Lotus Bay Mysteries

A prequel to the Lotus Bay Mysteries. Meet Tori Cannon and her BFF, Kathy Grant, who get together for a girl's weekend of wine, cookies, and laughter, but there's also the specter of a panty pincher hanging around the laundry room of the complex where Tori lives. Kathy thinks they can catch the culprit red-handed in a panty raid! This mini mystery introduces the two main characters of the upcoming Lotus Bay Mysteries.

Tori Cannon's life is in chaos. She's lost her job, her grandmother just died, and her lease has run out. Her only hope is to live with her grandfather on Lotus Bay near Lake Ontario and revive his failing bait and tackle business. Convincing him not to sell it is one of her problems. Topping that, her troubles increase when she finds a dead body on the property-a man with spikes filling his mouth. The victim's enemies are a rich woman who wants to level his eyesore of a home and his daughter who is resentful that her father never had time for her. With no faith from her grandfather that Tori can save the failing business and discover a murderer, all her eggs are in one basket as both her life and her future hinge on her sorting through petty jealousies and deadly consequences to find the truth. Can Tori save her family bait shop-after such a deadly catch?

Though it's not yet summer, things are heating up on Lotus Bay. Swans Nest Inn is about to open, and Kathy Grant solicits her BFF, Tori Cannon, to help spruce up her property at the marshy end of Lotus Bay, only they didn't count on finding a body. Who was he? What's his connection to their friend Paul Darcy? Meanwhile, two entrepreneurs with vast business ties are interested in helping Tori reopen the Lotus Lodge, and their real motives are as murky as the bay after a storm. Will Swans Nest open on time? Will the Lotus Lodge reopen at all?

The holidays are fast approaching, and Kathy Grant is hard at work on the renovations of her soon-to-be bed and breakfast. An unexpected winter storm disrupts her friends' plans, and it looks like her B&B will have to open a little early. And then there are the cryptic notes that hint of a treasure to be found somewhere in the house. Will Kathy and her friends find the cache of cash? The immensely popular Booktown Mystery series is what put Lorraine Bartlett's pen name Lorna Barrett on the New York Times Bestseller list, but it's her talent -- whether writing as Lorna, or L.L. Bartlett, or Lorraine Bartlett -- that keeps her there. This multi-published, Agatha-nominated author pens the exciting Jeff Resnick Mysteries as well as the acclaimed Victoria Square Mystery series, and now the Tales of Telenia fantasy saga, and has many short stories and novellas to her name(s). The Lotus Bay Mysteries follow the lives of our entrepreneurial women: Tori Cannon, her BFF Kathy Grant, Tori's childhood friend Anissa Jackson, and neighbor Noreen Darby. The series is set in rural Western New York.