Culinary Fiction

Follow the aroma of shamrock sugar cookies to the Beacon Bakeshop, a lighthouse on the shores of Lake Michigan where amateur sleuth Lindsey Bakewell is busy preparing for Beacon Harbor's St. Patrick's Day festivities—with a little help from her adorable Newfoundland, Wellington, of course!

Vintage cookware collector Jaymie Müller is stunned when an irate woman accuses her pharmacist friend Val of tampering with her prescription. When more unfounded accusations follow, it seems clear the woman has a personal grudge against Val. But before they can figure out why, Jaymie and Val stumble upon the woman's dead body on the steps of Val's pharmacy. Given her altercations with the woman and the location of the body, the police naturally suspect Val.

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.

Lacey Doyle, 39 years old and freshly divorced, has made a drastic change: She has walked away from the fast life of New York City and settled down in the quaint English seaside town of Wilfordshire. Everything’s going perfectly - until someone mysteriously dies in her friend’s new B&B. Their village turned upside down and her new friend’s livelihood now in jeopardy, it’s up to Lacey and her dog to get to the bottom of the mystery.

Cherry enthusiast Whitney Bloom is furiously baking her way into the heart of Chicago with her fabulous cherry pies when she receives a desperate call from her mother. The annual Cherry Blossom Festival has just kicked off at the Cherry Orchard Inn in Door County, Wisconsin, and the manager of the Bloom family orchard had been found dead beneath the cherry blossoms. Worse yet, all evidence points to Whitney's father as the killer.

Life is all sugar and spice for the Fairy Tale Cupcake bakers - Melanie Cooper is engaged to the delectable Joe DeLaura, Angie Harper and her husband Tate are savoring married life, and the bakery is bustling with happy customers...until one of their most valued cupcake connoisseurs ends up dead. Local glass artist and cupcake lover Rene Fischer-Klein has always suffered from a wide variety of health issues.

With Angie and Tate's wedding just around the corner, it's a happy time for Melanie Cooper and the bakery crew. Not only are they finessing the last-minute details of the big day, but their bakery, Fairy Tale Cupcakes, has just been hired to bake cupcakes for the blockbuster book signing of a controversial author who wrote a steamy best seller filled with juicy local gossip. But one by one, the people Angie has hired to work the wedding begin turning up dead. As the body count rises, the best-selling author is the next to bite the dust.

Melanie Cooper has zero interest in catering her 15-year high school reunion, but Angie insists it’s only right that they bask in the success of Fairy Tale Cupcakes - and Mel’s engagement to the delicious Joe DeLaura is the cherry on top! Everything is going better than expected until Mel’s high school nemesis picks a fight. No longer willing to put up with Cassidy Havers’s bullying, Mel is ready to tell the former homecoming queen to shut her piehole and call it a night. But as Mel and Joe prepare to depart, Cassidy is found dead in the girls’ bathroom....

Love is in the air at FairyTale Cupcakes as Angie prepares for her wedding, but, at the same time, her co-owner, Mel, is about to help with a breakup. Mel's old friend Diane has decided to dump her fiancé after discovering he's only marrying her for her money. She wants Mel to personally deliver a batch of caramel breakup cupcakes to the louse and give her a play-by-play of his reaction. But when Mel finally tracks the man down, the look on his face isn't what she expected: he's dead.

Melanie and Angie are taking a gamble by opening their first franchise of the bakery, and where better to hit the jackpot than Vegas? Holly Hartzmark is a former showgirl who's looking to bring Mel and Angie's sweet treats to Sin City, but Mel isn't so sure she's ready to hand her recipes over to a complete stranger - especially one as brash as Holly. But after the potential bakery location gets blown up, Mel begins seeing another side to Holly.

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.

Wegen dem Golfclub ist Niederkaltenkirchen eh schon gespalten wie ein Holzscheit, aber jetzt liegt auch noch der Steckerlfischkönig höchstselbst und mausetot in der clubeigenen Spa-Landschaft. Der Franz ermittelt unter dubiosen Volksfestclans und golfenden Schickimickiarschlöchern, während seine Susi ganz andere Pläne hat: Sie kandidiert als Bürgermeisterin, was beim aktuellen Dorfoberhaupt hochgradig nervöse Zuckungen auslöst.

Who knew a simple trip to the consignment store would find Wendy being strong-armed by two strangers? So not allowed—especially as it could affect Doreen getting her month-end check! Trying to get to the bottom of this is one convoluted story to sort out. Corporal Mack Moreau is not at all happy with Doreen’s new male friend, Bernard, who has the money to keep her in the style she was accustomed to. However, Mack is happy Doreen is staying out of his cases. If only she could stay out of trouble! Then again, Doreen can find trouble like this without any effort on her part.

Mia Carina has steered her Italian-American family's Astoria, Queens catering hall into becoming the borough's premiere party site, and nothing could make her happier—except her boyfriend proposing. There's just one presumed-dead obstacle in the way.

Poppy is none too pleased when her B&B is coerced into participating in the Cape May Haunted Dinners Tour during Halloween season. Though her knack for finding dead bodies has given the place a spooky reputation, the Murder House is a completely undeserved nickname. At least it used to be. While Poppy wrangles with some guests who can't stop squabbling with each other—including a paranormal researcher, a very quirky pet psychic who freaks out her portly Persian, and an undercover tabloid reporter eager to catch her staff in a lie—one of them winds up facedown in a plate of tiramisu.

Normally Mel and Angie wouldn't be caught dead at a beauty pageant, but when their bakery is asked to provide cupcakes for the 75th annual Sweet Tiara contest, they can't say no. Between cooking up a daily display for the three-day event and sponsoring a cupcake creation challenge for the participants, Fairy Tale Cupcakes will get great publicity. A high-strung judge targets Lupe, a young friend of Mel and Angie's, at the competition, though, and aims to take her out - by any means necessary.

When the going gets tough, Ella Mae LaFaye bakes pies. So when she catches her husband cheating in New York, she heads back home to Havenwood, Georgia, where she can drown her sorrows in fresh fruit filling and flaky crust. But her pies aren't just delicious. They're having magical effects on the people who eat them, and the public is hungry for more. Discovering her hidden talent for enchantment, Ella Mae makes her own wish come true by opening the Charmed Pie Shoppe.

Theodosia's Honey Bee Tea was an elegant affair set in Charleston's new Petigru Park amid newly planted native grasses and a community beekeeping project. But when a phony beekeeper shows up and sprays toxic smoke at the guests, the party erupts in chaos. Worse yet, a shot rings out and Osgood Claxton III, candidate for state legislature, falls to the ground—dead.

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, loves a good festival, especially one serving up tasty treats. So what could be more fun than a food walk in the city's Chinatown-International District? But when her friend Roxanne stumbles across a man's body in the Gold Rush, a long-closed residential hotel, questions leap out. Who was he? What was he doing in the dust-encrusted herbal pharmacy in the hotel's basement? Why was the pharmacy closed up—and why are the owners so reluctant to talk?

Fired. Tara Holloway can't believe it. After all she's done for the IRS, a few too many shots fired from her weapon and suddenly she's public enemy number one. To add insult to injury, another agent has replaced her, and a 10-million-dollar assault case is hanging over her head. So much for traveling to Tokyo with Special Agent Nick Pratt, former partner and current boyfriend. Tara's stuck in Texas, and using green tea ice cream to soothe her disappointment, as well as the terrifying prospect of a life behind bars.