Food Fiction

Who better than food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell to book a caterer for the Island Times holiday party? But Hayley's quest for a cook turns into the pursuit of a killer who caters to no one....

Margo Everson sees the call out for the cookbook club and knows she’s found her people. Recently dumped by her self-absorbed husband, who frankly isn’t much of a loss, she has little to show for her marriage but his "parting gift"—a dilapidated old farm house—and a collection of well-loved cookbooks. Aja Alexander just hopes her newfound friends won’t notice that that every time she looks at food, she gets queasy. It’s hard hiding a pregnancy, especially one she can’t bring herself to share with her wealthy boyfriend and his snooty mother.

Food critic Hayley Snow and her pal Miss Gloria are overjoyed to welcome Violet and Bettina Booth, aka the Scottish Scone Sisters, to Key West. The sisters will host The UK Bakes!—Key West Edition. But the same day they arrive, the bed-and-breakfast the sisters are staying in gets torched. The contest begins the next morning featuring three local bakers. One is the inn owner’s wife, Rayna, who is not only the most talented chef of the group but now a person of interest in the fire. The next night, a dogwalker discovers a body near the bed-and-breakfast.

This isn’t exactly what Dad had in mind when he took his son on a mission trip to the South American rain forest. But he should have known better. After all, we are talking about Wally-If-Anything-Can-Go-Wrong-It-Will McDoogle. My Life as Crocodile Junk Food keeps listeners laughing as Wally stumbles into a whole new set of impossible (and man-eating) predicaments...until he finally understands the need and joy of sharing Jesus Christ with others.

Join Jackie Norwood, a down-and-out celebrity chef, as she judges the first gig on her comeback quest—a Texas Crab Festival cooking contest. This new venture takes an unexpected twist when she discovers that her archnemesis, Heather Curtis, is her co-judge. As if that weren’t enough to stir the pot, one of the competitors is Chef Benjy Hayes, Jackie’s long-lost ex-boyfriend.

Fed up with dating after a disastrous setup, the only thing Hayley wants to snuggle up to is a box of made-to-order chocolates from plus-sized, plus-mouthed chocolatier Bessie Winthrop. But when Bessie is found dead in her kitchen, only Hayley suspects that Bessie's "heart attack" might actually be a candy-coated murder.

For the Nameless Restaurant, once a discreet hole-in-the-wall meant for a cast of supernatural regulars, the increasing levels of background magic has brought with it that most dreadful of locusts—new customers. The staff of the Nameless Restaurant are finding the influx of new customers—both mortal and magical—to be a challenge. They're reaching a breaking point, and something has to give. The only question is, will it be Mo Meng's rules on magic or the restaurant itself?

Meet Pepper, swim team captain, chronic overachiever, and all-around perfectionist. Her family may be falling apart, but their massive fast-food chain is booming - mainly thanks to Pepper, who is barely managing to juggle real life while secretly running Big League Burger’s massive Twitter account. Enter Jack, class clown and thorn in Pepper’s side. He works in his family’s deli. His relationship with the business might be love/hate, but when Big League Burger steals his grandma’s iconic grilled cheese recipe, he’ll do whatever it takes to take them down, one tweet at a time.

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.

This box set includes the first three books in Lucy Burdette's cozy culinary Key West Food Critic Mystery series: An Appetite for Murder, Death in Four Courses, and Topped Chef.

The third in the Corinna Chapman series, Devil's Food is another irresistible, criminally entertaining read from the master crime writer, Kerry Greenwood.

Corinna Chapman, baker extraordinaire and amateur sleuth, returns in another delicious mystery.

In an attempt to woo tourists to Jewel Bay and cheer up the townies, Erin Murphy, manager of the specialty local foods market known as the Merc, is organizing the First Annual Food Lovers' Film Festival, filled with classic foodie flicks and local twists on favorite movie treats. But when her partner in planning, painter Christine Vandeberg, is found dead only days before the curtain rises, Erin suspects someone is attempting to stop the films from rolling.

Running and hiding is looked upon as a way out for the weak. It is something Omar never thought he would do. As a child, he didn't even play hide-and-seek for that very reason. Unfortunately, after being sentenced to death by his cousin, Demarcus, Omar was left with no choice. Moving to Detroit wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. It didn't take long for him to reign supreme. The change of location didn't change his conniving and coldhearted ways, however.

Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow and her groom, Police Detective Nathan Bransford, chose Scotland for their long-delayed honeymoon, hoping to sightsee and enjoy some prize-winning scones. But their romantic duo swells to a crowd when they're joined by Nathan's family as well as octogenarian Miss Gloria. Nathan's sister Vera takes the women on a whirlwind tour of some of Scotland's iconic mystic places as research for a looming book project. But the trip takes a deadly tartan turn when a dinner party guest falls ill and claims she was poisoned.

The quaint fishing village of Salmon Cove, Maine, seems like the ideal location for a girls' weekend with Hayley's gal pals, Liddy and Mona. Liddy's on the rebound from a breakup, but when she meets a handsome tourist, it looks like a little romance might liven things up. Unfortunately, Liddy's new sweetheart is found dead on the beach the next morning at the town's Lobster Bake, next to an overturned cooking pot. The liberated lobsters may be scrambling back to the sea, but Hayley's not about to let a murderer escape so easily.

This Halloween, Hayley can't imagine a worse trick than her ex-husband Danny returning to Bar Harbor. Her kids may be happy to see their dad, but Hayley's determined not to be taken in by his charms, and suspects he's in financial trouble - again. Still, the haunted holiday is about to get a whole lot scarier after Danny's moonshine - making uncle is found lying dead next to a tombstone in a cemetery - and Danny quickly becomes the prime suspect. To prove her ex is innocent, Hayley will have to dig deep into her own bag of tricks to unmask the real culprit.

Tess is a Londoner whose relationship with Richard transports her from a Jamaican diaspora in the city to the English countryside, where predatory birds hover over fields, buses run twice a day, neighbors barter honey for cider, and no one looks like her. As Tess and Richard settle in, the dramatic arrival of their fraternal twins—one who presents as black and the other as white—recasts the family dynamic, stirring up complicated feelings and questions of belonging.

Bar Harbor, Maine, is quieter in the off-season, but the population has just increased a bit with the arrival of Tim and Trudy Lancaster. Tim's taking over for a retiring minister, and Trudy runs a food truck called Wicked 'Wiches. When she stops in at the Island Times office to place an ad, Hayley happily devours the sample sub Trudy offers - and the two become fast friends. But when Trudy tragically dies in her truck while catering a Halloween party, suspicion falls on a cranky, competitive caterer who'd made veiled threats to Trudy.

Maxine Connolly has had a rough year with the loss of her mum, marriage, and job in quick succession, and she’d be the first to admit that she hasn’t been coping. But when her teenage daughter, Sophie, applies for a job at the Comfort Food Café on her behalf, Max realises she’s let things get out of hand. So when the job offer comes, Max decides to embrace this unexpected opportunity and uproot her life for a fresh start on the south coast.

Nathanaël, je t'enseignerai la ferveur. Une existence pathétique, Nathanaël, plutôt que la tranquillité. Je ne souhaite pas d'autre repos que celui du sommeil de la mort. J'ai peur que tout désir, toute énergie que je n'aurais pas satisfaits durant ma vie, pour leur survie ne me tourmentent. J'espère, après avoir exprimé sur cette terre tout ce qui attendait en moi, satisfait, mourir complètement désespéré. Que mon livre t'enseigne à t'intéresser plus à toi qu'à lui-même, puis à tout le reste plus qu'à toi.