Culinary Fiction

A baker opens up a new pastry shop exclusively for pets—but has to do a sleuthing job on the side when a chef turns up dead....

Kelsie's idyllic farm is falling apart. The need for a serious injection of cash leads her to invite the higher ups from a multi-level marketing company to her place for their annual retreat. Unfortunately, the company founder is allergic to the kittens. To make peace, Kelsie moves them to the barn, but on her way back, she trips over the body of the company hype man. His murder sets off a chain of shocking revelations, and a family's dark secrets are uncovered in the deadliest way possible. As suspects abound, Kelsie reprises the role of amateur detective to protect her friends and felines.

Can a stalled murder investigation in Halcyon Springs pull Izzie Di Sante back into investigative journalism? The mere thought of getting involved shifts Izzie's mind into overdrive. A former reporter turned restaurant owner, she's determined to find out everything she can. Only the more she discovers about Drew Scanlon’s murder and his new wife’s hurried placement in a psychiatric facility, the more questions she has. Nothing adds up in Izzie’s mind, spurring her to delve deeper while doing her best to balance her search for justice with her responsibilities at the restaurant.

Irene Foxglove wishes she were a French chef. Henrietta James, her assistant, knows she is nothing more than a small-time TV chef on a local Chicago channel. And yet when Irene is threatened, Henny tries desperately to save her, wishing always that “Madame” would tell her the truth - about her marriage, her spoiled daughter, her days in France, the man who threatens her. Henny’s best friend, the gay guy who lives next door, teases her, encourages her, and shares meals with her, even as she wishes for more.

Big business might be ruthless, but Lucie Rizzo learned to take the heat from the best: Her mob boss father. Except instead of cooking the books, she’s mixing up her next moneymaking expansion. But her BFF-turned-partner isn’t sold on the idea. Ro is the creative genius - not to mention the boobs - of their operation, but Lucie has the discerning business palate. And this venture smells like sweet success. All they need is the right investor. French chef Antoine Durand made casseroles sexy again. His closely guarded secret recipe built a billion-dollar empire.

After a heated argument, the local dog catcher, Jack, is found dead in the back of Penny's animal shelter. Now she's the prime suspect and must enlist the help of her seamstress neighbor, Linda, and her chubby Dachshund, Piper, with whom she has a rather peculiar connection. Will Penny unveil the killer before she is left paying for a crime she didn’t commit?

I always thought weddings were supposed to be about joining lives...Not ending them. But when an unexpected guest shows up dead on the beach and the groom seems to be hiding more than just cold feet, I need to take my chef's hat off and don my deerstalker once again. Who was this mysterious stranger that came to town claiming to be a long lost relative, and why is she now dead? Who is the groom really, and are his intentions for my friend pure?

Liddy Crawford, best friend of food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell, is getting married. The wedding is the talk of the town in Bar Harbor, Maine, including snide gossip about the age gap between the bride and her groom, local lawyer Sonny Lipton. But the cruelty of the comments is nothing compared to the nasty wedding-cake baker, Liddy's quarrelsome cousin Lisa. So when the belligerent baker is found facedown in a three-tier cake, the victim of a poisoned slice, there are more suspects in town than names on the guest list.

After a boat blows up on the lake, no one can seem to figure out who was killed in the blast. DNA records proved one thing with the burnt bones, yet someone else is missing from the scene. When another body shows up and their missing person remains missing, the ladies dig deep to find the truth behind it all. Soon, they realize they may not just be dealing with a killer but someone with a very elaborate plan involving money. And what they are looking for may not be too far from where they are.

Finding herself as the guest of honor at a surprise party for her 55th birthday, Nora is thankful for the wonderful friends and family with whom she has been blessed. She’s also grateful for how long it has been since ending up knee-deep in a murder mystery. For years, her days have been filled with delicious baking and fantastic times with loved ones. Life is good Then her housekeeper is found dead, poisoned by berries. To make things worse, the new sheriff seems determined to brush her death off and move on. But Nora knows this wasn’t an accident.

When a lawyer turns up dead and Tally's cousin is implicated in the crime, Tally must clear her cousin's name before everyone's happiness melts away.

Hadley James is finally living the life she’s always wanted: making jam and selling it at the local farmers market. When a cat-sitting job turns into a murder investigation, life no longer seems so perfect. Her twin brother, a deputy sheriff, is on the case but they’ve always done everything together and she can’t help but get involved. Following a trail of crafty clues, the James twins learn that their sleepy town might be harboring more darkness than they could’ve imagined.

Tallulah Jones is met with another string of murders begging to be investigated, but doing so plunges her into a world of petty rivalries with a sprinkle of adultery.

She may be a crime-scene photographer, but that doesn't mean Marian Moyer is ready to star in her own murder mystery. Most days, she can't even control her hair. But when the star of Marian's racy underground magazine turns up dead and the police are convinced she's the guilty party, it's up to Marian to find out who really did it before it's too late. While danger isn't exactly her middle name, there's plenty to go around, especially when Marian begins to suspect that her long-time man crush is behind it all.

Autumn on the Maine coast is stunning, which brings the tourists out in droves. My restaurant, the Little Dog Diner, is teeming with them, thanks to the locally famous fall festival. Usually that's a great thing...this year, however, the discovery of a dead body puts a damper on business awfully fast. Add to that the fact that the victim had a vendetta against almost every small business owner in town, and now I've landed right in the middle of the very long and tedious suspect list.

The gourmet detective realizes that the Alpine Springs health resort is not a typical spa somewhere in the middle of his first cocktail. For this epicure, it is paradise - and it may also be his doom. He has come from London to speak about fine dining, but while here, he fully intends on enjoying himself. One night, he arranges a tryst with a fellow expert. When he comes to, Kathleen has vanished, and the detective begins to suspect that life in the Alps is not as healthful as it appears.

Amateur detective and caterer Faith Fairchild is at her Penobscot Bay, Maine, cottage preparing for a summer wedding when she stumbles across...another body in this 25th entry in the beloved mystery series. For the first time in years, Faith Fairchild has time for herself. Her husband, Tom, is spending days on the other side of the island using a friend’s enhanced Wi-Fi for a project; their son, Ben, after his first year in college, is studying abroad for the summer; and their daughter, Amy, is working at the old Laughing Gulls Lodge, now a revamped conference center.

Yes. I'm the daughter of the infamous couple, June Heal and Oscar Park. One teeny weeny problem, I'm a mortal. Yep. I guess I got my granny Darla's DNA. Good news! I might not have spiritual powers but I have a mean set of baking skills. I'm delighted to be moving out of Whispering Falls, where y'all know I can't live since I'm mortal, and to Celestial Falls, another small Southern town where I'm opening Heavenly Desserts. Of course, The Marys wouldn't let me leave unless I took my new kitten with me.

Spices are flying off the shelves of Spice It Up!, and Piper Prescott couldn’t be happier. It's that time of year again - time for the annual Brandywine Creek Barbecue Festival. Soon contestants and BBQ aficionados from all over the Southeast will converge on the town. Many of Brandywine Creek's citizens plan to participate in the week-long festivities and are busily concocting savory rubs and sassy sauces. Among the locals vying for the grand prize are Becca Dapkins and Maybelle Humphries.

Lucie Montgomery and winemaker Quinn Santori have decided to make champagne, a first for the Montgomery Estate Vineyard in Atoka, Virginia. But then Gino Tomassi, Quinn's uncle, turns up on their doorstep, demanding help in solving the mystery of what happened to Zara Tomassi, the first wife of his grandfather, who died in a San Francisco hotel in 1923 under suspicious circumstances. It seems there's no coincidence that her death came the day after President Warren Harding passed away in that same hotel.