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Wendy Meadows
Wendy Meadows is a USA Today bestselling author whose carefully crafted stories showcase engaging plots and witty women sleuths. Her primary influences include but aren’t limited to mystery genre greats James Patterson, Joanne Fluke, and Ellery Adams.
When Wendy’s not writing about female detectives and their tactful crime solving, she can be found tending to her hobby farm, coloring in her growing collection of adult coloring books, playing video games, tend to her flower garden, boss her husband around, or just relaxing on her back porch. Wendy also enjoys spending quality time with her two sons, her husband, two cats, and an adorable Labradoodle.
And if there is not any chocolate in her home, she drops everything and runs to the closest store, since a girl can never have enough chocolate.
In a previous life, she worked as a Graphic Designer, earning a Graphic Design Certification at the prestigious New York based Sessions School of Design. With this highly valuable artistic background, she designs her own book covers. In fact, she started writing fiction shortly after designing numerous book covers for other fiction writers.
“Raspberry Truffle Murder” is the first novel in the “Maple Hills” series and was released in the year 2016. Nikki’s husband of 20 years came to the conclusion that he wanted a different life in Los Angeles it spawns a life change for her too. Leaving behind her journalism career in Atlanta, she and her college bound son move to the tight knit and small town of Maple Hills, Vermont. With a bustling tourist season, the thriving community appears to be the perfect place to set up her Chocolate Shop, but opening day proves to be more deadly than profitable.
A hit and run just outside her shop door leaves questions swirling and a man dead. The victim is identified as Steven Denforth, the most reviled and hated guy in the entire town, it resurrects the fissures which had recently torn Maple Hills to shreds. It appears that when Denforth first came to the town, the quiet guy bought the local paper, and then published these damning articles about some of the communities’ most prominent members. Secrets which nobody should’ve ever known about.
Now he’s dead and everybody’s a suspect, including Nikki. Nikki, as an FBI Consultant and a former reporter, instinctively knows that the dirt in Maple Hills is piled quite high and if she does not get to the bottom of things, and to the murder, then her stay in this quaint Northern Town might very well be short lived.
“Peppermint Chocolate Murder” is the second novel in the “Maple Hills” series and was released in the year 2016. From the moment that Nikki first made Maple Hills her home, she’s had a dark and dangerous cloud following her. First she found a web of underground Mafia members and now there’s a dead body at The Lodge, a corpse which just so happens to hail from her home town of Atlanta. While the newest, and arguably the nosiest, neighbor in the entire area, she knows that all eyes are soon going to turn her way and all the tongues will begin to wag.
Nikki’s got no choice but to garner these new friends she’s made and put her extensive experience as a big city reporter to good use, playing a modern day Nancy Drew against a backdrop of gorgeous hills and the Canadian Border.
Along with her possible love interest and pseudo partner, Hawk, who is a local cop that just so happens to be the Chief’s son, this duo has to unravel a mystery which gets more complex by the minute, all while attempting to keep a step ahead of the killer with dire, yet murky, motives.
And to think that all Nikki really wanted to do when she moved to this quaint town was to make chocolates.
“Blueberry Truffle Murder” is the third novel in the “Maple Hills” series and was released in the year 2016. Nikki’s time in Maple Hills has been far from the postcard scene that she first imagined it to be. Even though her chocolate shop is doing well, her personal life has hit a couple snags, and bodies, along the way. Between unmasking the Mafia, exposing corrupt officials, and solving more than just a few murders, she’s earned many enemies and made a couple friends.
Now, this old vendetta from her Atlanta days, has reared its head and followed her up north, finding her nestled among all the chocolate and trees, surrounded by intrigue, gossip, and people that want Nikki out of town. When a woman with close ties to her newest ward is discovered murdered, Nikki has to race in order to connect all the clues, salvage her reputation, and solve the case.
But the wheels of vengeance are turning and this is the one time that Nikki could lose it all, including her own life.
“Sea Salt Caramel Murder” is the fourth novel in the “Maple Hills” series and was released in the year 2016. Taking a break from the recent intrigues and murders which have plagued Maple Hills, Nikki and Detective Hawk take advantage of the rather generous offer and set sail on the Open Sea Queen. The cruise ship appears ancient and ready to sink, far away from the spacious and modern liner that they were promised. But with eager hearts this duo, along with their friends, Lidia and her husband, board this aged ship, going towards Alaskan waters and vistas which will ease their current burdens.
Even though this old cruise ship might look decrepit on the outside, inside it proves itself with Titanic like splendor, with its lustrous wooden walls, old fashioned lamps and fireplaces in every room, and a picturesque lobby. It’s all that they could’ve hoped for and more.
But trouble seems to follow Nikki around like a dark cloud of misfortune. When the captain gets murdered, it’s up to these ready sleuths to get right to the bottom of this mystery, before the storm that barrels down their tail hits them, and before the killer is able to murder again.
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Recommendations
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BOOK OF THE MONTH:
Everyones favourite Mossad agent and art restorer Gabriel Allon is back. This is the 26th novel in this excellent spy thriller series by Daniel Silva.
In the latest entry, with a release date of July 14th, Gabriel has to track down the missing wife of a British billionaire.
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Featured Series
Are you a Jack Reacher fan? If so, you absolutely have to read the Peter Ash series by author Nick Petrie.
I recommend this series to anyone who has liked Jack Reacher, and everyone always replies thanking me for it. Nick makes my life easy. If you are a Jack Reacher fan, past or present, Check out this great series today.
Top Thriller Authors
Are you a fan of psychological thrillers? A big fan of authors such as Gillian Flynn? These are our most recommended authors in the thriller genre, which is my personal favourite genre:
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