Yes, November Treasures are a little late this month. As I said, my heart just wasn’t in it earlier in the week. Then, when I looked at the short list of November book releases, I realized that was okay. I’m sure you’ll still be able to get on waiting lists at your favorite library or pre-order a book. Let me know what I missed because this is a short collection.

I love the cover of Deborah J. Benoit’s The Gardener’s Plot. This is Benoit’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut. After life threw Maggie Walker a few curveballs, she’s happy to be back in the small, Berkshires town where she spent so much time as a child. Marlowe holds many memories for her, and now it also offers a fresh start. Maggie has always loved gardening, so it’s only natural to sign on to help Violet Bloom set up a community garden. When opening day arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it. (Release date is Nov. 5.)

Sara Driscoll’s ninth FBI K-9 novel is Summit’s Edge. As long as there’s hope of finding life, no mission is too dangerous for Meg Jennings and her colleagues in the FBI K-9 unit. But locating the wreckage of a hijacked private plane high in the Elk Mountains of Colorado is treacherous in a multitude of ways—some of them impossible for even a seasoned team to predict. The plane, carrying the board of directors of Barron Pharmaceuticals, crashed on a rocky peak and was cleaved in two. Perilous weather means the rescuers have to ascend on foot, with their dogs unleashed in case of falls. It takes hours to locate the wreckage, but miraculously, Meg and Hawk find a number of passengers and crew still alive. The hijacker also survived, and has fled into the wilderness with the CEO’s son in pursuit. (Release date is Nov. 26.)

Misery Hates Company is a historical mystery by Elizabeth Hobbs. Miss Marigold Manners may be steeped in the etiquette of her old-money Boston family, but she is also an accomplished, modern woman and an avid student of archaeology who can handle any situation with poise. When the death of her parents leaves her too destitute to pursue her academic career and she receives a letter from a distant relative on Great Misery Island, Marigold decides she must do what any person of superior sense and greater-than-average curiosity would: she mounts her trusty bicycle and heads up the craggy, fog-shrouded coast of New England for a date with fate. Marigold arrives at Hatchet Farm, a moldering, gothic pile of a house inhabited by relatives so mired in the sins of the past, they have no future. She sets out to modernize the recluses with a brisk, ruthless efficiency, but her well-intentioned plans to manage their lives lead to malice—and murder. Marigold spies a body floating in the stormy waters surrounding the island, and her suspicions immediately turn to her hostile, weapon-wielding relatives when one of the local girls turns up missing. And she might not be the only one. (Release date is Nov. 5.)

Combining realistic thrills with sophisticated spycraft and witty dialogue,  Michael Idov’s The Collaborators delivers a gut-punch answer to the biggest geopolitical question of our time: How, exactly, did post-Soviet Russia turn down the wrong path? Crisscrossing the globe on the way to this shocking revelation are disaffected millennial CIA officer Ari Falk, thrown into a moral and professional crisis by the death of his best asset, and brash, troubled LA heiress Maya Chou, spiraling after the disappearance of her Russian American billionaire father. The duo’s adventures take us to both classic and surprising locales—from Berlin and Tangier to Latvia, Belarus, and an abandoned technopark outside Moscow. (Release date is Nov. 19.)

Kristi Jones’ Murder in the Ranks is a debut historical mystery set in World War II. Algiers, North Africa, 1943. After her abusive German husband left her for dead and took their daughter with him behind enemy lines, Dottie Lincoln learned that it’s better to be a trained soldier rather than a victim. As a newly minted squad leader in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps, she spends her days moving men and materials to the front and her nights attending mandatory dances to boost the morale of the men. Despite the grueling nature of her job, she has found a sanctuary amongst the women in the Army. When Ruth, a member of her squad, is murdered, she’s devastated and determined to get to the bottom of the murder. Dottie’s company is the first group of American women assigned to a combat theater, and with Ruth’s death, the entire operation is being questioned. Determined to do everything she can to help win the war, bring justice to her friend, and hopefully reunite with her daughter, Dottie must rise to the occasion before the killer strikes again. But when her past comes back to haunt her, Dottie must prove she’s not a German spy and put a stop to a deadly conspiracy that threatens the entire American war effort. (Release date is Nov. 19.)

If you were one of those young teen girls who loved horses, you might want to pick up Christina Lynch’s mystery, Pony Confidential. Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with Penny, the little girl who he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years. Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her is the memory of her precious, rebellious pony. Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer. (Release date is Nov. 5.)

Guilt and Ginatann is Mia P. Manansala’s fifth Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mystery. The annual Shady Palms Corn Festival is one of the town’s biggest moneymakers, drawing crowds from all over the Midwest looking to partake in delicious treats, local crafts, and of course, the second largest corn maze in Illinois. Lila Macapagal and her Brew-ha Cafe crew, Adeena Awan and Elena Torres, are all too happy to participate in the event and even make a little wager on who can make it through the corn maze the fastest—but their fun is suddenly cut short when a dead body is found in the middle of the maze…and an unconscious Adeena lies next to it, clutching a bloody knife.The body is discovered to be a local politician’s wife, and all signs—murder weapon included—point to Adeena as the culprit. But Lila knows her best friend couldn’t have done this, so she and her crew put on their sleuthing caps yet again to find the killer who framed Adeena and show them what happens when they mess with a Brew-ha. (Release date is Nov. 12.)

Rebecca Robinson’s thrilling romantasy debut, The Serpent and the Wolf, combines high-stakes political intrigue and a steamy, slow-burn, enemies-to-lovers romance. All her life, Vaasa Kozár has been sharpened into a blade.
After losing her mother—her only remaining parent—to a mysterious dark magic that has since awakened within her, Vaasa is certain death looms. So is her merciless brother, who aims to eliminate Vaasa as a threat to his crown. In one last political scheme, he marries her off to Reid of Mireh, a ruthless foreign ruler, in hopes that he can use her death as a rallying cry to finally invade Reid’s nation. All Vaasa has to do is die. But she is desperate to live. Vaasa enters her new marriage with every intent to escape it, wielding the hard-won political prowess and combat abilities her late father instilled in her. But to her surprise, Reid offers her a deal: help him win the votes to rise in power, and she can walk free. In exchange, he will share his knowledge about the dark magic running through her veins—and help keep it at bay. (Release date is Nov. 19.)

The Author’s Guide to Murder is my favorite November release. Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig and Karen White joined forces for this fun mystery that mixes mystery and romance, and turns all the tropes on their head. If you don’t read it looking for the humor, you’ll miss the point of this enjoyable book. There’s been a sensational murder at historic Castle Kinloch, a gothic fantasy of grey granite on a remote island in the Highlands of Scotland. Literary superstar Brett Saffron Presley has been found dead—under bizarre circumstances—in the castle tower’s book-lined study. Years ago, Presley purchased the castle as a showpiece for his brand and to lure paying guests with a taste for writerly glamour. Now it seems, the castle has done him in…or, possibly, one of the castle’s guests has. Detective Chief Inspector Euan McIntosh, a local with no love for literary Americans, finds himself with the unenviable task of extracting statements from three American lady novelists. (Release date is Nov. 5.)

When I finally got around to writing the Treasures post, I found how short it was. Do you have any November book releases to add to this list?