Culinary Fiction

If Alison Kerby really wanted peace and quiet, she never should have opened the Haunted Guesthouse. The Jersey Shore lodge's latest polter-guest is Richard Harrison, the recently murdered brother of long-time resident ghost PI Paul Harrison. Alas, a beyond-the-grave brotherly reunion is nowhere in the foreseeable future - phantasmal Paul left the guesthouse months ago for parts unknown, and for all her ghost-whispering prowess, Alison has no idea how to find him. And she's going to need Paul, because Richard's isn't the only murder still unsolved.

Tainted by a recent murder, the Cherry Orchard Inn is struggling to attract guests—until celebrated portrait painter Silvia Lumiere books a room for the summer. Whitney Bloom, the inn's new manager, can't believe her good luck. Between her scrumptious scones and the painter's remarkable talent, the inn swiftly becomes the center of the Cherry Cove art scene. However, all is not the bowl of cherries it appears. There's a rotten core in the portrait painter that only Whitney and her friends can see.

Dead bodies are expected in cemeteries, but not simply thrown into an open grave. The newspaper’s notorious food reviewer had plenty of enemies in the small town of Oak Hill, Georgia. Unfortunately, it’s Emily Buchanan’s good friend Trish who is the prime suspect, since the biscuits that killed him came from her bakery. As Emily tries to balance running Eternal Rest Bed and Breakfast and working to bring her late husband’s spirit home, she also has to help clear Trish’s name. After all, someone Emily knows and trusts could never be a killer…could she?

When Nell Valenti is offered a chance to move to Tuscany to help transform an aging villa into a farm-to-table cooking school, she eagerly accepts. But Nell gets more than she bargained for when she arrives. With only a day to go until the launch dinner for the cooking school, the villa is in shambles, and Chef O is blissfully oblivious of the work that needs to be done before a group of local dignitaries arrive, along with a filmmaker. The situation only worsens when Nell discovers that the filmmaker is an ex-boyfriend, and he's found murdered later that night.

Before Mia Malone can sip tea at Time for a Cuppa, the charming new shop in Magic Springs, Idaho, her life changes course in downright supernatural ways. First her blossoming catering business and cooking school get a boost with the addition of an enchanting cake decorator. Then she catches the attention of the tea shop owner herself, local coven member Mahogany Medford, who's set on immersing Mia in a twisted mystery that appears all but unsolvable without a special kind of help . . .

Chloe loves her new life pouring beers and mixing cocktails at the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle town of Emerald Cove. On this morning’s foggy run, she spots a sailboat washed up on a sandbar. Hearing a cry, she climbs aboard the beached vessel to investigate and finds not only a mewling kitten, but also a human skeleton, in the cabin. The skeleton is tied to Chloe’s friend Ralph, whose wife disappeared on a sailboat with three other people twelve years ago. Believing his wife lost at sea, Ralph remarried. Now he finds himself a murder suspect.

Is winning a TV show contest worth your very life? Apparently so—just ask novice witch Christelle Seabright, host of the wickedly popular new Kitchen Witch Wars. Two contestants have already been eliminated by “unorthodox” means. When one of those contestants rematerializes and demands to rejoin the cast because, they argue, they were murdered and therefore not technically eliminated, Christelle doesn’t bat an eye. In the paranormal realm you can’t let such things shock you. She is much more concerned about the untimely reappearance of someone from her own past. …And then ...

On the train ride into Dundee, a horrified scream awakens Albert and Rex from their dreams and back to reality...where they discover that a woman has just witnessed a murder. It would be easy to dismiss her claim; she saw something in the window of a house as the train went by, but when there are dangerous men waiting for her at Dundee station, Albert has to accept she might be onto something. Stepping in to defend the woman on the train, they soon find themselves embroiled in something far more sinister than they could have imagined.

Everyone adores Miss May, except the guilty. In a small town where neighbors know each other, lawn chairs come out in the spring; if you sit around chatting long enough, someone brings you pie; and there are still skeletons in every closet. Luckily for Pine Grove, Miss May has a nose for crime. The body was found face-down in the orchard.

When Ian and Tiffany’s cousin is accused of murder, the duo scramble to try to discover the real culprit. Unfortunately, a new detective has them in his cross-hairs and seems determined to make their lives miserable – and he seems to barely know what a real suspect is. While there’s no shortage of suspects, Tiffany and Ian have their work cut out for them – and things are made worse when they discover their cousin hiding secrets of her own. Meanwhile, Tiffany’s family enlists Ian to ‘help’ with her love life—help that Tiffany is initially open to accepting, until she ...

Ella Mae LeFaye's delicious pies are still drawing long lines, as well as the attention of Beatrice Burbank, president of the Camellia Club, a philanthropic organization comprised of high-society Southern ladies from the charming and affluent town of Sweet Briar, Georgia. To ensure the success of their centennial dessert cookbook, Bea hires Ella Mae to teach the tasty tricks of her trade to the club's members at their annual retreat.

Amateur sleuth Sloan Krause returns in The Pint of No Return, another delightful cozy by Ellie Alexander - this time investigating a movie star who's murdered not long after arriving in Leavenworth, Wash., to film his latest project. No other festival compares to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, Washington. The whole town is buzzing with excitement over this year’s activities and eagerly awaiting Nitro’s latest offering, Cherrywizen, made with locally sourced cherries. But local brewmaster Sloan Krause is tapped out.

Montana, my favorite place. I didn't purposely find the building there, honest. But man, am I glad that I did. Billings is a great place to open an authentic Italian restaurant. My siblings will get used to the much smaller city, at least it's not a tiny town like a lot of the other places in Montana. We're opening a restaurant because it's been our dream since we were little kids. We all loved cooking with Nonna every afternoon. She taught us how to make all her authentic Italian recipes. We've been saving every penny since we were old enough to earn money and we're finally ready. I was ...

Half of us are married, four more to go. I will be last, I'm always last. That's just how it always is. I liked it that way, I never had anyone anxiously waiting behind me. My three single brothers will find their girls quickly, and then it'll be my turn. I was worried about Enzo and Nico, they were not ready for marriage until recently. But they were doing a lot better since we moved here and opened the restaurant. Something about finally making our dream happen really helped them grow up. I think that moving to Montana, and leaving their childhood home behind, is what did it. That was ...

A Cupcakes-and-Crime Caper When an organized crime syndicate decides to come after Tiffany and Rosie, the duo must act quickly to ensure the safety of their loved ones. But when a syndicate employee attempting to help Tiffany is found dead, she insists on getting to the bottom of it all. Can Tiffany, Stone and Rosie handle these dangerous criminals? Will this be their last investigation? Praise for A.R. Winters: "The perfect balance of being lighthearted, but still a serious page-turning mystery." - Jaycie D, Amazon.com "A fun cozy mystery with engaging and entertaining characters" - lq, ...

Allison Sweet, 34, a sous chef in Los Angeles, has had it up to here with demeaning customers, her demanding boss, and her failed love life. After a shocking incident, she realizes the time has come to start life fresh and follow her lifelong dream of moving to a small town and opening a bakery of her own.

Cupcake-loving croupier Tiffany Black is transported to another era, at the urging of her friend Emily and Nanna, when she tags along to a Jane Austen convention at the Tremonte Casino. It’s an immersion overload with required period attire and activities like cream tea, lawn bowls, and Regency dancing. But it’s not all in good fun when the conference organizers hire Tiffany to investigate the murder of Robert Darcy, a member of their Board of Directors. What killed the real-life Mr. Darcy: pride or prejudice? While Tiffany investigates, her thoughts are never far from Ryan and Stone. ...

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.

Hedgewitch Katie Lightfoot is juggling wedding preparations, a visit from her father, and home renovations on top of her long hours at the Honeybee Bakery, where she and her aunt Lucy imbue their yummy cookies and pastries with beneficial magic. But when firefighter Randy Post is accused of murdering a collector of rarities, and his prints are on the statue that was used to kill the man, Katie steps in.

Old Town's midsummer festivities are getting a tasty addition this year. To coincide with a public performance of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Bobbie Sue Bodoin, the Queen of Cheesecake, has hired Sophie to organize a dinner with a dessert buffet on the waterfront. Bobbie Sue has only one menu demand: no cheesecake! But her specialty isn't the only thing missing from the evening—Tate, Bobbie Sue's husband, is too, much to her annoyance. Next morning, however, Tate's dead body is discovered.