Who is the leader of all Jack-o-lanterns?

Oct 06, 2025 4:01 pm

... The Pumpking. 😊

Hello from Wales

Autumn is here, and so is pumpkin season, which means it’s nearly time for my newest story, Pumpkin Pact! 🎃

This one’s a little different from my usual cosy mysteries. It’s still full of warmth, humour, and magic… but there’s also a dash of spice and a very grumpy demon who shows up when my heroine tries to save her failing farm.

“I only wanted to save my pumpkin patch… instead I summoned a demon husband.”

Hopefully, you'll all love it! It’s got all the autumn vibes: bonfires, festivals, and a love story bound by Samhain magic. It also has a hint of steam and a happy-ever-after. I can’t wait to share it with you in just a couple of weeks!

On a more personal note, it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster lately. Sky is doing okay (thank goodness), but after £2,000 in vet bills we only got £250 back because of the insurance limits on “external lab testing.” With the policy up for renewal at the end of October, I’m crossing everything that they’ll still cover her condition.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, Alan’s dad had a nasty fall on the 21st September and is still in hospital. We’re looking after his dog, Lucy. She's adorable but has turned the house into absolute chaos!

Between caring for everyone (and everything), writing has been my calm place, and I’m pouring all that emotion and magic straight into this book.

Thank you for sticking with me through it all. Your messages and support really do mean the world. I can’t wait for you to meet my pumpkin demon and his witch in Pumpkin Pact.

I'll let you know as soon as it's available (it will be available in KU).

As always, happy reading, and please check out the books and bookfairs below.

Victoria xx

BOOK FAIRS

Collections, Anthologies, & Boxed Sets - October Edition

Cozy Mysteries for Crisp Autumn Nights

Cozy Mystery Cravings

BOOKS TO CHECK OUT!

A plucky medium, her fame-chasing ex, and an infuriatingly handsome skeptic reporter make for a complicated love triangle—and that's before the ghosts get involved. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of One Day in December comes the first novel in a ghost-hunting series full of romance and humor.

Ghosts and spirits are business as usual, but love just might be enough to scare Melody Bittersweet.

In the leafy, charming town of Chapelwick, the Bittersweet family has been a fixture on High Street for as long as anyone can remember. Their rambling black-and-white building houses all three generations of ghost-sensitive Bittersweet women and their business, Blithe Spirits.

On her twenty-seventh birthday, Melody Bittersweet converts the disused back storeroom into her office and opens her own business. Unlike the rest of her family, she’s not taking down messages from ghosts—she’s taking them out.

Right away, the freshly minted Girls’ Ghostbusting Agency takes on its first case: a grand old house that won’t sell because a trio of incumbent ghost brothers raise merry hell whenever prospective owners arrive to view it.

It soon becomes clear that there’s a whole heap of unfinished business between the Scarborough brothers—including murder—and Melody isn’t the only one trying to unravel the mystery. Leo Dark, her rakish ex and business rival, is also on the case, along with the TV crew that trails him.

To make matters worse, the sarcastic and skeptical (and annoyingly good-looking) local reporter Fletcher Gunn has his nose in the story as well. Sniffing out a way to publicly discredit the Bittersweets is his favorite assignment—and has absolutely nothing to do with his inability to resist Melody.

With her business on the line, it’s up to Melody to work out the brothers’ issues, but can she protect her own very susceptible heart from Fletcher’s charm? Does she even want to?

Check out Crazy, Spooky, Love now!

Murder, monsters, and a midlife crisis in Nightmare, Arizona.

Divorced, broke, and broken down in the old mining town of Nightmare, Arizona, Olivia Kendrick is desperate for a job. At forty-two years old, she never thought she would be starting over like this, let alone in a tucked-away town filled with tourists, offbeat residents, and an outspoken UFO hunter. Olivia takes a job at a year-round haunted house, but when she arrives for her first day, she faces real horror: a local man’s body has been dumped at the front entrance.

Olivia is an immediate suspect. After all, she’s a stranger in town. As Olivia tries to find the real killer, she begins to realize her co-workers aren’t just putting on a show every night at Nightmare Sanctuary Haunted House. And why does the “dog” running around have such long fangs?

Things only get worse when Damien Shackleford, the son of the haunted house’s missing owner, shows up. He might be handsome, but his arrogant attitude makes everyone miserable. Olivia must forge a new life, solve a murder, and decide who’s more of a monster: Damien or the actual monsters she works with…

Check out Homicide at the Haunted House Now!

They say you can’t go home again … oh, if only that were true.

Thanks to a series of unfortunate events—and one backstabbing frenemy—home is exactly where I’m headed. Back to Winterspell, the small community in Eastern Washington, where magic runs rampant and humans are outlawed.

Faster than you can say hocus pocus I’m unpacking my bags and settling into the guest room of my parents’ house, trying to ignore the creeping sensation that I’ll never break free again.

The one thing Winterspell has going for it is the sweets shop in the center of town, a bakery filled with magical creations designed to enchant the tastebuds and charm even the pickiest of connoisseurs. Luckily for me, I get the friends and family discount since my parents own the famous Sugar Shack. If I want room and board I have to frost cupcakes and sling macaroons with the rest of the fam.

Unfortunately, things in Winterspell aren’t all sugar cookies and rainbows. According to the local news, a dangerous sea serpent has claimed the lives of three missing girls. The journalist in me has to have a look for myself, and what I find is something far more deadly.