Culinary Fiction

Portland is famous for its rain, hipsters, craft beers...and coffee. Sage Caplin has high hopes for her coffee cart, Ground Rules, which she runs with her business partner, Harley - a genius at roasting beans and devising new blends. That's essential in a city where locals have intensely strong opinions about cappuccino versus macchiato - especially in the case of one of Sage's very first customers. Sage finds the man's body in front of her cart, a fatal slash across his neck.

What's a kitchen witch to do when her almost-fiance leaves her suddenly single and unemployed? For Mia Malone, the answer's simple: move to her grandmother's quirky Idaho hometown, where magic is an open secret and witches and warlocks are (mostly) welcome. With a new gourmet dinner delivery business - and a touch of magic in her recipes - Mia's hopes are high. But her first catering job takes a distasteful turn when her client's body is found stabbed and stuffed under the head table.

At Campathon, an annual eco-friendly festival held on a farm outside of Portland, fans celebrate the Pacific Northwest's music scene in quintessential PDX style-with gourmet food carts, reusable utensils . . . and lots of coffee. How else to get through three days of nonstop entertainment? Sage has scored a coveted place for her Ground Rules coffee cart thanks to her new-ish boyfriend, Bax, who's friendly with Maya, one of the musicians performing.

Returning to Charm, North Carolina, for a fresh start on her wilting life is an easy decision for Everly, and opening a new seaside cafe and iced-tea shop puts the proverbial icing on her legendary lemon cakes. Everything is just peachy until a body turns up on the boardwalk outside her home and a jar of her proprietary tea is found at the victim's side. Now, Detective Grady Hays, Charm's newest and most mysterious lawman, has named Everly as his number-one suspect, and Everly's new start is about to go up in smoke unless she can dish up the real killer.

With her rent rising faster than her pie crust, bakery owner Winnie Johnson had hoped to be rescued by an inheritance from her wealthy friend and neighbor Gertrude Redenbacher. Instead all she inherits is the widow's hostile hissing tabby, Lovey, and a vintage ambulance, restored by Gertrude's late husband. As her dream crumbles, Winnie makes her final delivery - a peach pie to an elderly widower. But she finds Bart Wagner lying on his kitchen floor, smothered by a pillow.

From clam chowdahs to oysters on the half-shell, Tulia Peters' Lobstah Shack offers locals and tourists in Westham, Massachusetts, some of Cape Cod's most amazing cuisine. But when the body of Annette DiCicero is discovered in the kitchen's walk-in freezer - with a custom-made claw-handled lobster pick lodged in her neck - spoiled appetites are the least of Tulia's worries.

Sawyer Davis's new life in picturesque Sunset Cove is crumbling around her as fast as the old Victorian house she lives in. She's a chef whose matchmaking mother has left her a puppy, a bevy of single men to choose from, and a bookshop dedicated to whodunnits. Complete with a book club of amateur sleuths who live for death. When one of the members dies just after eating Sawyer's amazing truffle mac and cheese, Sawyer is immersed in an even bigger soup pot of trouble.

When the organizing committee for her upcoming high school reunion needs a caterer, Halia agrees to help out. Soon she's serving up her signature macaroni and cheese and famous chicken wings to a host of appreciative ex-classmates. Some folks have blossomed since graduation. Others, like manipulative Raynell Rollins, currently married to a former football star, haven't changed nearly enough. When Raynell is found dead the morning after the reunion, the role call of possible suspects could fill the school gymnasium. Extramarital affairs, mega-church scandals and sports secrets...

Bailey King is living the sweet life as assistant chocolatier in New York City. But then her grandmother calls with news that her grandfather's heart condition has worsened. Bailey rushes to Harvest, Ohio, where her grandparents still run Swissmen Sweets, an Amish candy shop. She finds her grandfather is doing better than she feared. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for a local Englisch developer, whom Bailey finds dead in the candy shop kitchen - with Jebediah King's chocolate knife buried in his chest.

Between trying to get her gluten-free baking business off the ground and helping her aunt remodel her old Victorian into the Butterfly House Bed and Breakfast in Cape May, New Jersey, Poppy is ready to call "Mayday"! And now Aunt Ginny - who's a handful wide-awake - is sleepwalking on her new sleeping-pill prescription and helping herself to neighbors' snacks and knickknacks. Even more alarming, a local humanitarian who worked with troubled teens is found murdered, and the police suspect the "Snack Bandit".

Auntie Poldi, sassy, brassy, and 60, moves to Sicily for a quiet alcohol-fuelled retirement. A murder spoils her plans. This is the first novel in a charming new mystery series set in Sicily and laced with Italian sensuality and humor. It features an amateur sleuth, the sassy and foul-mouthed Auntie Poldi. Recently widowed Poldi moves to Sicily in order to quietly drink herself to death with a sea view, but fate intervenes. When she finds the corpse of a young man on the beach, his face blown off with a sawn-off shotgun, she becomes a potential suspect in his murder case.

It's Wine and Chocolate Days in San Benedetto, and paranormal museum owner Maddie Kosloski has sweet dreams about her new Magic of Chocolate exhibit. Her latest attraction is a haunted Mexican whisk called a molinillo that rattles if someone lies. When Maddie visits the town's new boutique chocolate shop, she finds one of the owners dead and covered in melted cocoa.

Nothing heats up Old Town quite like the annual Pie Festival, and this year is no exception, especially since Sophie's professional rival, Natasha Smith, is barred from participating. Sophie, meanwhile, has been asked to oversee the pie eating contest. But the drama really rolls out when celebrity judge, Patsy Lee Presley, host of television's most popular cooking show, bites the crust during the competition, and Sophie's friends are suspected of the crime. As the folks of Old Town dish, the tough truth about Patsy's meteoric rise to domestic stardom begins to leak.

When a vineyard accident during harvest season leaves Lucie Montgomery without a valuable employee, it's her worst nightmare. But before she can search for a replacement, there's more bad news: Paul Merchant, her winery manager's husband, is found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool. Police rule Paul's death an accident, but his wife insists he was murdered because of his leadership of Don't Pave Paradise, a conservationist group lobbying to keep the region's beautiful country roads unpaved. And six weeks ago, Paul's predecessor also died under mysterious circumstances.

Lilah Drake's Covered Dish business discreetly provides the residents of Pine Haven, Illinois, with delicious, fresh-cooked meals they can claim they cooked themselves. But when one of her clandestine concoctions is used to poison a local woman, Lilah finds herself in a pot-load of trouble.

As the owner of Mahalia’s Sweet Tea, Halia Watkins is famous in Maryland’s Prince George’s County for her down-home cuisine. But when she has the chance to showcase her talents on national TV, she becomes the star of a murder mystery that’s too hot to handle!

Grab your tickets for Cajun Country Live!, the pickers' and crooners' answer to the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of the Crozat Plantation B&B, plans to be in the cheering section when her friend Gaynell Bourgeois takes the stage with her band, Gaynell and the Gator Girls. The festival's headliner, native daughter Tammy Barker, rocketed to stardom on a TV singing competition. When a member of Tammy's entourage is murdered at the festival, Tammy makes sure Gaynell is number one on the suspect list.

Harvest, Ohio, is a long way from New York City, where Bailey King left a coveted job as a head chocolatier to take over Swissmen Sweets, her Amish grandparents' candy shop. But between lavender blueberry fudge and chocolate cherry ganache truffles, Bailey may have bitten off more than she can chew when the search for a missing pot-bellied pig turns up a body suffering from sugar overload - the fatal kind....

Mia Malone has landed a lucrative and convenient gig, catering a reunion at the old school that's become her new business headquarters. The town swirls with rumors that St. Catherine's Preparatory is haunted, but there's one living visitor that Mia wasn't expecting - her mother. Theresa Malone stepped away from the magic that runs in Mia's family, much to the annoyance of Mia's grandmother. Soon Mia has to deal with more than personal drama when Robin Hanover, the head of the reunion committee, is murdered in one of the classrooms.

When Hope's elderly neighbor perishes in a home fire, she can't help but feel somewhat responsible. Only the day before, Peggy Olson had called her over, having burned a pot on the stove while she was sleeping and filling the house with smoke. In fact, she couldn't even remember cooking. Clearly, it was dangerous for the woman to live alone. But it turns out she wasn't alone. When a second body is discovered in the basement of the burned house, suddenly what appeared to be a tragic accident is beginning to look like premeditated murder.