Gerry Coneybear has her hands full. Between her work as a cartoonist and children's book author, raising one-year-old Dot with partner Doug, and caring for the 19 cats her late aunt left her--along with the rambling old house known as The Maples--life in the village of Lovering on the Ottawa River is anything but quiet. Add a busy social calendar, and Gerry is already stretched thin.So what does she do? She signs up for a three-month, once-a-week art conservation internship in downtown Montreal. It's chaotic, yes--but also invigorating. Gerry finds purpose volunteering at a women's shelter, strikes up a friendship with a homeless man, and starts to notice a troubling pattern of thefts--small and not-so-small--back home in Lovering.Theft is one thing. But when a suspicious death rocks the village, Gerry and her faithful friend Prudence are once again pulled into a mystery with deadly consequences.

Gerry Coneybear is back from vacation and settling in for the last three months of her pregnancy -- or trying to settle. She's busy with her work as a cartoonist and children's book author; looking after the twenty cats her aunt bequeathed her along with the big old house on the Ottawa River; and trying to blend her solitary life with her cats with that of her boyfriend Doug and his three almost adult sons.Gerry is nervous about navigating motherhood for the first time without her mom but finds support from her new friends at her prenatal yoga class. Baby showers, candy-making, and prepping the nursery fill her free time -- but things take a dark turn when Gerry stumbles upon a body at a local archeological dig site, soon followed by news of the suspicious suicide of her new friend's husband.As a massive winter storm brews, Gerry -- now almost nine months pregnant -- finds herself snowed in, with a missing cat and a couple of ghosts. With danger lurking close to home, can Gerry piece together the clues before her due date?

Housekeeper Prudence Crick expects a peaceful month by the river housesitting at The Maples, her employer Gerry Coneybear's beautiful old home. (And cat-sitting Gerry's twenty cats, too!) But instead of peace she gets trouble. Ghosts of the past haunt her, including her murdered bank robber ex-husband. And she's bedevilled by the present. When two houses are burned to the ground in suspicious circumstances, she's drawn to the scene of the crime and into the lives of its victims, including one uncatchable cat. But more: she's reached a crossroads. Should she change jobs? Buy a new home? Get married? And what should she bake for that tea party she's hosting?Louise Carson's latest cozy mystery is full of delectable desserts, fast friendships, and, of course, an abundance of cats.

Struggling mystery author Claire Denman is enjoying a relaxing vacation at her brother's secluded house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia after helping a wealthy elderly woman move her cats across the country. The woman happens to be the wife of the man Claire had an affair with 30 years ago and she happens to be renting Claire's brother's rental property next door. Claire's days are filled with writing poetry, birdwatching, and exploring the nearby town. But then strange things begin to occur on the property. Claire finds messes she doesn't remember making, objects start to go missing, and entire days are seemingly missing from Claire's memory. So, when the elderly lady is found murdered, how can Claire be sure she wasn't somehow involved? The Last Unsuitable Man is a slow-burn thriller filled with twists that no one--least of all the victim--could see coming.

It's late spring and young artist Gerry Coneybear and her twenty cats are thrilled to finally be able to get out of the house and into the garden surrounding her 200-year-old house on the Ottawa River. But Gerry is having a time keeping her curious cats in their own yard, safe from the new neighbours' large dog. Her neighbours' marriage isn't quite what it should be, and when the philandering husband is murdered, the wife is the obvious suspect. Or ought to be. As events unfold next door, Gerry watches from her garden, where she picks rhubarb, weeds, and plants her flowers, catnip and herbs, all supervised by her cats and her friend and part-time housekeeper Prudence. A terrible car crash, an eccentric train engineer (and his equally eccentric wife), and a midnight visit to the house next door all contribute to this cozy mystery coming out all right in the end. And there's jam-making. And ghosts.

It's April 1st and young artist Gerry Coneybear, inheritor of her Aunt Maggie's big old house The Maples (and her aunt's twenty cats!), wishes her mountain of bills was a joke. She's just self-published her children's book The Cake-Jumping Cats of Dibble, and that cost money. Plus the valuable painting she was hoping to sell is missing from the auctioneers'. And on top of everything else, her kitten Jay is acting weird, keeping her up at night. It's almost as if the cat's possessed.At least Gerry's personal relationships are going well: with her boyfriend Doug, part-time house keeper Prudence, and the odd assortment of friends she's made over the year since she moved to Lovering, a tiny village by the Ottawa River. All seems well as Gerry bakes treats for the art class she teaches at home, cleans out the woodshed and plans a surprise birthday party. But then one of her students begins sketching ghosts, someone eggs Gerry's home, and she feels she's being stalked. There's trouble with Prudence's long lost husband too.Things come to a head when Gerry's house is tagged while she's in it, her house is rammed by a car, and one of her relatives attacks another. Add in a suspicious death and you have another cozy Maples Mystery.

Trying to beat the mid-winter blahs by snowshoeing and cross country skiing when she's not teaching art history at a local college (or being driven crazy by her numerous cats, cooped up in her rambling old country home), Gerry Coneybear thinks she has her busy life under control. That is, until she rescues her neighbour's injured cat. Then a body pops up where she'd least expect it. And she even knows the victim - slightly. From gossiping with friends to discussing events while baking at home with her housekeeper Prudence, Gerry manages to pick up a few clues, although Prudence tries to discourage her from getting involved. And at first Gerry tries to stay clear of the murder - for murder it is. She gets to know Jean-Louis, a handsome ski instructor, and his adorable blond husky Harriet. Her friendship with the other man in her life, Doug, seems to be floundering. And Jean-Louis lives just down the road...The discovery of a mysterious package tucked up in a tree brings the police to Gerry's home again. But that's not all she finds in the woods.

It's Christmas time but many of Gerry Coneybear's friends are away for the holidays and she has no family to celebrate with at the Maples, the old house bequeathed to her by her aunt. Just the 23 cats her aunt left her with. When Gerry first finds a bone in her bedroom, naturally she assumes it's a chicken bone one of the cats has dragged in from the garbage. But it turns out to be from a skeleton buried under the floorboards in the shed where her firewood is stored.  On the up side, the skeleton is over 100 years old. But then, more disturbingly, Gerry finds another body, the local innkeeper's wife, who has been murdered in the basement of her friend Cathy's house, which Gerry has been checking on while Cathy is out of town for the Christmas holidays.

When Gerry Coneybear, a cheerful young artist, comes to her Aunt Maggie's funeral, she is shocked to learn that she has inherited her aunt's rambling 200-year-old waterfront home. Unfortunately, the house comes with a multitude of her aunt's cats as part of the bequest. As Gerry fends off the greedy, jealous relatives and the mysterious part-time housekeeper, she gradually comes to realize that her aunt may have been murdered. Cats, teacups, horticulture and art come together to help Gerry solve the mystery.

When the poet Eleanor Brandon dies, an apparent suicide, Peter Forrest, her former student, sometime lover and now a married professor, is asked to be her literary executor. He agrees, although he makes it clear that he is only interested in bringing her poetry to publication, not in dealing with the legacy of her social activism on behalf of Chinese dissidents. But after a trip to China, where he and his wife are adopting a third Chinese orphan, Peter finds himself drawn into not only the politics so dear to Eleanor, but a life-threatening plot.