China Bayles mysteries
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In a small Texas town, what starts as a little festive Halloween fun ends in a brutal murder. And lawyer-turned-herbalist China Bayles is even more shocked when her friend Ruby, a New Age expert in tarot and astrology, becomes the prime suspect after a minister accuses her of witchcraft. Now it’s up to China to unmask the real killer...
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China confronts her most intriguing case yet when she finds Rosemary Robbins, a woman with an unsettling resemblance to her, murdered in a pick-up truck. The local police discover that Rosemary's fiance is on the lam in Mexico City and focus on him as the main suspect. Meanwhile, China takes the advice of a psychic and finds the killer close to home.
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In search of respite, China takes off to St. Theresa's Monastery with her friend Maggie, a former nun. The goal is a brief, tranquil retreat - but there's a conflict at the convent. The mother superior has recently died, and a battle over the future of St. Theresa's suggests that her sudden demise might not have been accidental. Now, China's quest for a replenished spirit takes second place to a more earthbound pursuit: catching a killer...
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Ex-lawyer and herb-shop proprietor China Bayles is investigating the mystery of retired Texas Ranger shot dead with his wife's gun...and at the same time trying to sort out some mysteries about her own relationship after she overhears a suspicious phone conversation...
7) Chile death
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China Bayles mysteries volume 7
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Herbalist and ex-lawyer China Bayles decides to take a respite from the stresses of her life by accompanying her wheelchair-bound boyfriend to a chili cook-off, but her burdens only get worse when judge Jerry Jeff Cody dies at the scene from a severe allergic reaction to a peanut that mysteriously made its way into a bowl of Texas chili.
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China Bayles mysteries volume 8
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“Good riddance,” is the response of every Pecan Springs resident to the murder of local real estate shark Edgar Coleman. It doesn’t take long for China Bayles to learn that Coleman was having numerous affairs—and was blackmailing City Council members for their votes on a bad land development deal. With her fiancé immersed in the murder investigation—and the suspect list growing longer by the minute—China can forget about a honeymoon,...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 9
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Business is booming at China Bayles' newest venture, Thyme for Tea -- but she's too distracted to revel in her latest entrepreneurial triumph. When the former big-city lawyer isn't trying to spend more time with her new husband and stepson, she's worrying about Ruby, who just hasn't been herself lately. To further complicate matters, China has to round up a supply of mistletoe, the season's most popular herb. It seems an easy enough task -- until...
10) Bloodroot
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Herbalist China Bayles is forced to confront her own past and her legacy of family secrets when she receives a frantic call from her estranged mother calling her home to the family's Mississippi plantation--the ownership of which is suddenly in question due to the discovery of an old deed.
11) Indigo dying
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China Bayles mysteries volume 11
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The tiny town of Indigo, Texas, is the perfect setting for China Bayles to teach a “Colors to Dye For” workshop. With artists flocking to the countryside in growing numbers, Indigo is coming back to life. Only one person stands in the way of the town’s revival: longtime resident Casey Ford, who has decided to sell his profitable mining rights. Once the deal is done, Indigo will be dead and buried. But when Ford winds up dead himself—from a...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 12
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China Bayles is in a pickle. The daughter of her best friend, Ruby, has turned up on her doorstep, pregnant and in need of a place to live. And her otherwise sensible husband has announced that he’s bored with teaching and ready for a career change. Say “hello” to P.I. Mike McQuaid and Associates. There aren't actually any “associates”—unless you count Ruby and China, of course. But the title does have a nice, official ring to it. His...
13) Dead man's bones
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China Bayles mysteries volume 13
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Former attorney-turned-herbalist China Bayles finds her busy life further complicated when her teenage son discovers the skeletal remains of the victim of a not-so-accidental death during a dig in a cave and a local gathering is interrupted by murder.
14) Bleeding hearts
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China Bayles is asked to conduct a discreet investigation when someone makes allegations of improper behavior against married high school football coach Tim Duffy, who has married into a wealthy local family. What China uncovers is a story of forbidden desire, deception, and questionable circumstances surrounding a young woman's death. The more she digs, the more she fears that the town's beloved coach is not what he appears to be.
15) Spanish dagger
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China Bayles mysteries volume 15
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Between the herb shop, the catering business, and now a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles and her friends have as much work as they can handle. Of course, that doesn’t stop the rest of their lives from going on—or coming to an end, as the case may be. Meanwhile, China’s half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father’s supposedly accidental death. Although she can’t stop her husband from taking the case—after...
16) Nightshade
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China Bayles mysteries volume 16
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China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have...
17) Wormwood
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China Bayles mysteries volume 17
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China Bayles isn't anxious to leave her herb shop in the Texas Hill Country for two whole weeks. But her friends and family are urging her to get some rest, and a historic Shaker village in Kentucky seems the ideal place for it. At Mount Zion, China can assist her friend Martha with some herbal workshops while learning about the Shakers, famous for their peaceful ways. As it turns out, the modern version of the village is plagued by misfortune - and...
18) Holly blues
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China Bayles mysteries volume 18
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China Bayles tries to set aside her suspicions over Sally's motives when she shows up at China's herb shop over the Christmas season and claims she has nowhere to go, but when she begins to receive menacing phone calls at the shop and on her unlisted home line, China is curious about a possible connection between one of Sally's ex-boyfriends and her parents' murder ten years before.
19) Mourning Gloria
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China Bayles mysteries volume 19
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After a woman is killed in an arson-homicide, Jessica Nelson, an intern-reporter at the local paper, is assigned to cover the story. When Jessica disappears, China Bayles is determined to find her, before she becomes a headline herself.
20) Cat's claw
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China Bayles mysteries volume 20
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"Sheila Dawson has made history as the first female police chief in Pecan Springs, Texas. She's also cracked many a mystery in collaboration with local sleuth China Bayles--that's why everyone thinks she's such a smart cookie. Now, Sheila puts those smarts to work, sifting through secrets to find a killer on the prowl... Larry Kirk, Pecan Springs' computer guru, has been shot dead in his kitchen. At first Police Chief Sheila Dawson believes it to...
21) Widow's tears
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China Bayles mysteries volume 21
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After losing her husband, five children, housekeeper, and beautiful home in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Rachel Blackwood rebuilt her home, and later died there, having been driven mad with grief. In present-day Texas, Claire, the grandniece of Rachel’s caretaker, has inherited the house and wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. But she is concerned that it’s haunted, so she calls in her friend Ruby—who has the gift of extrasensory...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 22
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"When China's and Ruby's friend Karen Prior is mugged in a mall parking lot and dies a few days later, China begins to suspect that her friend's death was not a random assault. Karen was a filmmaker supervising a student documentary about the fifteen-year-old murder of a woman named Christine Morris and the acquittal of the man accused of the crime. Is it possible that the same person who killed Christine Morris targeted Karen? Delving into the cold...
23) Bittersweet
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China Bayles mysteries volume 23
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"This Thanksgiving, be grateful for China Bayles who teams up with an old friend to solve a complex case of theft and murder in a South Texas ranching community. It's Thanksgiving in Pecan Springs, and China is planning to visit her mother, Leatha, and her mother's husband, Sam, who are enthusiastically embarking on a new enterprise turning their former game ranch into a vacation retreat for birders. She's also looking forward to catching up with...
24) Blood orange
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"In the newest China Bayles Mystery in the New York Times bestselling series, China comes to the aid of a nurse who ends up in the hospital ... It's mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband, Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 25
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"In this exciting new mystery from New York Times bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert, China Bayles fears for her husband's life as an escaped convict targets him... Max Mantel, the killer McQuaid put away years ago, has busted out of Huntsville Prison and appears to be headed for Pecan Springs. McQuaid knows there's only one way to stop the vengeful convict--set a trap with himself as bait. China wants to stay by her husband's side and keep him...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 26
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While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender. Soon strange things start occuring. Could the building be haunted?
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China Bayles mysteries volume 27
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"China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual ''Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop,'' always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief's desk, is investigating the death of a botany...
28) Hemlock
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China Bayles mysteries volume 28
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"Herbalist China Bayles' latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book-A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s-is missing and Dorothea is under...
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An unthymely death and other garden mysteries
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China Bayles' book of days: 365 celebrations of the mystery, myth, and magic of herbs from the world of Pecan Springs
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