Culinary Fiction

Courtney Archer is known for hosting the show Cooking with the Farmer's Daughter...despite the fact that she's actually a pediatrician's daughter. Now she's signed on for a role on The American Baking Battle. On this reality show, she can start developing a more authentic image for herself - and as a bonus, the usual backstabbing and manufactured drama isn't part of the Baking Battle script. But genuine drama is heating up behind the scenes....

In the winter of 1996, writer Michael Ruhlman donned a chef's jacket and entered the Culinary Institute of America, known as the Harvard of cooking schools, to learn the art of cooking. His vivid and eye-opening record of that experience, The Making of a Chef, takes us into the heart of this food-knowledge mecca. Here we meet a coterie of talented chefs, an astonishing and driven breed, and experience the pressure and perfectionism of their job.

Distraught after discovering the betrayal by her husband and best friend, Tori, cupcake caterer Emory Martinez allows her temper to flare. Several people witness her very public altercation with her ex-friend. To make matters worse, Tori exacts her revenge by posting a fake photo of Emory in a compromising situation, which goes viral on social media. When Tori is found murdered, all signs point to Emory. With the police investigation focused on gathering evidence to convict her, Emory must prove her innocence while whipping up batches of cupcakes and buttercream.

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 Chef Charlie Cooke is offered the chance to leave San Francisco and return home to Elkview, Alaska, to take over her mother’s diner, she doesn’t even consider saying no. After all - her love life has recently become a Love Life Crumble, and a chance to reconnect with her roots may be just what she needs. Determined to bring fresh life and flavors to the Bear Claw Diner, Charlie starts planning changes to the menu, which has grown stale over the years.

When twenty-five-year-old Danika Delaney, black sheep of the Delaney clan, returns home to Long Island to take over Jimmie's, her eccentric uncle's old fashioned malt shop on eastern Long Island, she's not exactly thrilled. But things start to look up when her uncle tells her she can do whatever she'd like with the shop, and it seems she might realize her dream of a small trendy cafe. That is, until she discovers the body of her ex-boyfriend's estranged wife in a melted puddle of rocky road in the malt shop basement.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the fictional Val de Follet in the Loire Valley. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really that’s the way he likes it. One day, however, one of his older guests disappears, leaving behind a bloody handprint on the wallpaper. Another guest, the exotic Valérie, persuades a reluctant Richard to join her in investigating the disappearance. Richard remains a dazed passenger in the case until things become really serious and someone murders Ava Gardner, one of his beloved hen...and you don’t mess with a fellow’s hens!

Booklover Sadie Coleman knows that in life, as in fiction, the right setting can make a world of difference. The small town of Shady Creek, Vermont, seems like the perfect place to start over after losing her Boston job to a merger and her relationship to her ex's gambling addiction. She's bought and redecorated the old grist mill pub, transforming the Inkwell into a cozy spot where tourists and regulars alike can enjoy a pint or a literary-themed cocktail, or join one of several book clubs.

USA Today Bestseller What would you do with a second chance at your first time? Following a bad breakup, Willow Lewis tackles a re-do list with the help of her brother’s best friend in this sweet and sexy romance. Willow experienced all her big firsts with her high school sweetheart. Now...

Albert and Rex are going to the palace. It’s the day the Kings' birthday honour list recipients get their knighthoods, but like everywhere else they go, there is trouble to be found. With his three children and youngest granddaughter, Apple-Blossom, in tow, Albert is a little embarrassed by the lavishness of the affair. Yet all that is forgotten when he spots a man he knows. A man guilty of murder. A man who can only be at the palace for one thing.

A broken foot doesn’t stop her grandmother from ruling The Hive, her granny’s book club, or continuing to prepare and package her bee-inspired products. But when Bailey's grandmother’s infamous Honey I'm Home hot spiced honey turns out to “bee” the murder weapon and her granny is now the prime suspect, Bailey has no choice but to use her fictional detective skills to help solve the murder and smoke-out the real culprit.

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.

When you're cooking, you're a chemist! Every time you follow or modify a recipe you are experimenting with acids and bases, emulsions and suspensions, gels and foams. In your kitchen you denature proteins, crystallize compounds, react enzymes with substrates, and nurture desired microbial life while suppressing harmful microbes. And unlike in a laboratory, you can eat your experiments to verify your hypotheses.

After her divorce from her thrice-married embezzler husband, Trinidad Jones is ready for a fresh start. So when she's left one of her ex's businesses in Upper Sprocket, Oregon, she decides to pack up her dog, cash in her settlement, and open the Shimmy and Shake Shop, introducing the world to her monster milkshakes. Soon Trinidad's life seems to be churning along smoothly. That is, it was until she discovered her neighbor, the Popcorn King, face down in his giant popcorn kettle.

Richard is a middle-aged Englishman who runs a B&B in the Vallée de Follet. Nothing ever happens to Richard, and really, that’s the way he likes it. Until scandal erupts in the nearby town of Saint-Sauver when its famous restaurant is downgraded from three Michelin stars to two. The restaurant is shamed, the town is in shock, and the leading goat cheese supplier drowns himself in one of his own pasteurization tanks. Or does he? Valérie d’Orçay, who staying at the B&B while house-hunting in the area, isn’t convinced that it’s a suicide.

Kate knew immediately what to do with it: open a cider house. But her hopeful plans fall far from the tree when she finds the body of the orchard manager, Carl Randolph, leaving her to figure out who is at the core of this murder. She had been in correspondence with Carl, who had agreed with her brilliant idea of opening a cider house. But not everyone is so quick to buy what she was selling—Uncle Stan’s lawyer, Robert Larabee, paints a less rosy financial outlook of the orchard’s past, present, and future.

Food anthropologist Miriam Quiñones-Smith's move from New York to Coral Shores, Miami, puts her academic career on hold to stay at home with her young son. Adding to her funk is an opinionated mother-in-law and a husband rekindling a friendship with his ex. Gracias to her best friend, Alma, she gets a short-term job as a Caribbean cooking expert on a Spanish-language morning TV show. But when the newly minted star attends a Women's Club luncheon, a socialite sitting at her table suddenly falls face-first into the chicken salad, never to nibble again.

Allie Larkin was living her dream as a ballet dancer when a bad fall put her out of business. Now she's back home in Mystic Bay to heal a broken ankle while also helping her dear Aunt Gully get her Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack off the ground. Nothing would help Gully more than winning the local food festival's Best Lobster Roll contest. The competition is sure to be killer - especially after one of the contest judges dies after eating a roll from one of Gully's biggest rivals.

Accused of murder and trying to keep her ice-cream business afloat, Tallulah Jones is forced to unearth her small town's darkest secrets in order to clear her name.

Every journey might start with a single step, but where does it end? Albert Smith and his faithful dog, Rex Harrison, have been on the road for far longer than they ever expected, but they can’t go home yet. Not until they solve one final case. Following a near-invisible breadcrumb trail of clues to find a character they know only as ‘The Gastrothief’, the man and dog duo find themselves in a remote village on the Welsh coast. Miles from home and without a friend in sight, do they really stand a chance against this invisible enemy and his merciless agents? Of course they don’t.