Wandering through Indianapolis one weekend, amateur sleuths Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves visit a local jewelry store owned by Derek Wattle and his girlfriend, Estelle Landliner. Within 24 hours of their visit, Estelle is dead, Derek is a suspect, and Geneva and Iris plunge once again into a mystery with no easy answers.

Christmas is approaching, and private investigator Geneva Pomolo is spending a blissful week at a local bed and breakfast. But her hopes of a few idle days spent reading and relaxing are shattered by a scream in the night. A woman stumbles into her room with a strange tale of ghostly apparitions and a phantom figure clutching his severed head. Geneva dismisses the story as the ravings of a fantasy-prone woman, but soon it becomes clear that the bed and breakfast is crowded with more ghosts than a Dickens novel.

Madeline Ponderphelt has no reason to end her life. But when the middle-aged vlogger is found dead beneath a bridge in late January, the news calls it a suicide. When the obituary writer for the Beacon is found dead in the same location shortly thereafter, private sleuth Geneva Pomolo suspects something more than coincidence at work.