China Bayles mysteries
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Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 2
Description
The second China Bayles mystery. Herb shop owner China is shocked when Halloween hijinks take a gruesome turn in Pecan Springs, ending in a brutal murder. And China is even more shocked when her friend Ruby, a New Age expert in tarot and astrology, becomes the prime suspect after a minister accuses her of witchcraft
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 3
Description
In Texas, a biologist who experimented on animals is found hanged in his office and suspicion focuses on Dottie Riddle, an animal rights activists. At that China Bayles, her friend, a woman who gave up law to run a herb shop, realizes she has to return to her old trade.
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Pub. Date
1995
Description
China Bayles's herb shop in Pecan Springs wasn't a big business, but it kept her busy. So she brought her taxes to Rosemary Robbins, an accountant who reminded China a bit of her former self-preoccupied, distracted, maybe a bit overstressed. Still, Rosemary always seemed pleasant, and China wished she could get to know her better. Now, though, the chance is gone. Driving out to Rosemary's house on an errand, China discovers her accountant has been...
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China Bayles mysteries volume 7
Description
"China Bayles had finally agreed to marry Mike McQuaid - and then he'd been paralyzed in the line of duty. Fully committed, she knows she'll tough it out, no matter how long his recovery might take."--BOOK JACKET. "The annual chili cook-off sounds like a nice respite from the stress, so China gladly accompanies her wheelchair-bound sweetheart to the event. But tragedy strikes when cook-off judge Jerry Jeff Cody dies of a severe allergic reaction -...
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 8
Description
Sleuth and herbalist China Bayles of Pecan Springs, Texas, joins Mike McQuaid, the town's police chief to investigate the murder of a land developer. They have to hurry if they don't want the case to clash with their honeymoon. They are getting married.
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China Bayles mysteries volume 9
Pub. Date
[2000]
Description
As the Christmas decorating season approaches, Thyme & Seasons propietor China Bayles is feeling overwealmed. While she tries to balance her new roles of wife and step-mom with the demands of her thriving herbal shop, her business partner--and best friend--Ruby mysteriously disappears. Soon China's cantankerous mistletoe supplier Carl turns up dead. With Ruby missing and her friends suspected of murder, China must investigate before tragedy occurs....
10) Bloodroot
Author
Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 10
Pub. Date
2001
Description
Lawyer-turned-herbalist, China Bayles returns to the deep south, where her family's legacy of silence is at last briken-and the past finally, unforgettably, speaks the truth....
11) Indigo dying
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 11
Description
China Bayles heads to the tiny town of Indigo, Texas, to teach a Colors to Dye For workshop. But she quickly discovers that Indigo is a town with more than its share of dark secrets-secrets that someone thinks are worth killing to keep.
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China Bayles mysteries volume 12
Pub. Date
[2004]
Description
China, owner of Thyme and Seasons Herbs, relishes her membership on the planning committee for the Picklefest in Pecan Springs, Texas. Meanwhile, her husband Mike McQuaid is hanging out a shingle on his own new detective agency. Suddenly, their quiet life is interrupted when the Pickle Queen disappears just days before the festival. China and mike begin an exciting search for clues to this chilling mystery.
13) Dead man's bones
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 13
Pub. Date
[2005]
Description
Former attorney-turned-herbalist China Bayles finds her busy life further complicated when her teenage son discovers the skeletal remains of the victim of a not-so-accidental death during a dig in a cave and a local gathering is interrupted by murder.
14) Bleeding hearts
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 14
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Description
When an anonymous source makes shocking allegations of improper behavior on the part of local high school football coach Tim Duffy, China Bayles is called in to conduct a discreet investigation into the charges, but her probe uncovers more than she had ever expected about a case involving betrayal, forbidden desire, and the mystery surrounding a young woman's death.
15) Spanish Dagger
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 15
Pub. Date
2007
Description
Between the herb shop, the catering business, and a weekend paper-making class, China Bayles has her work cut out for her. And now China's half-brother is opening up old wounds, trying to investigate their father's supposedly accidental death, and her husband is taking on the case-meaning she's just bound to get involved.
16) Nightshade
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 16
Pub. Date
[2008]
Description
China's herb shop and catering business may be thriving, but she's still reeling from her father's death, and not even remotely interested in her half-brother Miles's investigation into that event. China's husband, on the other hand, has no such qualms. And when fate forces her to get involved as well, China realizes it's time to bring the past to light-or else it will haunt her the rest of her life. But China and McQuaid discover that Miles may have...
17) Wormwood
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Description
China isn't anxious to leave her herb shop in the Texas Hill Country for two whole weeks. But her friends and family are urging her to get some rest, and a historic Shaker village in Kentucky seems the ideal place for it. At Mount Zion, China can assist her friend Martha with some herbal workshops while absorbing the beautiful surroundings and learning about the intriguing Shaker culture, which has dwindled to near nonexistence thanks in part to their...
18) Holly blues
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Pub. Date
2010
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Description
China Bayles is fit to spit when her husband's troubled ex-wife, Sally, shows up at her herb shop claiming to be broke with nowhere else to turn. China isn't sure if it's the goodness of her heart or the scent of Christmas wreaths, but she invites Sally to stay. Then China starts receiving menacing phone calls from an ex of Sally's, who seems to have a connection to the murder of her parents nearly a decade ago. With her P.I. husband out of town,...
19) Mourning Gloria
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 19
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Description
While Pecan Springs bustles back to life in the warmth of spring, one woman's life is tragically brought to an end. China Bayles happens upon a burning house trailer and hears a woman screaming for help. The evidence leaves no doubt that it's arson homicide. Jessica Nelson, an intern-reporter at the local paper, is assigned to cover the story. But she's gotten herself too deeply involved. When Jessica disappears, China is determined to find her, before...
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"Sheila Dawson has made history as the first female police chief in Pecan Springs, Texas. She's also cracked many a mystery in collaboration with local sleuth China Bayles--that's why everyone thinks she's such a smart cookie. Now, Sheila puts those smarts to work, sifting through secrets to find a killer on the prowl... Larry Kirk, Pecan Springs' computer guru, has been shot dead in his kitchen. At first Police Chief Sheila Dawson believes it to...
21) Widow's tears
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 21
Pub. Date
2013.
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Description
After losing her husband, five children, housekeeper, and beautiful home in the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, Rachel Blackwood rebuilt her home and later died there, having been driven mad with grief. In present-day Texas, Claire, the grandniece of Rachel's caretaker, has inherited the house and wants to turn it into a bed-and-breakfast. But she is concerned that it's haunted, so she calls in her friend Ruby- who has the gift of extrasensory perception...
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Pub. Date
2014.
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When China's and Ruby's friend Karen Prior is mugged in a mall parking lot and dies a few days later, China begins to suspect that her friend's death was not a random assault. Karen was a filmmaker supervising a student documentary about the fifteen-year-old murder of a woman named Christine Morris and the acquittal of the man accused of the crime. Is it possible that the same person who killed Christine Morris targeted Karen? Delving into the cold...
23) Bittersweet
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 23
Pub. Date
©2015.
Description
Its Thanksgiving in Pecan Springs, and China is planning to visit her mother, Leatha, and her mothers husband, Sam, who are enthusiastically embarking on a new enterprise-turning their former game ranch into a vacation retreat for birders. Shes also looking forward to catching up with a friend, game warden Mackenzie "Mack" Chambers, who was recently transferred to the area. But Leatha calls with bad news: Sam has had a heart attack. How will Leatha...
24) Blood orange
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Pub. Date
2016.
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"It's mid-April in Pecan Springs, and China is renting her guest cottage to Kelly Kaufman, who needs a temporary place to live as she contends with a very acrimonious divorce from her husband, Rich. One nasty point of dispute is her part ownership of the Comanche Creek Brewing Company, which she is refusing to sell. At the same time, as a nurse employed by a local hospice, Kelly has discovered instances of suspicious practices. Even more disturbing,...
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Pub. Date
2017.
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"China Bayles fears for her husband's life as an escaped convict targets him ... Max Mantel, the killer McQuaid put away years ago, has busted out of Huntsville Prison and appears to be headed for Pecan Springs. McQuaid knows there's only one way to stop the vengeful convict--set a trap with himself as bait. China wants to stay by her husband's side and keep him from harm. But McQuaid insists that she get out of town and go to the Last Chance Olive...
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Pub. Date
2018.
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Description
While helping Ruby Wilcox clean up the loft above their shops, China comes upon a box of antique handcrafted lace and old photographs. Following the discovery, she hears a woman humming an old Scottish ballad and smells the delicate scent of lavender.Soon, strange happenings start to occur in Thyme and Seasons: misplaced items, a ringing bell, and the appearance of lavender sprigs in odd places. When a customer mentions seeing a mysterious woman picking...
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Pub. Date
2019.
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China and Ruby Wilcox are presenting their annual "Not Just Plain Vanilla Workshop," always a huge hit with customers at Thyme & Seasons Herb Shop. But someone involved with the workshop is driven by a deadly motive, and China soon finds herself teaming up with the very pregnant Pecan Springs police chief Sheila Dawson to solve a vanilla-flavored murder. Sheila, happy to get out from behind the chief's desk, is investigating the death of a botany...
28) Hemlock
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Series
China Bayles mysteries volume 28
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Description
Herbalist China Bayles's latest adventure takes her to the mountains of North Carolina, where her friend Dorothea Harper serves as the director and curator of the Hemlock House Library, a priceless collection of rare gardening books housed in a haunted mountainside mansion that once belonged to Sunny Carswell, a reclusive heiress. But the most valuable book - A Curious Herbal, created by Elizabeth Blackwell in the 1730s - is missing and Dorothea is...
30)
China Bayles' book of days: 365 celebrations of the mystery, myth, and magic of herbs from the world of Pecan Springs
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