Books published by Crooked Lane Books

A Christmas delight, 'Twas the Knife Before Christmas will charm the stockings off readers of Joanne Fluke and Leslie Meier. It's out of the cupcake tin, into the fire for Holly White's best friend, Caroline. Can Holly clear Caroline's name in time to go caroling?When a body turns up in a larger-than-life candy bowl filled with peppermints on the town square, Holly White is horrified to learn her best friend Caroline is the main suspect. Everyone in town, including Mistletoe, Maine's sheriff, saw Caroline fighting with the victim on the night of his death. Worse, a custom kitchen knife, engraved with Caroline's initials was found with him.Now, just ten days before Christmas, Holly's up to her jingle bells in holiday shenanigans and in desperate need of a miracle. Juggling extra shifts at her family's Christmas tree farm and making enough gingerbread jewelry to satisfy the crowd is already more than she can handleand now she has to find time to clear her best friend of murder. Add in her budding relationship with the sheriff, and a personal stalker dressed as Santa Claus, and Holly's ready to fly south until springtime.But her Sherpa-lined mittens come off when Caroline is taken into custody. Can Holly wrap up the case in time for Christmas...even after she gains the true killer's attention? Find out in 'Twas the Knife Before Christmas, Jacqueline Frost's second pine-scented Christmas Tree Farm mystery.

Agatha Award NomineeRight in time for the holidays, comes Allison Brook's second Haunted Library mystery, a perfect present for readers of Jenn McKinlay and Leslie Meier. Twenty million dollars' worth of missing gems bring Carrie Singleton's long-lost and larcenous dad back into her life and it's up to Carrie to clear his name.A devoted dad is as precious as diamonds, but Carrie Singleton wouldn't know since her dad Jim's been on the lam most of her life. In an unusual family reunion, she finds Jim breaking into her cottage in the middle of the night. The fun really starts when he begs her to help him recover his half of a twenty-million-dollar gem heist he pulled off with the local jeweler, Benton Parr. When she refuses, Jim takes off again. Carrie finds her father again behind bars for the recent murder of Benton Parr. Who made the connection? Unbeknownst to her, Carrie's boyfriend Dylan, an insurance investigator, has been searching for the gems. Determined to find the jewels herself, she starts examining every facet of Parr's life. She turns up a treasure trove of suspects, one of whom bashes her on the head as she's searching the victim's country cabin. Retreating to the quiet confines of the library where she works, Carrie watches as Smokey Joe, the resident cat, paws at a hole in the wall. Is he after the library's ghost Evelyn, or something shinier? The second charming Haunted Library mystery by Allison Brook, Read and Gone will be a delight for fans of Jenn McKinlay and Leslie Meier.

Perfect for fans of Emily Henry and Jojo Moyes, this debut novel deftly captures the feeling of being adrift in your late twenties.With poignant commentary on female friendships, mental health, and what happiness really looks like, The Heart of the Deal is a "thoughtful and emotional" (Farrah Rochon, USA Today bestselling author) romance.Rae is in a romantic recession.The Wall Street banker is single in New York City and overwhelmed by the pressure to scramble up the corporate and romantic ladders. Feeling her biological clock ticking, she analyzes her love life like a business deal and vows to lock in a husband before her 30th birthday. The Manhattan dating app scene has as many ups and downs as the stock market, and outsourcing dates to an algorithm isn’t exactly Rae’s idea of romance. She considers cutting her losses, but her friends help her stay invested, boosting her spirits with ice cream and cheap wine that they share in their sixth-floor walk-up while recapping cringe-worthy dates.And then Rae meets Dustin, a poetic soul trapped in a business suit, just like her. She starts to hear wedding bells, but Dustin’s struggles with depression will test their relationship, and no amount of financial modeling can project what their future will look like.Can Rae free herself from the idea she had of what thirty was supposed to look like and let love breathe on its own timeline? Or is she too conditioned to stay on the “right track” to follow her unpaved intuition?Moving and timely, The Heart of the Deal is the story of one woman’s reckoning with what success really is in a city, an industry, and a relationship whose low lows continually challenge the enchantment of the high highs.