Mace Carson doesn't consider himself a hero. Back in college, he came upon a woman in trouble and intervened - but he was just one irate Wyoming cowboy with his boots planted firmly on the side of right. Now a successful vintner, Mace is shocked to be reunited with the woman he saved. But it turns out she's in Wyoming on business... a corporate executive representing the company that wants to buy his winery. Only, he's not selling. Kelly Wright has...

The Chardonnay Charade begins with a daring helicopter flight in the middle of the night. Facing a freak spring frost that threatens to kill the grapes in her vineyard, Lucie Montgomery hires a chopper to fly over the vines in order to blow warm air on them. But her thoughts soon turn from grapes to murder when she discovers the body of Georgia Greenwood, a controversial political candidate, lying near the fields. Georgia's husband,...

"Winter has come to the Montgomery Estate Vineyard in Atoka, Virginia. Lucie Montgomery and winemaker Quinn Santori have decided to make champagne, a first for the vineyard. But then Gino Tomassi, Quinn's uncle, turns up on their doorstep one afternoon, demanding help in solving the mystery of what happened to Zara Tomassi, the first wife of his grandfather, who died in a San Francisco hotel in 1923 under suspicious circumstances. And it seems there's...

Elegant ninety-year-old Katherine Rutledge runs her family's Napa Valley winery. Her estranged son runs a rival winery, and an alcoholic neighbor, Len Dougherty, lives on ten acres of the Rutledge vineyard given to his family as compensation for the accidental death of his father. Meanwhile, beautiful, ambitious Kelly Douglas, a rising TV newscaster, is assigned to prepare an in-depth report on the Rutledge winery, which is in negotiations to merge...

"Finely ladled suspense," says the Sun-Sentinel about the complex flavor of Ellen Crosby's debut mystery set in the wealthy Blue Ridge wine country of northern Virginia, where vineyard heiress Lucie Montgomery must find a killer or lose her cherished family heritage.
A phone call at two thirty in the morning is never good news. Lucie Montgomery's semiestranged brother, Eli, calls her in France to tell her their father, Leland, has...

The search for the killer of an aristocratic French winemaker who was Lucie Montgomery's first crush and the discovery of dark family secrets put Lucie on a collision course with a murderer.
It's harvest season at Montgomery Estate Vineyard—the busiest time of year for winemakers in Atoka, Virginia. A skull is unearthed near Lucie Montgomery's family cemetery, and the discovery of the bones coincides with the arrival of handsome,

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When Lucie Montgomery stumbles across a skull in her vineyard--just after the tornado that almost kills her--little does she suspect the skeletons in the family closet to which the discovery will lead in Crosby's sprightly fourth Virginia wine country mystery (after 2008's The Bordeaux Betrayal). But who can blame the amateur detective for being a bit off her game, with the hurricane of headaches already buffeting Montgomery Estate Vineyard? Hot-tempered...

When her family's winery becomes one of the sponsors at the Lost Pines Food and Wine Festival, Elise Beckett's spirits soar at the chance to help with their booth. But as the festival gets underway, her cheerful mood turns sour when rival vintner Divia Larson is found dead. With all clues pointing to her grandmother as the prime suspect, Elise and her deputy sheriff boyfriend team up to clear her name. But Divia's murder is as complex as a fine wine,...

It's been only a few weeks since Police Chief Bruno Courreges said goodbye to his lover and partner in justice, and a mystery is precisely what he needs to distract him from heartbreak. And that's what he gets when a research station for genetically modified crops is burned down. Bruno suspects the fervent environmentalists who live nearby, but the fire is only the first in a string of intrigues centering on the fertile soil of Saint Denis.