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CHRISTIAN FICTION – Mysteries with a Message
The Word Play Mysteries
Main Characters:
Wanda – loves word games and cooking. A widow in her late 60’s whose nephew, Todd, is a rookie cop recently hired in Scrub Oak. He also is a word game wizard.
Betty Sue – a retired elementary school teacher and widow who can recall each child in her class and their attributes since 1975. She and Wanda grew up in Scrub Oak together. She loves word search and of games where each person forms words off the other.
Evelyn – a relative newcomer to Scrub Oak, she moved there in 2010 to care for her sister until she passed from cancer three years ago. Widowed in the Gulf War in 1990 at the age of 35, she never remarried. Her husband worked in Army Intelligence and had put in his twenty but re-upped because of his love for fellow Texan George Bush Senior.
I’ve read several books by this author, and I have to say, Ms. Cosgrove has made me a cozy mystery fan! This first book in a new series is her best one yet! The Book Dragon
Word Has It – Not prone to gossip, Wanda keeps herself to herself. But when she hears from her nephew that a ring of thieves may be hiding out in the area, she begins to wonder if the old Ferguson place is still abandoned. When words like jewels, woodshed, landing, and evil appear on their weekly word game days after a deadly shooting on the property, she determines it is a sign she and her friends should investigate.
Word Gets Around – Each of the three ladies receives a nonsensical note slipped between the wiper blades of their cars. When the ladies combine the words on a word game board, it spells trouble for one of Betty’s former students, who is now a freelance reporter for the Oakmont County Gazette. Could it be she reported way too much?
In Other Words – Many English words contain the same letters but in a different order, like stressed and desserts. After the local thrift store owner is found dead in the alley behind his store, the ladies will need their word playing skills to unravel the dual meanings of the graffiti that appears around town before two more people’s games end. Coming in February 2022
Hang on Every Word – Wanda is the new Word game editor for the Oakmont Weekly Gazette. However, her puzzle answers seem to lead to crimes in downtown Scrub Oak. Is there a connection? Many townsfolk think so. Will her nephew, Todd, have to arrest Wanda as an accessory to these crimes? Coming in the August 26, 2022 PRE- ORDER NOW!
Away with Words – while on a women’s retreat in Northern Louisiana, Wanda and friends discover a shoe and bloody sock. Did someone solely lose their footwear or is their soul in danger? And why are the police keeping a closer eye on these women from Texas? Could the answer lie in solving the crossword puzzle clues in their retreat game? Coming in 2023.
Lost for Words – After visiting a local resident in a nursing home, Wanda and Betty Sue find an amnesiac woman wobbling on the side of the road. Their church organizes a fundrasier for her medical care while the police get the word out to see if anyone can identify her and Wanda seek ways to help her regain her memory of the assault through the few unrelated words she mutters. Coming in 2023
Word of Mouth – gossip is rempant in Scrub Oak lately. Does any of it have forebearance on the increase in crime? Words must be carefully vetted before printed in the local paper. It’s owners, Mason and Vickie, take up the baton to sleuth while Wanda recovers from an accident…if it was an accident. Coming in 2024
Relatively Seeking Mysteries
One Leaf Too Many
When three friends, Shannon, Bailey, and Jessica, decide to look into Bailey’s ancestral history, they find more than a leaf on the internet.
They discover an unsolved disappearance that may have repercussions for a prominent political powerhouse family.
The more they dig around her family roots, the deeper in danger they get. Bailey finds the truth is definitely relative.
“I loved that the mystery involved genealogical research AND that I wasn’t able to figure it out until the end. Fascinating story, well told.” Carlene Havel, biblical and romance novelist
Fallen Leaf
Jessica knows she was adopted and searches to learn her birth parents’ identities so she can trace her family history.
Bailey and Jessica, her close friends and fellow genealogy buffs, decide to help.
When they uncover something scandalous about her familial past…and present, someone else will do what they can to keep the girls quiet.
“Not only is Ms. Cosgrove a plot-weaving genius, her research validifies truth. Fallen Leaf is a satisfying page-turner. ” DiAne Gates, author of suspenseful YA
Leaf Me Alone
Word spreads through town about the genealogy researches of Shannon, Bailey, and Jessica.
When old Mrs. Perkins, their Bible study leader, wants to hire them to find her long-lost great-nephew, Shannon and her husband Jayden find moving forward along the Perkins family tree may leave them dangling out on a limb…and someone is holding a saw!
Plus, the residents of the hospice center where Mrs. Perkins may be dying before their time. Can they reunite great aunt and nephew before her time runs out?
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Bunco Biddies Mysteries
clean, fun reads with a Christian flavor
Three widows who live in a Sunset Acres retirement community host Bunco games every Thursday evening.
Betsy Ann, a retired reporter for the Alamoville, Texas community newspaper, considers herself a seasoned reporter, due to her column in the Garden and Home section.
Janie is the widow of a police detective.
Ethel, a cozy mystery aficionado, can recite each episode of Murder She Wrote and Columbo by heart. She meticulously catalogs all the whodunnits she has read by how the murders were committed. So naturally, when their neighbors start reporting bodies, the three hop into action, despite the fact that Janie’s son-in-law is Alamoville’s very competent homicide detective, Blake Johnson.
“When the Bunco Biddies throw down their dice, criminals tremble. The Bunco Biddies are brave, brilliant, and even sometimes bossy. One sniff of foul play and they will not rest until they restore order. The true bonds of friendship and family warm my heart each and every time.” Michelle Walker, Cozy Mystery blogger
Dumpster Dicing
ORDER HERE
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oj0u3kJzNk
As Janie and Betsy Ann go for their morning jog, they watch the city sanitation truck follow its normal five-mile Tuesday morning route through their retirement community of Sunset Acres. At the clubhouse, the Bunco biddies notice a leg dangling out of the dumpster when the truck lifts the trash container high in the air to flip it. The women scream for it to stop. As they do, an arm, then a head drops into the sanitation vehicle. Someone has diced up one of their new residents— a grouchy loner named Edwin Newman. No one had seen him since he moved in the previous Friday. Could it be he unpacked too much of his dicey past?
Baby Bunco
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Trailer– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auf5akXWy-I
After the cleaning service readies Mr. Newman’s garden home for lease, Janie’s friend Roseanne is stopped by a real estate agent with a screeching bundle in her arms— a newborn baby! One of the cleaning crew admits the child belonged to her sister, who died of a drug overdose in the back alley behind a convenience store near the entrance to Sunset Acres. She left the baby in the vacant house because she couldn’t care for her. But the score doesn’t add up. No one knew this maid had a sister. So, why did she lie about the corpse’s identity? Could this be the birth of a new crime wave in Alamoville?
Threes and Sixes
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Victor and Lynn Bailey’s condo in Sunset Acres, number #366, is robbed. Then, Joan Stephens, another one of the Bunco widows, is burgled in #633. Janie sees a pattern but her son-in-law Detective Blake Johnson disagrees. The burglar confesses after he set off the alarm at 3636 Sunny Court, one of the garden homes in the community. However, the next morning he is found hanged in his jail cell. Jane, Ethel and Betsy Ann suspect it wasn’t suicide that led to the man’s demise, but a bad roll of the dice.
When Blake heads for vacation, there is something about his partner, Mitch Hornsby, newly returned from medical leave, Janie doesn’t quite trust…and why does Chief of Police Gates keep glancing in her direction? Does he remember what happened between them in 1970?
Trailer: https://animoto.com/play/YtbnKYLeHb2HP1PUBD0JdQ
Til Dice Do Us Part
As the Bunco Biddies decorate for a wedding shower, Ethel falls from a ladder, is rushed to the ER, and from beyond the curtained divider, overhears a hushed conversation about a crime.
When the Bunco Biddies get the antsy groom involved in their sleuthing, his chances of making it to the church dwindle, and that’s when the way to the altar gets dicey.
“This is one of Ms. Cosgrove’s best cozy mysteries. I love to read about the “girls” and their antics. Wish I could give it 10 stars.” Victoria Caine, suspense romance author
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SUSPENSE ROMANCE Trilogy
Hush in the Storm: ORDER HERE
Jen, widowed at 31, clings to her humdrum job as a buoy in the swelling storms of grief until a coworker named Tom kidnaps her and fakes her death―at the request of her late husband, or so Tom says. Together, they are thrust into a tempest of danger and deceit where no one is whom they claim to be. The list of people Jen can believe keeps diminishing. Who can she trust while dodging the Feds, human traffickers, and the press who’ve discovered she’s alive? How will Jen rescue the two held-captive girls she befriends without drowning them, Tom, and herself in the waves of betrayal, especially if her husband may not be as dead as everyone thinks?
A recent widow is kidnapped and her death faked, supposedly for her own good. But if she’s really a widow, why does she keep hearing her husband’s voice?
“Julie B. Cosgrove weaves a tale of suspense and romance as her heroine crosses paths with human traffickers and discovers the real faces of the victims. A story that both informs and shocks, but keeps you reading to the very end.” Mary Hamilton, author of the Rustic Knoll Bible Camp Series
“Julie Cosgrove’s new novel “Hush in the Storm” is the compelling story of a woman’s journey through tragedy, betrayal and triumph.as the heroine addresses issues of grief, love and modern day slavery. A must read.” Joy Brooks, Prayer For Freedom
Read Chapter One View Video
the sequel LEGITIMATE LIES ORDER HERE
INSPY AWARDS semi-finalist 2016
Jen assumes she can escape her past after she testifies against Robert, her human trafficking mogul husband, and enters into witness protection under a new identity. That is until a baby shows up on the stoop of the library where she works, and another man from her past, Tom, appears in her living room. Now she must relocate again under yet another name and memorize a new set of legitimate lies to explain who she is. When Robert discovers her latest identity, he has other plans for her, such as enslaving her in a Tudor manor in Southern England. The scandalous family secrets she discovers may hold the key to her and the daughter of the manor’s freedom. But first, she must tunnel through a myriad of lies, including the dark sin which has held her own heart captive. If the truth is revealed, will it hinder her one chance for happiness? Christina is at a loss. Her parents are dead, her only son has flown the coop (except when he needs his laundry cleaned or a home-cooked meal) and her husband is rarely around anymore, even when he is perched in his favorite recliner. A different type of love story about an empty-nest couple discovering if there is still a spark in their marriage worth kindling. For any woman who notices her prince charming developing a paunch and an attitude.
“From the first clap of thunder to the conclusion of the book, Julie B. Cosgrove holds the reader in the palm of her hand. Just when you think all might go well for the main character, another event far worse than the one before befalls her all delivered by the expertly crafted and well-accomplished Ms. Cosgrove. I would highly recommend this book as well as others she has written. If you’re looking for a nail-biter that will hold your attention from beginning to end – this is it.” Victoria Pitts Caine, Suspense Romance Author
Read the first Chapter. View Video
Marisol’s story: FREED TO FORGIVE –
Grace Award 2016 Finalist
Abused as a child in her Mexican village, Marisol escapes to the U.S. But her temper gets her into worse and worse situations. Sold from man to man, bruised and
beaten, In the process she becomes pregnant and chooses to give her child away than to expose it to a life of slavery.
Eventually by the grace of God, Marisol wretches free from the chains of human trafficking. However, her shame and anger shackles her to her past. And just when a decent man, Jesse, comes into her life, that past returns to haunt her.
The key to her freedom is forgiveness, held in the hands of someone she thought she’d never meet again. Will her horrid memories, guilt over abandoning her child, and anger for her abusers keep her from grasping it?
“Freed to Forgive is the third book in Julie B Cosgrove’s powerful series on human sex trafficking. The book is heart wrenching with raw emotions and a serious case of a poor self image. Following Marisol’s life from the very beginning until she is a responsible adult opens the readers eyes to the total devastation in the lives of girls who are imprisoned in sex trafficking. This book is hard to put down. I highly recommend it.” —Lena Nelson Dooley, multi-award-winning author
Read the First Chapter View Video ORDER HERE
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Clean Romance Novellas(ebooks only):
Greener Grasses – a novella from the Love Is series based on 1 Corinthians 13 love does not envy. Can twin sisters bury their jealousy long enough to love each other after tragedy hits? ORDER HERE
Navy Blues – a novella from the Love Is series based on 1 Corinthians 13 love is not self-serving. A Naval gastroenterologist can heal heartburn, but what about a broken heart? ORDER HERE
Hill Country Homecoming – Sarah, daughter of a Texas horse-breeding dynasty has the dollar and cents, Travis the horse sense. When tragedy hits the Bar-M Ranch one Christmas it is up to them to save it…if they can stop squabbling. ORDER HERE
Focused – a modern marriage novel
Heartwarming, and at times humorous, this empty-nest novel is for every woman who watches her husband grow a punch and wonders why he is often absent, even when in his favorite recliner.
Christina is at a loss- she has lost her parents, her grown son from the nest, and her husband to his job. One morning, she snaps, veers her vehicle towards the Texas Hill Country and just keeps driving. But what she encounters forces her back to her reality…which has already begun to change in her absence. How can she focus on her new life, especially when someone from the past enters into it unexpectedly? Read the First Chapter
NON FICTION BIBLE STUDIES AND DEVOTIONALS –
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