Kate Kingsbury

Includes a recipe for a sausage and broccoli frittata.

Dead and Breakfast

Beginning a new series set in a seaside hotel in Edwardian England, Room with a Clue shows that murder never needs a reservation at the Pennyfoot Hotel. Owner Cecily Sinclair runs a smooth hotel, but the death of an offensive snob could kill her business.

Room with a Clue

When one of the first guests at her Oregon coast B&B dies, it's up to Melanie West to find the in-house murderer in Doom with a View, Kate Kingsbury's charming second Merry Ghost Inn Mystery.

A Merry Ghost Inn Mystery

Doom with a View

The peace and tranquility of the Misty Bay Tearoom are rocked by murder and a long-buried secret hidden in a most unlikely place in bestselling author Kate Kingsbury’s second charming book for fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs.


It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room, and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis?

Unable to keep from doing a bit of sleuthing, Vivian hunts down the replica in a local thrift shop, noticing that the base is missing, rendering it worthless, but just as Vivian is about to throw it in the trash, a sparkle catches her eye. It’s a diamond, hidden away in a crevice in the clock. Vivian takes the diamond to Detective Tony Messina, who identifies it as part of a jewelry heist in Portland a month earlier. Portland police think Lewis was the fence who sold the jewels, and that he was killed after double-crossing the thieves—but Messina doesn’t believe the story.

What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? How did he come upon the diamond? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?

In Too Steep

A Misty Bay Tea Room Mystery

In Hot Water

Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton, the lady of Sitting Marsh Manor House, turns sleuth when a rebellious teenage girl is found dead under suspicious circumstances and finds a houseful of suspects, including a boyfriend, an American soldier, and a jealous acquaintance, in a mystery set against the backdrop of World War II England. Original.

A Bicycle Built for Murder

In the year 1906, recently widowed Cecily Sinclair is the proprietress of the the fashionable Pennyfoot Hotel in Badgers End. When she finds that the nearby seaside village is the location for numerous unexplained deaths, she investigates.

Do Not Disturb

During a funeral service for Dr. McDuff, mourners find the body of a murdered stranger in the casket, and Cecily Sinclair, owner of the Pennyfoot Hotel, sets out to assist the police in their investigations. Original.

Service for Two

Cecily Sinclair, owner of the seaside Pennyfoot Hotel in Edwardian England, returns in a mystery that finds her simultaneously investigating the fall of a gentleman from her top balcony and calming her extremely upset guests. Original.

Check-Out Time

Cecily Sinclair, owner of the Pennyfoot Hotel, is looking forward to the annual May Day festivities to liven up the off-season, but the celebration turns lethal when one of the hotel guests is found strangled with a maypole ribbon. Original.

A Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery

Eat, Drink, and Be Buried

Cecily Sinclair and the staff of the Pennyfoot Hotel are delighted to be hosting the upcoming bagpipe contest, until one of the pipers turns up hanging from a hook in the butcher's cellar. Original.

Pay the Piper

Two years after selling the Pennyfoot Hotel to its new owner, who promptly turned it into a country club, Cecily Baxter and her husband return to Badgers End to manage the establishment over the Christmas hoildays only to discover that the previous manager had met a mysterious and untimely end. Reprint.

No Clue at the Inn

Local rumors about a visiting band of gypsies become reality when a young gypsy girl is found brutally murdered, and Cecily Sinclair grows alarmed when she realizes that the murder weapon, an axe, came from the tool shed at the Pennyfoot Hotel. Original.

Grounds for Murder

A delightful read for fans of Donna Andrews and Juliet Blackwell, national bestselling author Kate Kingsbury returns with a third installment of her Merry Ghost Inn mysteries. If bed-and-breakfast owners Melanie and Liza, along with their laughing ghost tenant, can’t find a real estate developer’s killer, their own estate will end up with their next of kin. The Merry Ghost Inn is well and truly open for business. Melanie West, her grandmother, Liza, and their beloved sheepdog/wolfhound mix, Max, are rapidly getting the hang of running their charming bed-and-breakfast inn on the rocky Oregon coast. Not that business goes without a hitch―when your hostelry boasts its own laughing resident ghost, you’d better be expect the out-of-the-ordinary. But Melanie and Liza take it all in stride...until a hotshot real estate developer arrives in Sully’s Landing, touting his plans to build a tacky amusement arcade smack dab in the middle of the tasteful cliff-side town. No one in Sully’s Landing can stand the gaudy developer, but it’s still a shock when he ends up murdered. It’s even more shocking when Liza’s friend, Doug, emerges as the chief suspect. Melanie and Liza put on their sleuthing caps yet again and set out to clear Doug’s name. They nearly check into accommodations six feet under when, en route to the crime scene, their brakes give out and they narrowly miss plunging over the cliffs to the beach below. Meanwhile, the merry ghost who haunts the inn tries to help by dropping clues for Melanie to find, but her mind is otherwise preoccupied when the killer kidnaps Liza and holds her prisoner. Now, it’s up to Melanie to piece together the ghost’s clues, save her mother, exonerate her friend, keep her guests happy, and make sure Max gets his walkies in Kate Kingsbury’s third mirthful Merry Ghost Inn mystery, Be Our Ghost.

Be Our Ghost

A dark spirit threatens the Pennyfoot Hotel’s shiny and bright Christmas in this mystery in Kate Kingsbury’s cozy historical series. The Christmas Angel is a welcome sight during the winter season—but not this year. A killer is afoot in Badgers End, cutting a lock of hair from the victims and sticking a gold angel on their foreheads. Cecily Sinclair Baxter already promised her husband that she’d take a hiatus from sleuthing. But three killings have created a blizzard of bad publicity—and guests are canceling their hotel reservations. Cecily pokes around, but the victims seem unrelated. Then the killer claims a fourth and fifth victim, obviously not slowing down for the holidays—so neither will Cecily. She will have to stop the angel of death from striking again, leaving murder under the tree...

Herald of Death

Book a room at the Pennyfoot Hotel this holiday season for a charming mystery that “combines the feel of an Agatha Christie whodunit with a taste of Upstairs Downstairs”(Cozy Library). A merry hustle and bustle heralds the holidays at the Pennyfoot—and this year is doubly busy. Even as Cecily Sinclair Baxter prepares for the holidays, she’s also helping her friend Madeline plan her impending wedding. This year, Cecily has a cracking holiday surprise for her guests—gorgeous Christmas crackers handmade for the Pennyfoot. And once the crackers pop, one lucky guest will discover a beautiful pearl brooch. But things soon turn less than jolly. A mysterious fire breaks out in an upstairs room, killing the mood—and two guests. And at the bottom of it all: a missing Christmas cracker. Who would deliver such a murderous gift? Cecily’s dead-set on solving this mystery before another deadly present turns up, and Madeline’s nuptials come unwound...

A Special Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery

Ringing in Murder

In this Pennyfoot Hotel Christmas mystery, the head count is down—but the body count is up this holiday season... With one of her housemaids leaving to get married, Cecily Sinclair Baxter wants nothing more for Christmas than some good help. Instead of visions of sugar plums, she’s calling the plumber to deal with flooded bathrooms. Then there’s the surly new janitor, who acts like he got coal in his stocking. But as Cecily scrambles to hire and train new staff in time for the holidays, one of her guests is beyond help. Gerald Evans is found stabbed to death on the beach, and Cecily soon discovers he was a private investigator from London looking into dark doings involving the Pennyfoot. Who among the staff or guests was being pursued, and what secret drove that person to cold-blooded murder?

Mulled Murder

As friends, family, and guests gather at the Pennyfoot Hotel, Cecily Sinclair's friend Madeline adds a kissing bough to the decorations. But after a footman and a new maid, seen kissing under the bough, turn up dead, the staff is convinced a serial killer is among them.

Mistletoe and Mayhem

In this mystery in Kate Kingsbury’s cozy series, the Pennyfoot Hotel is decked out in holiday style, but when things start to go awry, Cecily Sinclair Baxter learns that not everyone’s been nice this year… When one of Cecily’s candlesticks disappears, she realizes someone is lacking in Christmas spirit. But petty thievery seems the least of her problems after she learns a former employee has been found dead in her duck pond. He hasn’t worked at the Pennyfoot in years, but his ex-wife is still their head maid—and she heads the list of suspects. Now a killer and a thief must be taken off the guest list in order to put the merry back into Christmas...

Decked with Folly

The peace and tranquility of the Misty Bay Tearoom is rocked by murder and a long-buried secret hidden in a most unlikely place in bestselling author Kate Kingsbury’s second charming book for fans of Cleo Coyle and Laura Childs. It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room, and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis? Unable to keep from doing a bit of sleuthing, Vivian hunts down the replica in a local thrift shop, noticing that the base is missing, rendering it worthless, but just as Vivian is about to throw it in the trash, a sparkle catches her eye. It’s a diamond, hidden away in a crevice in the clock. Vivian takes the diamond to Detective Tony Messina, who identifies it as part of a jewelry heist in Portland a month earlier. Portland police think Lewis was the fence who sold the jewels, and that he was killed after double-crossing the thieves—but Messina doesn’t believe the story. What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? How did he come upon the diamond? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?

Kate Kingsbury

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