Culinary Mystery

Slightly hobbled by a twisted ankle, crime-solving restaurateur Aunty Lee begrudgingly agrees to take a rest from running her famous cafe, Aunty Lee's Delights, and turns over operations to her friend and new business partner Cherril. The cafe serves as a meeting place for an animal rescue society that Cherril once supported. They were forced to dissolve three years earlier after a British expat killed the puppy she'd adopted, sparking a firestorm of scandal.

Abigail’s dream of owning a tearoom in her California beach town is about to come true. She’s got the lease, the start-up funds, and the scone recipes. But she’s out of a tearoom and into hot water when her realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead. Not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion. Convinced his tarot room is in the cards, he’s not letting go of the building without a fight.

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.

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?

Food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell usually reserves judgement for local cuisine, not the people who serve it. But staying neutral isn't so easy when caught between the biggest seafood rivals in town—her BFF Mona Barnes and the successful Leighton clan. Adding to a bitter decades-old surf-turf war between family businesses, a modern Romeo and Juliet story unfolds as Mona's son gets engaged to the daughter of her sworn enemy.

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.

Bake-off fever is in full-swing and Donna can’t help but have visions of becoming the next great baking star, but the competition is stiff, and someone is willing to kill to win. When one of the contestants is found dead, a twist of fate puts Donna at the center of the competition. That’s the perfect position to unravel the mystery, but only if she doesn’t get caught in the crosshairs.

Owning the Charmed Pie Shoppe and serving enchanted treats in the magical town of Havenwood, Georgia, seemed like a little slice of heaven for Ella Mae LeFaye. But now her hopes for both a lasting romance with Hugh Dylan and business success are starting to seem like pie in the sky, and Ella's left wondering: Where has the magic gone?

Mystery bookstore owner Tricia Miles has been spending more time solving whodunits than reading them. Now a nearby gas explosion has injured Tricia's sister's boyfriend, Bob Kelly, the head of the Chamber of Commerce, and killed the owner of the town's history bookstore. Tricia's never been a fan of Bob, but when she reads that he's being tight-lipped about the "accident", it's time to take action.

Since Amber started the Bad Girls’ Detective Agency, she’s been feeling the pressure. So – when she and her best friends win a trip to a new luxury castle retreat on a remote island – she hopes it will be a chance to relax in style. The girls are all excited to experience world-famous chef Valerie la Fontaine’s tasting menu. But none of them expect there to be another dish being served that weekend: revenge. And when Valerie is found dead inside a locked room in a tower, the Bad Girls know this is a case that only they can solve…

Professional foodie Samantha Barnes has a simple Christmas list: a quiet holiday at home with her dog and a certain handsome harbor master; no embarrassing viral videos; and no finding dead bodies. Unfortunately she’s got family visiting, she’s spending a lot of time in front of the camera, and she’s just stumbled over the lifeless body of the town’s Santa Claus.

Karen Rose Smith presents Book 10 in the Daisy's Tea Garden Mystery series.

When a mysterious group of vampire hunters target Hazel’s friend Britt, Hazel’s going to have to work more closely with the hot deputy, Elliot James. But her sleuthing efforts put Hazel in the crosshairs of a brutal shifter gang who think she’s on the side of the vampires. The shifter gang is more than dangerous—they have secret ties to at least one of the men in Hazel’s life, which has her questioning who she can really trust. And the more she gets to know Elliot, the more she wonders who he really is behind those dark, intense eyes.

When a woman living under a cloud of suspicion for her husband's death comes to vintage kitchen collector Jaymie Leighton with a mysterious request, she's not sure whether, or how much, to get involved. The police believe they have new evidence of foul play in what was initially ruled an accidental death, and the woman's terrified they'll try to pin the crime on her. Before Jaymie can decide whether to help her, though, the woman's found murdered in the woods near Jaymie's cabin.

Chagrin Falls, Ohio, is gorgeous in the fall, and Bronwyn Crewse, owner of Crewse Creamery, knows just how to welcome the new season. At the annual Harvest Time Festival, residents will get a chance to enjoy hot-air balloons and hayrides, crown a new Harvest Time Festival Queen, and eat delicious frozen treats sold at Win's freshly purchased ice cream truck. But she gets into a sprinkle of trouble when a festivalgoer is poisoned and Win is implicated.

There are no more secrets. The truth is out there for everyone to see. And now, Jill has to make the most important decision of her life.

As the holiday season lights up Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece's beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition—a peppermint bark-off—along with Victorian costumes for this year's Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend's brother for the first time. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper's mind.

Riley Rhodes, travel food blogger and librarian at the CIA, makes a bittersweet return to her childhood home of Penniman, Connecticut—land of dairy farms and covered bridges—for a funeral. Despite the circumstances, Riley’s trip home is sprinkled with reunions with old friends, visits to her father’s cozy bookshop on the town green, and joyful hours behind the counter at the beloved Udderly Delicious Ice Cream Shop. When her friend Caroline's brother Mike turns up dead in the barn the morning after the funeral, the peace and quiet of Penniman seems upended for good.

There’s bad news for Samantha Warren: the plucky Houston, Texas, reporter lost her job and her fiancé in rapid succession. But Sam has a way of making lemonade out of the bitterest of lemons.

Now that her moonshine shop is up and running, Hattie Hayes can focus her efforts on expanding her fledgling business to events in the area, like the Chattanooga Choo Choo Model Train Convention, which is running full steam ahead at the convention center down the block. Hattie is all aboard, seizing this perfect opportunity to promote her Southern homebrew to the folks who have come to the city for the annual event. But when an attendee dies after drinking some of Hattie’s moonshine, she’ll need to prove her innocence.