About the Book

Book: Dockside Secrets

Author: Terry Overton

Genre: Christian Cozy Mystery

Release Date: October 17, 2025

When Finley Burke moves to the peaceful lakeside village of Sunset Cove, she’s looking for a fresh start-not a mystery. But when a violent storm washes a strange tackle box onto her dock, she discovers more than fishing lures inside. Hidden within are antique jewels and secrets that link to a long-buried family feud and a suspicious death. As Finley digs deeper, she finds herself tangled in a web of

lies that threaten the calm of the cove- and her own safety.

With the help of her quirky but loyal neighbors, a sharp-eyed detective, Finley must uncover the truth before the past catches up to her.

Full of Southern charm, close-knit friendships, and suspense that keeps you turning the pages. Dockside Secrets is a heartwarming cozy mystery that proves it’s never too late to start over or to solve a mystery.

Click here to get your copy!

About the Author

Terry Overton is a retired university professor of educational and school psychology. She has an Ed.D. in Special Education and a Ph.D. in Psychology.

Her professional experience includes teaching public school, teaching at the university level, and being a college dean.

She has two children, seven grandchildren, and one great granddaughter.

Her previous writing and publication experiences include textbook and journal articles in the fields of special education and school psychology. She now seeks to answer God’s call to share the good news and grow the church by writing Christian books and devotionals.

Over the years, Terry’s books have won the Mom’s Choice Award, Christian Indie Award, Firebird Book Awards, American Writing Winner Awards, Bookfest Winner Awards, Pencraft Award, Reader Views Silver Reviewers Award, and International Book Award Finalist. Her writing examines real world events with a Christian worldview. She enjoys writing for young children, middle grade readers, YA fiction, and adult level novels.

More from Terry

I must admit I have probably watched and read just about every Hallmark cozy mystery I have come across! I have become addicted to mysteries lately! I don’t limit it to just the cozy mysteries. Lately, I have been watching plenty of true crime. The attraction for me is the puzzle. I mean, really, who can resist a “whodunit?” I prefer more of the gumshoe approach, but I also watch several crime scene investigations.

It started out with a curiosity about why people do such actions. What motivates people to commit these crimes and then try to cover them up? In many cases, criminals just aren’t that bright. But there are some cases that remain puzzling.

I decided to give it a go. Dockside Secrets is my first cozy. It was fun to write this mystery in the little community outside of a big city. We moved to this new little cove on a lake, Sunset Cove, and this is where the characters live. The large city in the book, Sagebrush Bend, is in reality, Fort Worth, Texas. Plenty of changing landscapes here, and these appear in the story.

Grab this cozy and meet the quirky cast of characters: a retired forensic psychologist, a very proper southern lady, a nutty and loud best friend, and a middle-of-the-road peacekeeper join a fumbling local sheriff and a handsome detective to discover what really happened at Sunset Cove.

My Impressions

“She hadn’t expected trouble just sixty-two days into retirement, but it found her standing at the edge of the lake peering under her dock.”

The power of a great first sentence! This one is penned by cozy mystery author Terry Overton. I was really pleased with this book, because I had just finished a very intense thriller. I wondered if Overton’s cozy, Dockside Secrets, #1 Finley Burke mysteries, would suffer in my mind by being read next.

But not to worry. Overton’s style is simple, yet educated, comfortably peaceful while dealing with murder. As a cozy, the action is not super fast, but the pacing is steady, and the characters are introduced and clues presented in an intriguing way. I really cared about recently retired college professor Finley who had moved to a small lakeside Texas community. Expecting to find peace, Finley finds neighbors who become supportive friends (another fun, eclectic group!) and a washed-up tackle box.

What she doesn’t find is quick answers or much help from the local sheriff. Old habits die hard, and Finley finds herself returning to her amateur sleuthing ways. Enlisting the help of her neighbors, the “Sleuths of Sunset Cove” set out to discover the secrets behind the items on the tackle box. Like Pandora’s box, each of them finds secrets being released. But, will some secrets they discover of a local oil family bring them closure or more danger than they can handle?

Instead of a fave character, I believe I’ll pick a fave scene. It would have to be when each member of the group finds they want to trust each other enough to share a carefully guarded part of their past. Such a defining moment!

This is a new cozy mystery series that is now on my “to-be-recommended” list! If you enjoy small town cozies and quirky groups of characters, this may be just the novel for you!

I received a copy of the book from the author through Celebrate Lit. I also bought my own copy. No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own.

Notable Quotables:

“The guy is sneaky. He bends the law at forty-five-degree angles.”

“I do not spread gossip. I hear it, but that’s all.” [ Hoo, boy, is this speaker’s constant avowal hilarious!]

“cologne that could gas a room”

My Rating

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Superior! I am happy to recommend this new cozy series!

Blog Stops

Book Reviews From an Avid Reader, October 7

Holly’s Book Corner, October 8

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, October 8

Babbling Becky L’s Book Impressions, October 9

Texas Book-aholic, October 10

Lights in a Dark World, October 10

For Him and My Family, October 11

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, October 12

She Lives to Read, October 13

Sylvan Musings, October 13

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, October 14

The Avid Reader, October 14

Fruitfully Planted, October 15

Vicky Sluiter, October 16

Avid Reader Nurse, October 17

Book Looks by Lisa, October 18

Simple Harvest Reads, October 19 (Guest Review from Donna)

Mary Hake, October 19

Leslie’s Library Escape, October 20

Lily’s Corner, October 20

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Terry is giving away the grand prize of a $50 Amazon gift card!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

https://gleam.io/55lW2/dockside-secrets-celebration-tour-giveaway

About the Book

Book: Written Off

Author: Barbara Cornthwaite

Genre: Christian Cozy Mystery

Release date: May 2021

“Break a leg?” They’ll be lucky if they don’t all break their necks!

After years of waiting, Katrina finally has her happily ever after. All is right with her world . . . until hate crimes begin happening in the charming college town of Wilkester. Even more disturbing is the fact that the perpetrator seems to be connected with the writing class Katrina teaches. How can she prevent her rosy visions of the future from turning into broken dreams?

Find out in this third book of the Wilkester Mysteries.

Click here to get your copy!

My Impressions

How can people even do such horrible things, Katrina wonders.
“Sin doesn’t just show itself in actions: it has a deluding influence, too. It makes people rationalize unimaginable things, and makes them call evil good and good, evil.” So goes part of the discussion between professor Katrina Peters and her detective fiancé Todd Mason. They are trying to puzzle out the “extra story” case from Katrina’s Writing Detective Fiction Class. The class gets deeper and deeper involved as hate crimes are committed, a community member is killed, and worse.

I have really enjoyed the development of Todd and Katrina’s relationship over this three-book series. I would highly recommend reading all three books in the order written to get the most from the series. The tapestry of the storyline is made beautifully solid by threads of other friends who are foster parents and their very real daily struggles. A second possible romantic thread strengthens the depth of the novel as does the inclusion of Todd and Katrina’s wedding plans and first-home preparations. Very satisfying.
My thanks to the author and publisher for a copy of this book, provided by Celebrate Lit. No positive feedback was expected, and all opinions are solely my own.

My Rating

Magnificent! Very Satisfying Conclusion.

About the Author

Barbara Cornthwaite lives in the middle of Ireland with her husband and children. She taught college English before “retiring” to do something she loves far more; her days are now filled with homeschooling her six children, trying to keep the house tidy (a losing battle), and trying to stay warm in the damp Irish climate (also a losing battle). She is surrounded by medieval castles, picturesque flocks of sheep, and ancient stone monuments. These things are unappreciated by her children, who are more impressed by traffic jams, skyscrapers, and hot weather.

More from Barbara

What Kind of Lessons Could a Mystery Possibly Teach Me?

It’s been a couple decades since I taught a college English class, and writing the Wilkester Mysteries with Professor Katrina Peters as the main character brought back happy memories of teaching. Not enough to want to go back to it—homeschooling my own kids is much more rewarding—but enough that I had to stop myself from writing much longer lectures into the stories! These are my first contemporary novels, and it was nice to write a story without the hours and hours of historical research I usually have to do. But whatever time period stories are set in, people feel the same emotions and have to learn the same spiritual lessons.

Katrina loves literature and can’t help seeing her own life as a story. The only problem is that she keeps thinking she knows what the Author is doing, and she has definite ideas about what the plot should be. She is not unlike myself: over and over I’ve thought I knew what God was doing in my life. And if He was short on ideas, I had quite a few that He was free to use! But He has rarely been doing what I thought He was, and for some reason He never seems to use my ideas about what could happen in my story. Both Katrina and I need to learn the lesson that God’s wisdom is beyond ours, His storytelling is much deeper and richer than ours, and His plots are never predictable!