Cozy Mystery Food

It may not be front page news, but Island Times food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell is now happily married. Before she can set sail on her honeymoon cruise, however, Hayley's mom, Sheila, pays an impromptu visit - and promptly becomes the prime suspect in a murder. The victim is Sheila's old high school rival, Caskie Lemon-Hogg, known for her homemade blueberry pies and her home-wrecking flirtations. As Hayley teams up with her BFFs Liddy and Mona to clear her mother's name, Sheila reunites with Liddy's mom Celeste and Mona's mom Jane for their own amateur sleuthing.

Some people dream of a gentle retirement enjoying crochet or cricket, but for two sexagenarians, a more cadaverous future awaits… Newly retired teachers, Etta and Dora, take a walk along an old mule track connecting their mountain-top villages, each hoping to soothe the distress she feels at the paltry pension she will receive. Meeting at the fabled Witches’ Cave, they put aside their woes – the naked body of Sibilla, Castelmezzano’s beautiful witch, lies dead at the foot of the old oak tree. Did she plummet from the sky during a Sabbath flight as the superstitious locals are ...

As a single mom, Hayley Powell already has a full plate - she's got deadlines to make and a teenage daughter with eyes for an aspiring singer-songwriter. But when country music superstar Wade Springer rolls into town, Hayley spies an irresistible side gig: personal chef to her all-American idol. After he tries her home cooking, Wade's so impressed that he hires her on the spot - and invites her to dine with him alone.

Every year, Key West’s week long Mardi Gras-style festival has tourists and locals alike lining up for costumed revelry and delicious eats. Key Zest magazine has assigned Hayley to write a piece on the fest’s grab-and-go food, so she’s planning on hitting up the mobile eateries while checking out the party preparations. Hayley’s office mate, Danielle, recently elected Queen of Fantasy Fest, is also buzzing between festivities and fundraisers. But then a former royal rival gets taken out.

Food critic Hayley Snow and her pal Miss Gloria are overjoyed to welcome Violet and Bettina Booth, aka the Scottish Scone Sisters, to Key West. The sisters will host The UK Bakes!—Key West Edition. But the same day they arrive, the bed-and-breakfast the sisters are staying in gets torched. The contest begins the next morning featuring three local bakers. One is the inn owner’s wife, Rayna, who is not only the most talented chef of the group but now a person of interest in the fire. The next night, a dogwalker discovers a body near the bed-and-breakfast.

Hayley Powell, food and cocktails columnist for Bar Harbor's Island Times, is...well, kind of broke. So when she's selected for that extreme coupon-clipping reality game show coming to town...she's thrilled, especially when her competition is nasty nurse Candace Culpepper. But when Haley stumbles across a face-down-in-the-snow Candace - scissors gleaming between her shoulders - she knows the next thing she'll be selected for will probably be a police line-up.

Welcome to The Ghoulish Gourmet—where the food is frightfully delicious and the mystery is killer. Morty Graves, a passionate Halloween enthusiast and eccentric chef, runs Hollow Creek’s most infamous spooky-themed restaurant, serving up grotesque gourmet dishes like severed fingers, eyeball pasta, and bloody beet soup. But when a real corpse shows up in his kitchen, his creepy culinary dream turns into a murder mystery nightmare. Now framed for murder and tangled in a sinister plot, Morty must uncover the secrets lurking beneath Hollow Creek’s charming surface. With twists around ...

Pelican Cove’s Favorite Resident Gunned Down! When someone close to Jenny King is found murdered on a boardwalk bench, the Magnolias are plunged into grief. Secrets from the victim's past complicate the situation. Faced with a baffling lack of suspects, Jenny has no time to mourn as she struggles to hunt for the killer. Meanwhile, Pelican Cove residents are battling a wave of mosquito infestation. Quashing the menace becomes difficult with the town ready to rebel and dwindling city funds. Muffins and Mobsters brings tragic new developments as the Magnolias must persist in the face of ...

Who better than food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell to book a caterer for the Island Times holiday party? But Hayley's quest for a cook turns into the pursuit of a killer who caters to no one....

When Hayley's idol, cookbook author and TV personality Penelope Janice, invites her to participate in a Fourth of July celebrity cook-off at her seaside estate in Seal Harbor, Maine, Hayley couldn't be more flattered. She just hopes she can measure up. With a who's who of famous chefs whipping up their signature dishes, this holiday weekend has all the ingredients for a once-in-a-lifetime culinary experience. Instead, Hayley gets food poisoning her first night and thinks she overhears two people cooking up a murder plot.

Lucky in cards, unlucky in love? At this point, Isabella thinks she’d make a fortune if she hit up a casino. Instead, Chief Dobbins insists she work with Palmer on his latest case. Jameson can’t detect any magic at the crime scene, so is the chief trying to play Cupid? More importantly, will it work? When the fraternity makes their final play at Proctor House, everyone is called into action, even long-lost family members. Hosta la Vista is the exciting conclusion to the Isabella Proctor cozy paranormal mystery series – get it today!

During the week between Christmas and New Year's, the year-round population of Key West, Florida, faces a tsunami of tourists and snowbirds. It doesn't help that outrageously wealthy key-lime-pie aficionado David Sloan has persuaded the city to host his pie-baking contest. Every pie purveyor on the island is out to win the coveted Key Lime Key to the City, and Key Zest food-critic Hayley Snow is on the scene to report it. Meanwhile, Hayley's home life is turning more tart than sweet.

If there was one piece of advice Olive Crisp always followed, it was that “one should never attempt to solve a crime on an empty stomach..." 1970s. Cambridge, England. A SMALL-TIME ART HEIST: When two separate robberies take place at the Fitzwilliam Museum simultaneously, while Olive and Hugo are visiting the galleries, they set about investigating who could have committed the crimes. A COSY COMMUNITY: Meanwhile, Blythe faces a romantic dilemma when she's forced to decide between the two conflicting sides of her heart: being a bookshop owner or becoming a wife. And Olive has to confront ...

Elly Blair welcomes the chance to escape her ex-fiance and job from hell when Grandma Imelda, ready to retire to sunny Florida, calls for her to take over her little southern cafe.Elly has no idea her grandmother has baked up magic for the unsuspecting townsfolk for thirty years–and now Grandma Imelda insists that Elly use her own hitherto unsuspected magical powers to carry on the family tradition.But Elly’s new at this stuff. Her dishes don’t turn out as full of smidgens of enchantment and dashes of wishes come true as she’d hoped. When handsome customer Rory Covington takes a ...

Hayley Snow's life has always revolved around food, but when she applies to be a food critic for a Key West style magazine, she discovers that her new boss will be Kristen Faulkner—the woman Hayley caught in bed with her boyfriend! Hayley thinks things are as bad as they can get...until the police pull her in as a suspect in Kristen's murder. Kristen was killed by a poisoned key-lime pie. Now Hayley must find out who used meringue to murder before she takes all the blame...

Food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell doesn't know what to believe when Lydia Partridge, the put-together owner of gourmet Bar Harbor Ice Cream, suddenly reveals fears that her husband may be having an affair. There's no other way to explain why Jamie, a respected professor, was spotted in a remote part of town with a much younger woman. But instead of learning the truth about the secret meeting, Lydia opens her freezer truck to find another surprise—the dead body of a summer employee . . .

Dubious diamond devotees and a dead loan shark. With the dad she thought dead suspected of murder, can she keep him from doing hard time? Elizabeth Trout thinks she must have rocks in her head. After receiving a crazy call that the father she never knew is cooling his heels in the local jail, the newlywed graphic designer posts bail and invites him home. But the family reunion loses its luster when she learns her old man is under suspicion for murder after he was found near a corpse. With the sheriff zeroing in on her dad and no other suspects on ice, Elizabeth starts her own investigation ...

When Hayley is invited to do a cooking demo on one of daytime's most popular talk shows, it's a welcome distraction from her empty nest blues. And the newfound fame certainly has its perks - especially when Olivia Redmond, the posh bacon heiress of Redmond Meats, offers Hayley a writing gig with a juicy paycheck.

Fed up with dating after a disastrous setup, the only thing Hayley wants to snuggle up to is a box of made-to-order chocolates from plus-sized, plus-mouthed chocolatier Bessie Winthrop. But when Bessie is found dead in her kitchen, only Hayley suspects that Bessie's "heart attack" might actually be a candy-coated murder.

A Cupcakes-And-Crime Caper A rock star turned lounge singer… turned killer? Superstar Roger Briars was living the high life—until his fiancé disappeared and he was accused of her murder. Now, decades later, Roger’s a semi-successful Vegas lounge singer. This time, when history repeats itself and Roger is accused of another murder, he won’t let it tank his career—not even when there’s “proof” that he’s the killer! Unfortunately, Nanna’s unwavering belief in Roger’s innocence isn’t enough to get him off the hook, and Tiffany must scramble to uncover the truth behind ...