Shari Randall Books In Order

Publication Order of Chesapeake Crimes Books

Publication Order of Lobster Shack Mystery Books

Publication Order of Cozy Case Files Mystery Sampler Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Shari Randall is an American author from New England that writes cozy mystery novels. Shari is best known for the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack series.

+The Story
Shari Randall is a New England Native. She loves reading, traveling, and taking long walks on the beach. She also takes every opportunity she gets to visit her children who do not make it easy, what with their globe-trotting ways.

But dancing is probably her favorite thing to do or at least one of her favorites. The activity drew Shari in when she was a child and it never let her go.

So one shouldn’t be too surprised to come across Shari and her husband doing the tango; it was partially because of her husband that Shari Randall wrote the Lobster Shack Mystery series, the books for which she is best known.

Shari was a child when her love for reading was ignited. She remembers being in fourth grade and being introduced to Sherlock Holmes by her school’s librarian. The experience gave her a passion for the mystery genre that never left her.

In fact, that is all she read for the rest of her childhood and teenage years, eventually amassing an impressive collection of Nancy Drew novels.

The author was much older when she finally decided to write ‘Curses, Boiled Again’, her debut novel. The book was published in 2018. At the time that Shari Randall wrote it, they were living in Virginia.

Her husband got the job offer of his dreams and he took it, this compelling the couple to move to Connecticut practically overnight. It took the couple longer than they expected to find a house.

In the meantime, they settled down in Noank, a small town within which they rented an old place near the shore. Shari immediately noticed that Noank was home to a fair amount of lobster shacks.

The observation proved to be a useful one when Shari’s agent called her and told her that St. Martin’s was looking to do a series set in a lobster shack. The agent wanted Shari Randall to write the publisher a proposal.

The author concluded that their stopover in Noank couldn’t have been an accident and she wasted little time in crafting the draft for the story that would become the Lobster Shack Mystery series.

Shari isn’t much of a cook, or so she says. At the very least, she does not know how to cook lobster. As such, she assured her agent and publishers from the onset that her books would not feature any recipes.
Fortunately for Shari, all they wanted was a charming story about a quirky detective solving suspenseful mysteries in a little town, and that is what Shari gave them.

The author admits that she got a little lost in the research aspect of the writing process. She also admits that she used the research stage as an opportunity to procrastinate. And because the author already lived in a town that had lobster shacks, her research merely involved driving all over their new home, checking out the scenery and tasting lobster.

By the time Shari finished touring Noank and Connecticut, she had a pretty good idea about the shape her story would take. Shari’s debut series follows the adventures of Allie Larkin, a dancer who retreats to a small town after she breaks an ankle. Now she spends her days working at a lobster shack and solving mysteries.

Shari gets most of her writing done at home during the day. She likes quiet rooms and it normally takes her a little while to silence her thoughts before finally proceeding to put her stories on paper.

Sometimes, she finds it necessary to retreat to a library, especially when the distractions at home begin to overwhelm her. Shari doesn’t know exactly where her ideas come from. She believes that her creative juices are sparked by the strange things she sees in life. The author always keeps a notepad on hand for that very reason.

She tries to jot down every idea she gets before it disappears. Interestingly enough, even though she loves mystery, Shari Randall rarely reads mystery, primarily because she spends so much time producing fiction in that genre that sometimes she feels like she needs a break.

It is for that reason that the author prefers to experiment with nonfiction in her downtime. And she often reads more than one book at any given time.

Shari admits that she wouldn’t have gone far in publishing if she did not have the support and care of Sisters in Crime. For that reason, she encourages every aspiring author looking to make it in the publishing business to find some sort of literary association to join because that will give them access to resources they might fail to acquire on their own.

+Curses, Boiled Again
Allie Larkin was a ballet dancer and she was good at it. But then she broke her ankle in a bad fall and her dreams went up in flames. But Allie refuses to despair. Life has taken her back to Mystic Bay, her hometown.

Allie hopes to convalesce from her injury in peace. But peace is hardly what she gets when she gets a job at the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack. Her aunt Gully wants Allie to help the Lobster shack win the local Lobster Roll contest.

Allie does not know what to expect when she first learns about the food festival. However, she definitely does not expect one of the judges of the contest to die. When everyone starts looking at Gully as a suspect in the murder, Allie makes it her mission to exonerate her aunt’s name.

+Against the Claw
Allie Larkin is still trying to heal from the ankle injury that ruined her dreams as a ballet dancer. She is also still working at her aunt’s lobster shack. Allie didn’t think things could get so busy.

But then the restaurant began experimenting with the catering arena and Allie found that she was needed more than ever. The dancer’s workload takes a backseat when she stumbles upon the remains of a woman on the bay.

When the police fail to determine her identity, Allie’s curiosity overwhelms her and she decides to investigate.