Paint Mystery

Art curator Jessamine Rhodes has left behind her gig at a prominent gallery in the city to open her own community art center in the small town of Rose Shore. She's all set to host an extravagant opening watercolors class and has even booked a famous artist to teach it. Gabriella Everhart brings along her priceless painting Tranquil to showcase as the centerpiece of the event. The opening class is just wrapping up when suddenly Tranquil disappears before Jessamine's eyes. Next, the lights of the art center flicker out and leave the crowd in complete darkness as a scream pierces the air.

For Chloe Abbington, the transition from fine-art painter in New York City to painting-event business owner in charming Whisper Cove is more than a little jarring. But when poison-pen journalist Fiona Gimble writes a viciously negative review of the newly opened Paint with a View, Chloe learns that critics are the same everywhere. And when she finds Fiona's body behind her shop with a painting knife in her neck, Chloe realizes that this picture-perfect town offers anything but peace and quiet.

After inheriting her uncle's Red River Gorge homestead in Eastern Kentucky - smack dab in the middle of the Daniel Boone National Forest - Miranda comes up with a perfect business plan for summer tourists: pairing outdoor painting classes with sips of local moonshine, followed by a mouthwatering sampler of the best in southern cooking. To Miranda's delight, Paint & Shine is a total success - until someone kills the cook. As the town's outsider, suspicion naturally falls on Miranda.

Roger Thorncroft spent most of his days on the cliffs with his easel and paints, until the day he was found sprawled in the grass. Who and why would someone have killed such a gentle, quiet man? Then again, who really knew the artist and his secrets? And who are the mysterious strangers seen in Sitting Marsh? The members of the Housewives League are convinced they are German spies. Lady Elizabeth has her work cut out to catch a killer and restore harmony in the village.

Dealing with her father’s recent death, Laura Meehan decides to move back to her New Jersey hometown and take over the paint and wallpaper store he opened after quitting his straining job in the police. Knowing that she is uprooting her own and her supportive husband Roy’s lives, she’s determined to continue her father’s legacy and keep the business alive. But that doesn’t seem to be the only thing alive when Laura discovers that her store is haunted by none other than her deceased father! Either that or Laura has finally lost her mind and developed Ghost Traumatic Stress Syndrome. . .

Things aren't always what they seem to be. Sometimes the forger escapes. Sometimes love wins. Sometimes the perfect crime is to disappear completely and find peace in anonymity. This is the story of a man who wanted to be Rembrandt and became himself instead.

Georgia Thackery, adjunct English professor, has a new job teaching at Falstone College of Art and Design, known as FAD to its students and faculty. Living in a borrowed bungalow during winter in the snowiest part of Massachusetts, Georgia feels her isolation weighing as heavily as the weather. Then she receives a package containing her best friend, Sid, a walking, talking skeleton who has lived with the Thackery family since Georgia was six. With Georgia working out of town, Sid was lonely too.

For her latest excursion, Miranda is thrilled to take a close-knit group of rock climbers, the Risky Business Adventurers, up the challenging Battleship Rock Trail to paint and sample moonshine. But the outing is cut short when they discover a skeleton near the trailhead. Even more startling, the bones belong to Howard Cable, Miranda's cousin...and a former classmate of the Risky Business group.

Two years have passed since the last murder rocked Grace Gulch. Life has settled down for the three Wilde sisters. The town is celebrating the opening of the MGM Center for the Arts with a clue-driven scavenger hunt, and Cici expects her first child in six weeks. Newcomers have joined the community, including Cici's mother-in-law, Gilda Howe. Cici's peace is shattered when an art studio burns down with a body inside. The missing artist quickly becomes a primary suspect because of his public breakup with the victim.

Fiona Fowler, a best-selling mystery writer known for her captivating werewolf detective novels, finds herself thrust into a real-life murder mystery during a fateful, full moon. When a prominent artist is brutally killed in her small town, Fiona becomes the prime suspect due to the eerie resemblance between the crime scene and her latest novel.

Miranda's business—combining Appalachian adventure tours with art and a bit of moonshine—is the perfect place for an outdoor sporting goods company to hold an employee retreat. It'll be a challenge, but the money they're paying will definitely help with building her new distillery. Miranda has lots of teamwork-fostering activities planned, from sketching classes to Southern cooking, but the executive running things prefers a more competitive spirit. In fact, after the workers are split into teams, they're told that only the winners will keep their jobs, and tensions begin to spike.

Chloe Abbington and her sister, Izzie, are enjoying huge success running Paint with a View, their paint party business in the tranquil western New York lakeside town of Whisper Cove. Now, their aunt Constance—president of the local chapter of the Chautauqua Sisterhood—has hooked them up with a gig hosting a Halloween painting party. The guests will be painting a local ghost legend, the Lady of Chautauqua Lake, who died a hundred years earlier and rises from the lake every October to haunt anyone who dares venture out on All Hallows’ Eve.

What lives in the gaps between worlds? A different and deadly rain falls.... Who can survive? What happens when a snake oil man comes to town? Sarah Jane Huntington coats the world in darkness in these 13 twisted stories. From ghosts to folklore, hauntings to demonic possession, murder to science fiction, take a trip into dark and frightening places.

Trouble is stirring when murder comes wrapped in the guise of a seascape painting. The gift from a close friend who deals in art becomes a mystery to solve after Izzie and Chloe Abbington accidently discover that hidden behind the seascape is a priceless Vermeer which many would kill to possess. When the seascape with its hidden masterpiece is stolen, and a murder hits too close to home, their friend is accused of the crime.

Counsel Fungo, female bounty hunter, has art thief/forger/bail jumper Sebastian Leone in custody. She now owns his future. Leone pleads his way out of going to jail by dropping names of bigger fish, and Counsel hears one that interests her: Mercer Crawford, CEO of a large pro-gun activist group. Counsel disagrees with Crawford’s gun politics and looks to exploit his affinity for stolen art and embarrass him and his organization. The stakes increase when she learns of his other sideline: brokering illegal arms sales, the kind that can topple governments.

When the town council hires Chloe Abbington's close friend, famous wall muralist Lana Easton, to paint a mural advertising the return of the floating amphitheater, not everyone in Whisper Cove is happy about the theater or Lana. Naysayers think the noise from concerts and visitors will disrupt their quiet community. It doesn't help that a lot of money taken from the town's budget is being used to pay the muralist for her services. The mood turns even more grim when Lana is found dead, and since Chloe was there alone to discover her body, that makes her the prime suspect.

Mavis Forthright carefully rehearses her jump from Portsmouth's Round Tower. She's existed for over five decades. Lived hardly at all. She delays another day to lend Janice a book. As if to balance her survival, a number of people connected to Mavis die. At first, that doesn't matter. They're people she dislikes. Mavis continues painting, tending her garden, feeding the birds, and keeping her home properly clean, without additional concern. Then, people who've been kind to Mavis are killed or injured. That shouldn't happen.

Emily Ellis knows her talent as an artist has a purpose: to tell the stories of girls who are no longer able to tell their stories themselves. Girls are dying in the town of Volga, and no one seems to be talking about who or what is behind their deaths. Mill’s brushes do the talking. They’re special handmade brushes with unique bristles, and they seem to have a connection to the girls and what happened to them. There’s only one person who knows how dark that connection is. And he wants nothing more than to take the talent from each girl for himself, including Mills.