Sheila Connolly Books in Order

As Kate moves ahead with renovating the Barton Mansion for events, contractors uncover a hidden staircase sealed up for more than a century, with a skeleton lying on the steps. When a second, contemporary body soon appears, she races to connect the two deaths before someone silences her work for good.

Curious about the boundaries of the property she inherited in Ireland, Maura explores the tangled hedgerows behind her cottage and uncovers human remains. The discovery brings old land disputes and family feuds to the surface, forcing Maura to decide how far she will go to protect her new home.

Sullivan’s Pub is finally thriving when Maura stumbles on a mutilated corpse in the ravine behind the building, the victim’s face too damaged to recognize. As the gardaí struggle to identify him and villagers claim to know nothing, Maura follows faint clues that suggest the stranger was not as unknown as everyone pretends.

Back in Asheboro, Kate pushes forward with plans to create a Victorian village and enlists historian Joshua Wainwright to help catalog the Barton papers. When a young man connected to their research is found dead in the town library, she must figure out which long buried secret was worth killing to keep.

A summer intern finds a hand drawn map hidden inside an antique book at the Preservation Society, sending Nell in search of its origins. As she connects the map to a redevelopment project and a missing contractor, she uncovers buried scandals that some Philadelphians would rather keep hidden.

As Christmas approaches in Leap, Maura puzzles over how much to decorate the pub and a mysterious building project across the street. When a frightened young boy and his mother arrive from Dublin with something to hide, Maura and her friends work to keep them safe and untangle the threat on their trail.

Renovating the big Victorian she shares with Ned gives Abby an excuse to ignore her ghostly visions, until a plumber has a shocking encounter with an old tool in the walls and an autistic boy’s inner world suddenly floods her mind. Realizing others may be touched by the same gift, she digs into their histories and her own.

Late winter restlessness ends for Meg and Seth when a single gunshot shatters the quiet and they find a woman's body on their land. Learning the victim was an undercover reporter investigating local drug trafficking, Meg refuses to stay on the sidelines while criminals endanger Granford.

Hotelier Kate Hamilton reluctantly returns to her struggling hometown of Asheboro, Maryland, to advise the town council on turning the newly purchased Barton Mansion into a tourist draw. When she discovers the body of her high school nemesis inside the house, Kate is forced to investigate while trying to save the town’s last chance at survival.

Maura is stunned when her estranged mother appears in County Cork, working for the new owners of the nearby Crann Mor hotel. After her mother’s boss is found dead in the gardens, Maura must probe long standing village tensions and family secrets to clear a woman she barely knows.

An unusual snowstorm strands Maura and a motley group of patrons in Sullivan’s Pub, including Englishwoman Diane Caldwell, long suspected in a notorious local stabbing. With nowhere to go, Maura encourages an improvised trial of the decades old crime, only to uncover new evidence and dangerous resentments.

Granford is quiet in winter until energetic newcomer Monica Whitman organizes a local foods festival called WinterFare and then collapses and dies. When tests show food was not to blame, Meg investigates the woman’s complicated new ties in town to learn who turned a community celebration into murder.

Meg and Seth finally take a delayed honeymoon to Thomas Jefferson's orchards at Monticello, only to have their trip disrupted when Meg’s parents’ handyman is found dead. With a hostile police chief eager to blame her father, Meg must uncover what really happened in the deceptively peaceful Virginia setting.

Still looking for answers about her ability to see the dead, Abby begins visiting psychics and spiritualists, testing whether anyone shares her gift. A startling encounter leads her and Ned into a scientific experiment meant to map their minds, forcing Abby to rethink what her visions mean for her future.

Two activists bring Nell surprising news, that the Society owns a derelict row house in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood slated for demolition. A site visit ends with one activist dead and the other wounded, pushing Nell to uncover why a seemingly worthless property is worth killing over.

After a local farmer vanishes during a walk on the beach with his young son, rumors of suicide and accident swirl through Leap. When the body that washes ashore is someone else entirely, Maura begins to suspect smugglers are using the coves near her pub and that the missing man stumbled into danger.

Hoping for a break from hauntings and home renovations, Abby and Ned escape to Cape Cod, where she believes she has no family roots. A fierce storm brings a disturbing vision of a long dead woman she has seen before, sending Abby chasing a tangle of family secrets that spans generations.

Renovations at the Society uncover an old privy in the basement, along with odd metal objects that fascinate a construction worker. When that worker is struck and killed by a car outside the building, Nell suspects the discovery is linked to his death and follows a trail into the past.

Abby Kimball has grown used to seeing ghosts, but nothing prepares her for a vivid courtroom scene from the Salem witch trials where she locks eyes with a cruel accuser. Researching the real events with Ned, she confronts the possibility that her own ancestors were caught up in the hysteria.

When Maura learns that Sullivan’s Pub once hosted legendary traditional music sessions, she agrees to revive the idea to draw more visitors. The return of aging musicians and fans brings with it a suspicious death that forces Maura to untangle rivalries, old feuds, and the pub’s own musical past.

On a massive construction project, supervisor Mason is already fighting deadlines and fraying tempers when a worker turns up dead in what looks like an accident. Realizing the man was murdered, Mason questions his crew and the site itself to uncover who killed him and why the land matters so much.

As Meg Corey plans her wedding to Seth, ex con Aaron Eastman returns to Granford determined to learn the truth about the fire that sent him to prison decades earlier. When fresh violence suggests someone will kill to keep the past buried, Meg investigates to clear Aaron and protect her town.

Newly single and unsure what comes next, Ellen Leonard rents a remote cottage in the Irish countryside, hoping for solitude and a fresh start. Strange noises, fleeting shadows, and local legends about what lives "under the hill" soon make her wonder whether the land itself has plans for her.

Abby Kimball is still testing the limits of her newfound ability to see the dead when the apparition of a Revolutionary War soldier appears on the town green just before Patriots' Day. As she traces his identity and her deepening bond with Ned, she discovers that their shared gift may be more complicated than either imagined.

In County Cork, Maura Donovan is settling into running Sullivan’s Pub when an American art researcher arrives searching for a lost painting by a famous Irish artist. After a man connected to a nearby estate is murdered, Maura must balance local wariness of outsiders with the hunt for a killer and a valuable work of art.

Nell agrees to help a developer assess an old dairy farm for historical issues before it is razed, but the site visit turns up a body floating in a pond. The victim is a history buff who may have found something worth killing for, and Nell has to unearth the farm's secrets.

Harvest season is in full swing when Seth uncovers a skeleton during a renovation project in town and a relative of one of Meg's apple pickers is stabbed behind the feed store. With suspicion spilling over onto migrant workers and townspeople alike, Meg races to connect the two deaths before tempers boil over.

Laura Shumway joins a college reunion trip to Italy hoping for good food and perspective on her life, not a corpse. When charismatic former professor Anthony Gilbert, who exploited many of his students, turns up dead at their villa, Laura and a few classmates quietly investigate which old grievance finally led to murder among the Tuscan hills.

After moving to New England with her boyfriend, Abby Kimball begins seeing vivid scenes from other eras superimposed on the present, including a long dead family gathered in a parlor. With the help of tour guide Ned Newhall, who shares her strange ability, she investigates the family’s story and uncovers a shocking piece of her own history.

When several elderly philanthropists in Philadelphia's cultural community die in quick succession, Nell and FBI agent James Morrison suspect something more than coincidence. As she traces their connections to her institution, Nell uncovers a scheme targeting generous donors for profit.

Drought forces Meg Corey to lug irrigation hoses through her Granford orchard, while her boyfriend Seth works on restoring a historic house. A trip to a sawmill’s forest reserve leads to the discovery of a body and a mysterious insect infestation that could devastate local woodlands, pulling Meg into environmental and financial motives for murder.

Honoring her grandmother’s last wish, Maura Donovan travels from Boston to the tiny Irish village of Leap and takes an unexpected job at Sullivan’s Pub. When a nearly century old body is found in a nearby bog and a more recent murder follows, Maura discovers that old loyalties and long buried crimes still shape the village.

A recent college graduate tending bar at Dinty's, an old Irish pub in Cambridge, is content to drift until local crime begins to threaten the neighborhood. Inspired by an old rebel ballad and the tight knit community around him, he and the regulars quietly organize to push back against the trouble in their own way.

Apple orchard owner Meg Corey is settling into Granford when an old Boston coworker barrels into town to run a Congressional campaign. After a neighboring dairy farmer is found dead and her husband is accused of murder, Meg has to navigate local politics and farm rivalries to uncover who really wanted the victim silenced.

Claire Hastings, a professor at a women's college, retreats to a remote Maine cabin to finish a book that will secure her tenure. When disgraced journalist Jonathan Daulton arrives at her door bleeding from a gunshot wound and later fakes her kidnapping, Claire is dragged into a deadly conspiracy that may reach as far as an attack on the First Lady.

This short crime story by Sheila Connolly originally appeared in the anthology Best New England Crime Stories: Blood Moon and went on to earn nominations for both the Agatha and Anthony awards, a testament to its tight plotting and emotional punch.

A warehouse fire destroys artifacts from the city's fire museum and kills a security guard, but Nell notices that the museum's prized 1825 hand pump in the news photos is a fake. Following the trail of the real engine, she uncovers arson, fraud, and a motive worth killing for.

Society president Nell Pratt is hired by elderly Arthur Logan to discreetly research his prominent Philadelphia family in the archives. As she sorts through fragile documents and letters, a series of unsettling events suggests someone else is hunting the same secret and will do anything to keep it hidden.

Part time librarian Sarabeth Dodson finds elderly Edith Hathaway dead in a snowdrift on the edge of their small Pennsylvania town, with no footprints leading to or from the body. Working with Police Chief Vanessa Hutchins, she follows the trail from a missing library book to the secrets that lured Edith out into the storm.

Nell is invited to preview a new Harriet the Hedgehog exhibit at a Philadelphia children's museum, but an installer is badly shocked while working on an animated creature. When a second man dies from another jolt, Nell digs into simmering tensions around the exhibit to expose a killer.

Flat broke, sick with the flu, and alone in her drafty colonial, Meg Corey is feeling sorry for herself when a woman named Deborah Warren appears in her bedroom. Convinced Deborah is a ghost who has lingered for two centuries, Meg sets out to learn why the spirit is still trapped and how to send her home.

With her first apple crop sold, Meg hopes for a quiet winter, until small accidents and pranks around the house start to escalate. An antique sampler she found in a corner and an attack that leaves her trapped in the cold push her to uncover how an old mystery connects to a present day enemy.

An Agatha Award nominated short mystery first published in the anthology Thin Ice, this compact story showcases Connolly’s talent for building tension and character in only a few pages, offering a sharp crime puzzle for fans of her longer work.

Three young chefs come to Granford determined to launch a restaurant that showcases local food, and Meg agrees to help them connect with farmers. When one of them is murdered and left in a pig wallow, she uncovers old town resentments and secrets that threaten both the restaurant and her friends.

At the Pennsylvania Antiquarian Society, fundraiser Nell Pratt discovers that a collection of George Washington's letters has vanished the same day an archivist is found dead. When her bosses resist questions, she starts investigating and uncovers a long history of theft and deceit.

Meg’s mother arrives unannounced in Granford just as harvest work is peaking, claiming she wants to visit an old friend who is speaking nearby. When that professor is found dead on the cider house floor and suspicion falls on her mother, Meg must untangle academic grudges and family history to find the killer.

With Tucson’s gem show in full swing, a nervous stranger begs to use Em Dowell’s kiln for an experimental stone treatment. When a body in the desert is tied to him and to Em’s missing brother, she follows a dangerous trail through the Arizona desert and nearby reservations to uncover the truth.

Spring has barely arrived when the body of a young organic farming activist is found in Meg Corey's springhouse, apparently killed by pesticide poisoning. Branded a suspect and worried about her orchard’s reputation, Meg digs into local environmental battles and rivalries to find the real culprit.

Tucson glassblower Emmeline Dowell happily balances teaching and running her studio until she befriends troubled newcomer Allison McBride. When Allison's husband is found murdered in Em's workspace, suspicion falls close to home, and Em must investigate to clear her friend and save her business.

Em agrees to help charismatic software mogul Peter Ferguson with his multimillion dollar stained glass collection and thinks she has landed a dream commission. Then the glass disappears, Peter is found dead, and Em becomes the prime suspect, forcing her to find the real killer and the missing art.

After losing her Boston banking job, Meg Corey retreats to a rundown colonial house with an attached apple orchard in Granford, Massachusetts. When her ex boyfriend turns up dead in her septic tank and she becomes the main suspect, Meg has to clear her name and decide whether this small town could be home.