Culinary Fiction

In the second installment of Maria DiRico's new Catering Hall Mystery series, Mia Carina is back in the borough of Queens, in charge of the family catering hall Belle View Banquet Manor, and keeping her nonna company. But some events - like murder at a shower - are not the kind you can schedule....

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.

The faculty of Willow Creek High School are having a get-together after the spring concert with refreshments provided, courtesy of Daisy's Tea Garden. Oolong tea and chocolate biscuits are just what the staff needs to help them unwind from Althea Higgins's demanding curriculum. Her lessons on such controversial subjects as school uniforms and under qualified substitute teachers are earning her an F from her colleagues. But a failing grade was preferable to Althea falling victim to foul play.

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.

The Hayes family has made moonshine in Chattanooga since the days of Prohibition, and Hattie is happy to continue the tradition, serving up fun, fruity flavors in mason jars for locals and tourists alike. All signs indicate her new 'shine shop will be a smashing success. What's more, Mounted Police Officer Marlon Landers has taken a shine to Hattie. For the first time, the stars seemed to have aligned in both her work and romantic life. But when a body ends up on her store's doorstep alongside a broken jar of her Firefly Moonshine, it might be lights out for her fledgling business.

Satisfying her hunger for epicurean adventure in the French provinces, small-town caterer and minister’s wife Faith Fairchild decides to throw the perfect dinner party. But during cleanup, after the last guest has departed her gastronomical triumph, she encounters something neither expected nor welcome: a dead body lying in her vestibule. Unfortunately it doesn’t help la belle americaine’s credibility when the corpse vanishes before the local gendarmes arrive. But Faith realizes that, though the police refuse to take her seriously, a killer just might.

Allison Sweet, 34 ans, second de cuisine à Los Angeles, ne supporte plus les clients médisants, son patron exigeant, sa vie sentimentale ratée. Un incident la contraint à prendre un nouveau départ et réaliser son rêve de toujours : ouvrir sa propre boulangerie dans une petite ville. Allison repère une adorable boutique vacante sur le front de mer, non loin de Venice. Un vrai signe du destin ! Il est temps de repartir de zéro, prendre des risques, se lancer.

Audrey’s small Sicilian town hires a new building inspector to deal with the influx of one-dollar homeowners - and he sets about making Audrey’s idyllic Sicilian life utterly miserable. Just when things can’t get any worse, the inspector turns up dead - leaving Audrey as the main suspect. Audrey, without an alibi, is under more pressure than she’s ever been to solve the crime. But the inspectors list of enemies was long.

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.

It's been years since author Thom Mortenson has been back to Garrison, Colorado. As part of the committee who invited the best-selling writer to speak at the library fundraising benefit, Sadie Hoffmiller wants everything to be perfect - right down to the homemade devil's food cake she baked herself. Certainly, murder was not on the menu. When Thom's manager ends up dead on stage, Sadie immediately offers her guidance and expertise to investigators.

With Chicago winters in the rearview mirror, Chloe Jackson is making good on a promise: helping her late friend’s grandmother run the Sea Glass Saloon in the Florida Panhandle. To Chloe’s surprise, feisty Vivi Slidell isn’t the frail retiree Chloe expects - nor is Emerald Cove. It’s less a sleepy fishing village than a panhandle hot spot overrun with land developers and tourists. But it’s a Sea Glass regular who’s mysteriously crossed the cranky Vivi. When their bitter argument comes to a head and he’s found dead behind the bar, guess who’s the number one suspect?

When Sadie Hoffmiller's new friend, Eric Burton, receives word that his missing daughter's body may have been found in Florida, he immediately packs his bags, but Sadie is determined to stay home and prove to everyone that she is not a busybody. But when she senses Eric is hiding something, Sadie is compelled to take action. Before she knows it, she's in the heart of Miami, trying to piece together a trail littered with broken relationships, mysterious strangers, and forged documents...

Sadie Hoffmiller has always liked things to be just so. A place for everything and everything in its place. Order over chaos. And of all things Sadie should be able to control, her own wedding is at the top of the list. With the big day just three weeks away, Sadie is busily adding the final touches to her wedding plans, but the arrival of a mysterious letter from San Francisco changes everything.

Something strange is going on in Spellford Cove. No one is acting quite as they should, and Robin is starting to think there might be some sort of dark magic involved. And with her new employee she knows to be working for her biological father, Robin puts a plan in place that will hopefully stop him from being able to find her. Will Robin be able to overcome the dark magic at work, or will she find herself a few layers short of a full cake?

When bakery owner Lexy Baker and her posse of iPad-toting grandmas witness a murder remotely through the camera of a drone, they go straight to Lexy's homicide detective husband, Jack, to report the crime. But with no body and no crime reported, Jack can't do a thing, leaving Lexy and her grandmother no alternative than to solve the murder themselves.

It's a steamy September, and business is brisk at Perkatory, the hottest coffee shop in Devil's Beach, Florida. Much of the clientele pours in from Dante's Inferno, the hot yoga studio next door. But the bright, sunny Gulf Coast days turn decidedly dark roast when the body of the studio's owner turns up in a nearby swamp.

The Hopeless Tigers just won the biggest football game in school history! But as often happens in the quirky yet snakebitten town of Hopeless, Idaho... there's a bit of a problem. A dead body has shown up. And as usual, Investigative reporter Hope Walker is on the scene.

When world-famous, highly reclusive author J. W. Quicksilver chooses a local book club for his first public appearance, the residents of Whispering Bay have trouble containing their excitement. That is until he's found murdered. But things are not always what they seem. It turns out that the dead man wasn't J. W. Quicksilver after all, but a shifty conman who'd been running a publishing scam leaving a mile-long trail of victims. When the real J. W. Quicksilver becomes the prime suspect in the murder, he turns to Lucy for help.

Christmas in the close-knit community of Balsam Dell promises to be especially festive for Carly Hale this year when a prominent theater company comes to town to stage A Christmas Carol. But it turns out that Scrooge is not the most ill-tempered character in the production, as blowhard actor Prescott Lennon proves when he begins berating everyone else in the cast for their poor theatrics. When his arrogant behavior threatens the production, someone decides to resolve matters with a fatal solution—and frames Carly’s friend Gina for the murder.

When Zoe gives her cousin Lauren a disastrous "trim", they run to the new hairdresser in town, who manages to fix Lauren's hair. While they're there, an angry customer storms into the salon, complaining about her perm. A few days later, Lauren and Zoe are shocked to discover the angry customer strangled right in front of the salon! Who is a suspect? Brooke, the new hair stylist? The victim's best friend? Or the victim's ex-husband who is just recovering from their bitter divorce?