Monday, October 31, 2022

Dianne Harman – Murder in Santa Monica is featured at the HBS Author's Spotlight Showcase

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

The HBS Author's Spotlight SHOWCASES Dianne Harman' s New Book: Murder in Santa Monica.

She is an Award-Winning Bestselling Cozy Mystery, Suspense and Romance author of The Teddy Saga, the Coyote Series, the High Desert Cozy Mystery Series, the Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery, Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery, Chef Dani Rosetti Cozy Mysteries, and the Liz Lucas Cozy Mystery.








Murder in Santa Monica

Gabriella Hunt Cozy Mystery Series Book 3


Author: Dianne Harman


AVAILABLE
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Lady Pemberton has a rare flower that people would kill for.
And if they had the flower, it would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
But that’s not the only reason people want to kill her.
If you’re one of them, you’ll probably have to stand in line and take a number.

When Dani’s contacted by Lady Ellen Pemberton to cater a dinner the night before the Dahlia Show she’s hosting in the village of Tintagal in North Cornwall, England, she’s completely put off by the woman’s imperious attitude. Dani finally agrees to do it only because her young niece, Anna, is completely enthralled by the legend of King Arthur, and the dinner is taking place very near King Arthur’s castle.

When she and Arthur, her sous-chef, who also owns an international private investigation firm, arrive in the small village where the dinner is to held, she finds out the woman is far worse than she’d imagined. Arthur regrets talking Dani into accepting the job, then he does a little investigating, and discovers that Lady Pemberton’s death is high on the priority list of a lot of people.

Fortunately, Giles, the son of one of the dahlia judges, is a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective who has flown to England to make sure his mother won’t be collateral damage if there is an incident at the dinner. Along with Arthur and Matt, Arthur’s right-hand man, they team up, hoping to keep the dinner drama free.

But that may be more difficult than they think, because Lady Pemberton carries drama with her wherever she goes, often of her own making.

Join Dani, Arthur, Matt, and Giles, as they combine their efforts to keep Lady Pemberton alive, even though privately each of them thinks the village may be far better off if she’s dead.




Author: Dianne Harman

Author Genre: Cozy Mystery, Romance and Literary Fiction

Website: Dianne Harman Author
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Author Description:
USA Today Bestselling Author and Amazon All-Star, Dianne Harman, draws her stories and characters from a diverse business and personal background. She owned a national antique and art appraisal business for many years, left that industry, and opened two yoga centers where she taught yoga and certified yoga instructors.

She's traveled extensively throughout the world and loves nothing more than cooking with her husband, Tom, and playing with their boxer dog, Kelly.

Being a dog lover and having attended numerous cooking schools, she couldn't resist writing about food and dogs. She’s the author of several cozy mystery series: Cedar Bay, Liz Lucas, High Desert, Midwest, Cottonwood Springs, and Chef Dani Rosetti. Most of these books contains recipes from her travels.

She is also the author of the award-winning suspenseful Coyote Series, Midlife Journey Series, Holly Lewis Mystery Series, Miranda Riley Paranormal Cozy Mystery Series, and the Maria Rodriguez Mystery Series.

She hopes you enjoy the reads as much as she enjoyed the writes!




Author's Book List




Undecided - Chef Dani Rosetti Cozy Mysteries Book 9
Lady Pemberton has a rare flower that people would kill for.
And if they had the flower, it would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams.
But that’s not the only reason people want to kill her.
If you’re one of them, you’ll probably have to stand in line and take a number.

When Dani’s contacted by Lady Ellen Pemberton to cater a dinner the night before the Dahlia Show she’s hosting in the village of Tintagal in North Cornwall, England, she’s completely put off by the woman’s imperious attitude. Dani finally agrees to do it only because her young niece, Anna, is completely enthralled by the legend of King Arthur, and the dinner is taking place very near King Arthur’s castle.

When she and Arthur, her sous-chef, who also owns an international private investigation firm, arrive in the small village where the dinner is to held, she finds out the woman is far worse than she’d imagined. Arthur regrets talking Dani into accepting the job, then he does a little investigating, and discovers that Lady Pemberton’s death is high on the priority list of a lot of people.

Fortunately, Giles, the son of one of the dahlia judges, is a Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective who has flown to England to make sure his mother won’t be collateral damage if there is an incident at the dinner. Along with Arthur and Matt, Arthur’s right-hand man, they team up, hoping to keep the dinner drama free.

But that may be more difficult than they think, because Lady Pemberton carries drama with her wherever she goes, often of her own making.

Join Dani, Arthur, Matt, and Giles, as they combine their efforts to keep Lady Pemberton alive, even though privately each of them thinks the village may be far better off if she’s dead.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Murder By Design - Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 24
A redecorated dream house.
A bottle of wine.
A dead designer.
But did the murderer kill the wrong person?

When the new owners arrive to meet the designer they hired in the small town they’ve just moved to for a “reveal” of what she’s done with the house, things don’t quite go as planned. Their initial excitement leads to horror when they find the body of their designer on the living room floor, clearly dead. And three glasses on the dining room table, one of which is now empty.

Sheriff Davis and Brigid encounter one false lead after another in their search for the murderer. Brigid begins to wonder if the killer got the right person. Then it becomes a search not only for the murderer, but a search to find out if someone else had been targeted, and if so, who?


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Murder on the Rooftop - Northwest Cozy Mystery Series
A police fundraiser.
An argument.
A note saying “Come to the rooftop.”
A fatal fall from the roof.
Was it suicide or murder?

A man is arrested for murder within minutes of the victim falling to his death from the rooftop of a hotel where a police fundraiser is being held. The arrest is based solely on earlier harsh words between two men, and it doesn’t add up. At least not to Jake and Al, private investigators hired to look into it by a wealthy friend of the accused.

The banquet room was full of police. After all, it was a police fundraiser, but Al and Jake think Gio La Serta’s arrest was a little too sudden and a little too convenient. Then strange things begin to happen to them. Black cars start following them, Jake is handed a thumb drive while on a ferry by a person who disappears, and the gas tank cover on Jake’s truck has obviously been tampered with.

It becomes obvious someone doesn’t want them to discover the truth about Niles Balderelli’s murder, and now Al and Jake have gone from being hunters to being the prey. But are they beginning to discover the truth a little too late?


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Murder in Belize - A Gabriella Hunt Cozy Mystery Series
A missing husband is presumed dead.
Was it because of a dive boat explosion or while he was scuba diving the Great Blue Hole?
Evidence is pointing to a hitman, but who hired him?
Her husband may still be alive, and Ella won’t rest until she learns the truth, no matter how painful it might be.

When Ella, her sister-in-law, and a police detective travel to Belize to find what happened to her husband the day he didn’t return from diving the Great Blue Hole, they never expected that their lives would be in danger. Belize seems like paradise, but like any mirage, scratch the underbelly, and things aren’t quite what they seem.

As the layers of the mystery begin to unravel, they find evidence of corporate fraud and illegal activity of every type that’s happening all along the west coast of the United States. Illegal activity so massive that the FBI and police departments in both the United States and Belize have become involved. And it looks like the Belize Police Department may have to go after one of their own.

Coming face to face in the Belizean jungle with an international hitman and the man presumed to have killed one’s husband is not high on any wife’s list of enjoyable experiences. Particularly if she’s unarmed.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Murder at the Graduation Ceremony - Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 23
When a thirty-one-year-old school custodian
Has a romantic relationship with a high school senior,
It may be legal, but people think it’s sleazy and wrong.
Wrong enough that someone killed him because of it?

Attending Holly’s high school graduation is a bittersweet day for Brigid. She’s proud of her daughter, but she knows how much she’s going to miss Holly, wherever life’s journey takes her.

What Brigid doesn’t factor into this special day is having to help Sheriff Davis solve the murder of the high school custodian. Although there are plenty of suspects, Brigid and the sheriff soon learn that all of them are lying, which makes solving the case ever so much more difficult.

Sometimes life is about adjusting to situations over which one has no control. This is what faces Brigid when she’s thrown a curve in both the man’s death and her daughter’s future.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Too Good To Be True - Northwest Cozy Mystery Series Book 25
A series of burglaries
A new romance
But is he too good to be true?

Suzie, the sous-chef at DeeDee’s restaurant, Deelish, can’t talk enough about her new boyfriend and feels that he just might be “the one.”

DeeDee’s thrilled for Suzie, but things get a little dicey when Jake, DeeDee’s husband, is hired as a private investigator to find out who’s behind a series of burglaries that have taken place in a neighborhood of high-end homes.

All of the homeowners had recently hired the same security company to install state-of-the-art security systems in their homes. Unfortunately, it’s the same security system company where Suzie’s boyfriend works.

He swears he knows nothing about the burglaries, so Jake and his partner, Al, with a past that involves the Chicago mob, come up with a plan to find out if he’s telling the truth.

Everyone involved hopes that Suzie’s boyfriend is telling the truth about the burglaries and that love will win out, but things are never quite as they seem.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Mystery in Vancouver - Chef Dani Rosetti Cozy Mysteries Book 8
They were consumed with worries about aging.
They woke up terrified thinking of the future.
They worried about body scars.
They wanted to be successful.
And four of them were ready to murder for the product!

But this was not an ordinary product. It was a special skin cream made from a formula that had been passed down for generations in the family of the Academy Award winning movie star, Jeanine Bouchard. Jeanine was living testimony of the magic of the special skin cream she used to make her look much younger than she was. After all, she was in her late 40s and looked like she was still in her 20s.

Jeanine was the only person who knew the formula for the miracle skin cream that possessed such great aging and healing powers. The formula had never been written down, and since she was the last surviving family member, she knew if she didn’t do something, the formula would go to the grave with her. It was time to let others have access to this miracle cream.

Jeanine decided to host a dinner at a friend’s luxurious hotel in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Dani Rosetti, the celebrity chef, was hired to cater the event. The invited guests would be required to submit bids for the right to sell and distribute the special skin cream, with the proceeds of the winning bid to go to Jeanine’s favorite charity, a bid which was expected to be in the millions!

Revenge, love, hatred, and jealousy become powerful motives to attain something as highly coveted as the miracle skin cream. And yes, sometimes motives like that result in murder!


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Kindle Unlimited






Murder in Sunrise Park - High Desert Cozy Mystery Series Book 20
A murdered woman.
An antique Art Deco necklace.
A reason to celebrate
And a reason to mourn.

The future couldn’t have been brighter now that Joan had sold her business and had planned an around the world trip with her husband. With the sale completed, she had the money and the time to do exactly what she’d always wanted to do. Along with her husband, family, ex-business partner, and several friends, she attended an outdoor concert to celebrate the sale. It was the culmination of everything she’d ever wanted.

When she briefly left the concert at intermission, she decided to walk away from the crowds so she could look at the stars. As she was gazing up into the magical night sky, she recognized the person who walked up behind her and felt no fear. She also never felt the knife as it was plunged into her body. Fortunately, her death was sudden and swift.

Detective Jeff Combs has the case, and as she has so many times before, his wife, Marty, agrees to help. Neither of them could have foreseen the consequences that changed their life.


Order the Book From:
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Kindle Unlimited






Murder at Bingo Night - Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 22
Morgan made it her business to know everyone’s secrets.
Then she used those secrets to commit blackmail.
The blackmail money was good and allowed her to live way beyond her means.
But whoever thought she’d be murdered at a bingo night fundraiser!

Paying to have the New Dawn Bed & Breakfast spotlighted at the Animal Rescue Center’s bingo night fundraiser seemed like a great way to advertise to Brigid. But then, on the night of the fundraiser, a Rescue Center employee was murdered in the back hallway, and everyone who was at the fundraiser became a potential suspect.

Morgan Douglas had made plenty of enemies, because no one likes to be forced to pay to have their secrets remain just that, secret. But was she murdered because of what she knew about someone or because one of the people she was blackmailing got tired of paying her? Or was it simply because people not only didn’t trust her, they hated her?

Because Morgan had so many enemies, Brigid and the sheriff have plenty of suspects as they investigate the murder. But it soon becomes more of a question of deciding which suspect had the best reason to murder her.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






The Murder Verdict - Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Series Book 26
A woman's murdered.
Her cuckolded husband is the prime suspect.
But a jury’s verdict is not guilty.
How can that be?

It was no secret that Sophia Reilly had lovers, a lot of them, and always had. Her husband, Eric, decided to go to a remote fishing shack to decide what to do about his marriage and while he was gone, she was found murdered in their home.

Was he responsible for her murder? Or was it one of the other men in her life?

Sheriff Mike and the Beaver County District Attorney are convinced that Eric’s the murderer, but the jury finds him not guilty. Is that the beginning of the story or the end?


Order the Book From:
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Kindle Unlimited






The Missing Husband - Northwest Cozy Mystery Series Book 24
A troubled marriage,
A missing husband,
An early morning dropped call from him,
They all fuel fears for his safety.

When Jayne Bartlett walks into Al and Jake’s private investigation office and tells them her husband is missing, they figure it’s just one more case of a husband who needed a little time and space away from his spouse.

But when her husband, Corey, doesn’t return after several days, and his parents and friends haven’t heard from him, and he doesn’t answer his cell phone, red flags of alarm begin to surface.

And faced with the difficult task of solving the case of the missing husband, the last thing Jake needs is to learn that homes have been broken into during the day on Bainbridge Island, the island where he and his wife, DeeDee, live. She’s at home during the day. Could she be in danger? Would their dogs be able to stop a would-be robber?

When a friend of the missing husband gives Al and Jake a lead, they find themselves in a remote campground that serves as a trailhead for difficult hiking trails, trails they’re too inexperienced to take. At this point, there’s nothing they can do but put their trust in the forest rangers to find Corey, but they worry it will be too late.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Murder in Coeur d'Alene - Gabriella Hunt Cozy Mystery Series
A widow.

A failed hotel.

A murder in the cellar.

When Ella Hunt’s husband dies in a mysterious diving accident in Belize, she decides to buy a small hotel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to help her get through her grief. Ella’s a specialist in designing and upgrading hotel properties and has traveled the world with her business.

The once prosperous hotel she bought had fallen on hard financial times and is closed. It’s difficult for a single woman, or really anyone, to turn a distressed hotel around and restore it back to its former popularity, but Ella’s determined to make that happen.

And then there’s the problem of the former hotel owner having been found murdered in the hotel cellar. Ella never expected to have to deal with a murder, but when one of the hotel employees hints that the killer could be one of the hotel staff members, she decides she better investigate the murder in order to clear the name and reputation of her newly acquired hotel.

Ella teams up with the lead police detective assigned to the case, Luke Falconer, and they receive some help from the main man in Ella’s life, Boris the Bulldog.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited






Holly and the Vandal - The Holly Lewis Mystery Series Book 16
It was supposed to be an ideal summer, the last carefree one for four teenagers who were all going separate ways after high school graduation. But it’s ruined by a single act of vandalism – the word CHEATER keyed into the side of a truck.

All Holly wanted that summer was for her two best friends and her boyfriend, Wade, to spend time together and enjoy their last summer together. Too bad they had a senseless rude awakening when one of them was attacked, and Wade’s truck was vandalized. A truck he’d worked so hard to earn the money to buy.

Holly knows that the only way to salvage what’s remaining of their last summer is to find the person who committed the vandalism. But that’s easier said than done when a crime is committed in a big city and even the security camera footage is of no help.

Join Holly, Levi, Lydia, and Wade through this last summer as they try to keep the future at bay. And find out who the vandalizer is, a brutal reminder of the real world they’ll soon be entering.


Order the Book From:
Amazon
Kindle Unlimited


For a Complete List of Dianne's Books, visit Amazon Author Profile and Book List.

The Author's Kindle Unlimited ebooks can be read for free by Subscribers.

The Showcase is a special feature of the Author's Spotlight. It is designed to highlight Spotlight author's NEW releases and their soon to be released novels.

Post Created by: James Moushon
Mystery Author, Industry blogger and Author Advocate
James is the author of the following blogs:
HBS Author’s Spotlight
Indie Author's Corner