Book 3 · Available Now
What the Bell Kept
An old brass bell. A disputed rescue. A murder hidden inside fourteen minutes.
Hawthorne Reach Echo Mysteries
Paranormal Cozy Mysteries Worth Solving.
Magic. Mystery. A Place to Belong.
For readers who want a capable midlife heroine, fair-play clues, old houses with long memories, and supernatural fragments that never solve the murder for her.
Kindle · Kindle Unlimited · Paperback · A complete mystery in every book
Midlife heroineFair-play mysteryQuiet magicCoastal New England
Book 1 · Available Now
Murder, Itemized
A Midlife Witch Paranormal Cozy Mystery
At forty-six, divorced and newly back in Hawthorne Reach, Cora Whitcomb expects to rebuild her life by taking over her late aunt’s estate business. She knows how to spot fraud in paperwork, provenance, and possessions. She does not expect a murder.
Then certain objects begin striking her with incomplete flashes of grief, anger, and memory. They never name a killer. They do make it harder to ignore the secrets people leave behind.
Included with Kindle Unlimited. Paperback also available.
September in Hawthorne Reach
Book 3 is out. Book 4 arrives September 24.
Read What the Bell Kept now, then pre-order The Room No One Claimed. New readers should still begin with Murder, Itemized.
Next Release · Book 4 · September 24
The Room No One Claimed
A room without a clean history. A return-key tag that remembers more than one hand. A murder someone tried to keep inside the records.
New to Hawthorne Reach?Start with Murder, Itemized →
Welcome to Hawthorne Reach
A small New Hampshire town with a long memory.
Old houses, disputed inheritances, weather off the Atlantic, and neighbors who remember what happened years ago. Hawthorne Reach is not scenery around the mysteries. It is part of why readers come back.
For Cora Whitcomb, returning home means building a second life while learning that some objects can carry fragments of the first.
Enter Hawthorne Reach
Coastal New EnglandHistoric housesEstate work & provenanceRecurring town & cast
The Series
Hawthorne Reach
Echo Mysteries
Murder leaves evidence. Some of it is harder to explain.
01
Available Now
Murder, Itemized
A former fraud investigator, an unexplained gift, and a death hidden inside one of Hawthorne Reach’s oldest houses.
Book details02
New Release · Available Now
Not the First Owner
A North Bluff estate, a missing silver-backed hand mirror, and a provenance trail that becomes a murder investigation.
Also available with Kindle Unlimited.
03
Available Now
What the Bell Kept
An old brass bell, a disputed rescue, and a fourteen-minute gap pull Cora into a murder hidden inside Hawthorne Reach’s maritime history.
04
Pre-order Now · Releases September 24
The Room No One Claimed
An old room, a brass return-key tag, private records, and a murder become Cora Whitcomb’s fourth Echo case.
For the Right Reader
Come for the atmosphere. Stay because the mystery plays fair.
Hawthorne Reach is built for readers who like cozy boundaries without giving up a real investigation.
Competent midlife heroine
Cora Whitcomb is forty-six, experienced, skeptical, and rebuilding a life rather than discovering adulthood for the first time.
Fair-play clues
Records, timelines, provenance, witness accounts, and physical evidence matter. The solution does not arrive by magic.
Quiet supernatural layer
The Echoes are partial, emotional, and fallible—useful enough to complicate a case, never enough to close it.
A town worth returning to
Coastal New England atmosphere, estate work, recurring relationships, old buildings, and consequences that carry forward.
Reading Order
New to Hawthorne Reach?
Start with Murder, Itemized. The murder cases resolve book by book; the characters, relationships, and deeper Hawthorne Reach story continue.
From the Journal
Mystery, magic, and the craft between them.
Psychic Clues
Psychometry in Mystery Fiction
Objects can remember in a paranormal mystery. The puzzle stays fair only when an impression creates a lead instead of an answer.
Read articleCoastal New England
Why the Coast Works for Cozy Mysteries
Old houses, local memory, inherited property, Atlantic weather, and a geography that changes what suspects can hide.
Read articleMystery Craft
Mystery First, Magic Second
How supernatural clues can deepen a whodunit without short-circuiting the satisfaction of solving it.
Read articleFrom Hawthorne Reach
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About the Author
Eliza Fairholt
Eliza Fairholt writes atmospheric paranormal cozy mysteries about sharp investigations, second chances, quiet magic, and the complicated comfort of finding somewhere to belong.
Her Hawthorne Reach stories pair traditional mystery-solving with a restrained supernatural element: magic may reveal a fragment, disturb an assumption, or raise a better question—but it never gets to solve the murder.
About Eliza