Culinary Fiction

The island fishing village of Eastport has plenty of salty local character. It also has a sweet side, thanks to Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree, her best friend Ellie, and their waterfront bake shop. This summer, Eastport's favorite lovebirds, kindergarten teacher Sharon Sweetwater and Coast Guard Captain Andy Devine‚ are getting married. The gala reception is sure to be the fête of the season, especially with a wedding-cake-sized whoopie pie. But the celebratory air, and sweet smell of success‚ are ruined by foul murder.

Restaurant critic Derek Schumaker, notorious for his bitter reviews, is about to visit Daisy's Tea Garden, and Daisy and Aunt Iris are simmering with anxiety. A bad word from the culinary curmudgeon could really hurt their business. But how can he resist her cucumber sandwiches with pimento spread - not to mention the cheesy cauliflower soup and strawberry walnut salad? Schumaker takes a to-go order when the afternoon tea service is done, which Daisy hopes is a good sign. But when he perishes from a seizure, it looks like his food was dosed with something deadly.

The theft of a friend’s priceless, family-legacy Christmas ornaments brings amateur detective and culinary expert, Sadie Hoffmiller, back on the case in a new standalone cozy mystery.

Daisy bakes a little murder into every pie she creates, and she and her dog, Zoe, deliver them to the town’s worst cads. Now, Daisy’s entered a televised, elimination-style competition and has a shot at $100k in prize money—but she still has a murder pie to deliver between filming. In a completely unexpected turn of events, she discovers that her intended victim is one of the competition judges, and he turns up dead before the pie even arrives. Now, Daisy has to solve the murder before someone calls foul play and exposes her murderous secret.

Summer in Eastport means lobsters and blueberries, though tourists and locals alike always leave a little room for baked goods from The Chocolate Moose. This year’s arts festival, featuring food, games, and rollicking local musicians, means even more sweet-toothed customers. But it’s also bringing competition from a new rival, Choco’s, that’s trying to slice into the action.

Shiloh Bellamy can hardly believe it—for the first time in her family farm's seventy-year history, she has managed to score a highly-coveted booth at the Cherry Farm Market in Traverse City, Michigan. It's a huge win in her master plan to bring the rundown farm back to life… and the fact that her coup has sent her next-door neighbor and organic farming competitor into fits of jealousy doesn't hurt, either.

When a vineyard accident during harvest season leaves Lucie Montgomery without a valuable employee, it's her worst nightmare. But before she can search for a replacement, there's more bad news: Paul Merchant, her winery manager's husband, is found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool. Police rule Paul's death an accident, but his wife insists he was murdered because of his leadership of Don't Pave Paradise, a conservationist group lobbying to keep the region's beautiful country roads unpaved. And six weeks ago, Paul's predecessor also died under mysterious circumstances.

Bird Nichols is ready to make a fresh start in a familiar place. Last year, her parents died together in a car crash and her beloved grandmother is presumed dead from an ocean drowning. Bird is now moving onto her grandmother's California coastal property, and finally living out her dream. Bird loves cheese like nothing else. It's her autistic special interest, and she designs her boards along her sensory needs, and other people love them, too. But just when everything seems to be going right, the local troublemaker ends up dead on her rural road.

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.

When it comes to Eastwind's annual cook-off, witch Nora Ashcroft is in it to win it. It's the perfect opportunity to introduce her delectable queso recipe to the magical town of Eastwind, and she'll do whatever it takes to keep Donovan from beating her. But after someone tampers with her appetizer, causing a whole gaggle of ghosts to blow in on the breeze, the psychic finds herself with a big, cheesy mess on her hands. Can Nora find who sabotaged her entry, or will the restaurant owner's reputation be fried to a crisp?

In a triumph for Mia's catering business and cooking school, Mia's Morsels is chosen to host a fall festival event in their Idaho mountain town-which means managing a bunch of stage moms and their social-media obsessed daughters as they get ready for the big beauty contest. There's a lot riding on the results of the Harvest Moon Festival-it's where the local coven leader is chosen for the following year.

It's springtime in Cedar River, Texas. The annual Bluebonnet Festival is brewing, and the whole town is in harmony. Juni Jessup and her sisters Tansy and Maggie thought opening Sip & Spin Records was going to be their biggest hurdle, but the Frappuccino hits the fan when the mayor drops dead—poisoned by their delicious coffee. Since Tansy was the one to brew the coffee, and Juni was the unfortunate citizen who stumbled upon the mayor's body, the sisters find themselves in hot water. Family is everything to the Jessups, so with Tansy under suspicion, the sisters spring into action.

It seemed like a simple case: the murder of Lewis Trenton, a beachcomber who lived alone in a cabin in the Oregon hills. But the newspaper article piques the interest of Vivian Wainwright, owner of the British-style Misty Bay Tearoom. The photo accompanying the article shows Lewis’s cluttered living room and on the shelf is a replica of Big Ben. Vivian is sure she sold the clock a week before in her shop. Who could have given the replica to Lewis? What was the true motive behind Lewis’s murder? And what secrets can the clock tell—before the killer strikes again?

Plum Lockhart went out on a limb when she ditched her corporate job in New York City and moved to the Caribbean island of Paraiso. Now the head of her own villa broker agency, she spends her days chasing down clients and lounging on white-sand beaches.

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.

Hana Keller is getting ready for a lovely holiday season. When she receives a rare tea set as a birthday gift, she decides to host a tea at her apartment for her closest friends. During the cozy get-together, one of Hana's friends gets word that a murderer is on the loose. Hana soon learns that the victim was Sandor Balog, a professor of Hungarian studies at the local college. With her growing psychic ability, Hana senses that she is going to be pulled into the investigation of the professor's death. With her boyfriend, Erik, on the case, Hana finds the Tea House steeped in suspects.

Nell Valenti is settling into her role of transforming the Villa Orlandini into a superb farm-to-table cooking school, and the time has finally come for a full taste test run. But when Chef Orlandini prepares to reveal his top secret marinara recipe for the first time to a group of American gastro-tourists, Nell realizes she might have bitten off more than she can chew.

Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough when he's alive - but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic tile after hours is much worse. Marcus had his enemies, and the cast iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime suspect.

A tattoo parlor on Victoria Square? Some of the merchants get hot under the collar at the proposal, but could they be driven to kill to stop it? That's what the sheriff's office and Katie Bonner want to know when the building's owner is electrocuted with his own saw. Meanwhile, tensions rise when a hot chef takes over the square's tea shop. Will Katie have three men vying for her affections, or will her rival take the tea cake?

Baker Winnie Johnson does her best work when the heat is on. As owner of the Emergency Dessert Squad, she has a deft touch in the kitchen and a soft spot for lost causes. So when her business professor beau, Jay Morgan, expresses misgivings over having to fail one of his fourth-year students, Winnie cooks up a sweet solution. She'll offer an extra credit opportunity in exchange for a little help with her growing business. But when her protégé's first dessert delivery poisons a student journalist, the publicity threatens to burn Winnie's business to a crisp.