Snowbound Secrets
(2026)(The fifth book in the Pages to Die For Mystery series)
A novel by Hailey Hartley
When a historic blizzard traps seven customers overnight in Evelyn Harper's cozy bookstore, she expects nothing worse than awkward small talk and uncomfortable sleeping arrangements. But when real estate developer Ethan Holt is found dead in the rare books section with a pristine first edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None positioned beside his body, Evie realizes the storm isn't the only deadly force in Bound & Found Books. With phone lines down, roads impassable, and the killer still among them, Evie and her perceptive cat Darcy must solve the murder before the snowplows arrive—because the evidence pointing to the most obvious suspect might be exactly what the real murderer wants everyone to believe.
As dawn breaks and the storm finally passes, Evie discovers that every person trapped in her bookstore had a reason to want Ethan dead. The tea room owner facing eviction thanks to his aggressive development plans. The sales rep whose career he destroyed with ruthless business tactics. The college student he harassed at a town meeting. The contractor and his wife who lost their life savings to Ethan's investment fraud years ago, a financial catastrophe that shattered their daughter's future and nearly destroyed their marriage. And most damning of all, the elderly widow whose family was ruined fifteen years ago by Ethan's schemes—a tragedy that drove her daughter to suicide and her husband to an early grave. When Evie finds poison in the widow's coat pocket and a cryptic note reading "Justice for Margaret" tucked inside the Christie novel, the case seems solved. But Darcy's strange behavior suggests something more sinister is at play, and Evie begins to suspect that the careful staging of the murder scene points to someone with medical precision and a carefully constructed plan to frame an innocent woman.
Curl up with the fifth installment of the Pages to Die For series, where a bookstore owner and her intuitive cat must untangle a web of grief, revenge, and long-buried secrets before the wrong person pays for a crime they didn't commit. Perfect for fans of clever sleuthing, literary clues, and cats who know more than they're letting on, Snowbound Secrets delivers all the charm and suspense of classic cozy mysteries with a locked-room twist that will keep you guessing until the very last page. When a blizzard traps you overnight with a killer, the most dangerous mystery isn't who had the means or opportunity, it's distinguishing justice from revenge, and understanding that sometimes the person carrying the most pain isn't the one who committed the crime.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
As dawn breaks and the storm finally passes, Evie discovers that every person trapped in her bookstore had a reason to want Ethan dead. The tea room owner facing eviction thanks to his aggressive development plans. The sales rep whose career he destroyed with ruthless business tactics. The college student he harassed at a town meeting. The contractor and his wife who lost their life savings to Ethan's investment fraud years ago, a financial catastrophe that shattered their daughter's future and nearly destroyed their marriage. And most damning of all, the elderly widow whose family was ruined fifteen years ago by Ethan's schemes—a tragedy that drove her daughter to suicide and her husband to an early grave. When Evie finds poison in the widow's coat pocket and a cryptic note reading "Justice for Margaret" tucked inside the Christie novel, the case seems solved. But Darcy's strange behavior suggests something more sinister is at play, and Evie begins to suspect that the careful staging of the murder scene points to someone with medical precision and a carefully constructed plan to frame an innocent woman.
Curl up with the fifth installment of the Pages to Die For series, where a bookstore owner and her intuitive cat must untangle a web of grief, revenge, and long-buried secrets before the wrong person pays for a crime they didn't commit. Perfect for fans of clever sleuthing, literary clues, and cats who know more than they're letting on, Snowbound Secrets delivers all the charm and suspense of classic cozy mysteries with a locked-room twist that will keep you guessing until the very last page. When a blizzard traps you overnight with a killer, the most dangerous mystery isn't who had the means or opportunity, it's distinguishing justice from revenge, and understanding that sometimes the person carrying the most pain isn't the one who committed the crime.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Hailey Hartley's Snowbound Secrets