by Sandra Murphy & Ellen Byron

This week we have a review of the latest Vintage Cookbook series by Ellen Byron, along with a fun guest post by Ellen about how she came to love Halloween. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a vintage cookbook from Ellen Byron, and a link to purchase this book from Amazon at the end of this post.

French Quarter Fright Night by Ellen Byron
By Sandra Murphy

Ricki runs Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop at Bon Vee’s Culinary House Museum in the Garden District in New Orleans. She’s not used to the enthusiasm New Orleans has for Halloween. To get in the spirit, Ricki suggests turning Bon Vee into a haunted house for the holiday with a scary version for adults and a much tamer experience for the kids.

Things would have gone well except the mansion next door sold and the mysterious new owner constantly complains about noise, an extra trash bin, and more, while threatening legal action.

When Ricki finds out the new neighbor is Blaine, a hot movie star and a former friend of Ricki’s estranged, now-dead husband, things go from bad to worse. Blaine opens his new house as a haunted house as well, complete with movie props to make it more realistic and outshine Ricki’s efforts. One effect is too realistic—his assistant’s body is found in the crypt and she’s not acting.

Ricki’s been mixed up with a murder or two before, so when the police and detectives are overworked with overly enthusiastic Halloweeners, Ricki and friends decide to solve the murder themselves.

This is book three in the series. Ricki’s finally starting to settle into how New Orleans folks think and well, party a lot. She also has a sort-of love interest, but he has a job even more demanding than her own, so she’s not sure if she’s in a relationship or not. There are several surprises in store for her, so things are changing—whether for the better or not, remains to be seen.

Since the theme of the stories is kitchenware and vintage cookbooks, recipes are shared at the end—try them if you dare! Tastes were different back then, at least according to the recipes for golden pumpkin loaf, pumpkin chiffon pie, chicken and oyster broth (there’s whipped cream in the bowl and the soup ladled over it), popcorn balls, a Jack O’-Lantern cheese ball, and a recipe for a creamy pimento ring that comes with the warning DO NOT MAKE THIS! It lists lemon Jell-O, vinegar, onion, paprika, mayo, grated American cheese, and chopped pimento. Byron tested it and verified that too much liquid turns it into a “gelatinous blob” not suitable for a molded ring. And maybe, not suitable for eating.

Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch in St. Louis Missouri. She’s the editor for the upcoming Yeet Me in St Louis, an anthology with stories from twelve St. Louis writers. Her own short stories have appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Magazine, and anthologies such as The Perp Wore Pumpkin and I (Almost) Died in Your Arms. ‘Lucy’s Tree’, published in The Eyes of Texas, won a Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society. She lives in St. Louis with Ozzie the Westie Impersonator and his sidekick in crime, Louie the Cat.

How I Came to Love Halloween
By Ellen Byron

Young Ellen in costume

I continued being a Halloween curmudgeon for decades. I once very lazily wore a blue leotard to a Halloween party and announced I was a Brillo pad. Someone pointed out that S.O.S. pads were blue and Brillo pads were pink. Did I care? Not one bit.

Eliza Spider Princess

I dressed up my sweet daughter.

I made crazy cupcakes and cookies.

Vampire cookies

And I went nuts decorating the front yard.

A lot of these activities ended when Eliza went off to college. Luckily, she attended school in the same city I did: New Orleans. And I defy you to find a better city in which to spend Halloween.

In French Quarter Fright Night, I tried to capture the city’s delirious embrace of All Hallows Eve. It’s protagonist Ricki’s first Halloween back in NOLA since she was eight years old. But her enjoyment of the festivities is marred when the body in the tomb turns out not to be a dummy but the assistant to a Brad Pitt-level movie star who’s moved into the mansion next door to Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, where Ricki runs Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop… A movie star who also happens to be the man Ricki holds responsible for her estranged husband’s death.

I may not be scared of Halloween anymore. But it sure is fun to make it tough on my characters!

Synopsis of French Quarter Fright Night. The third in the fabulous cozy series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha award-winning author Ellen Byron.

Welcome to the Bon Veeevil Festival of Fear! Prepare for the spookiest night of your life…

It’s Halloween in New Orleans, and the staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum has set up a fantastic haunted house tour for their visitors. But when flashy movie star Blaine Taggart and his entourage move into the mansion next door, gift shop proprietor Ricki James-Diaz gets a fright of her own.

While Ricki is excited about the potential business the tours will bring to her vintage cookbook shop, she’s less thrilled by former friend Blaine’s arrival in town. Then Bon Vee’s prop tomb becomes a real tomb for Blaine’s nasty assistant, and suddenly everyone at Bon Vee is a murder suspect. There isn’t a ghost of a chance one of them committed the crime, but with NOPD busy tackling the mischief and mayhem generated by the spooky holiday, it falls on Ricki and her friends to catch the killer.

As the Big Easy gears up for the Big Scary, it seems everyone has skeletons in their closets. Can Ricki reveal the shadowy killer before someone else becomes part of the Halloween horror show?

You can click here to purchase this book from Amazon.

To enter to win a copy of a vintage cookbook from Ellen Byron’s collection, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “vintage cookbook” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen October 12, 2024. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If entering via email please include your mailing address in case you win. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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Ellen is a USA Today bestselling author, Anthony nominee, and recipient of multiple Agatha and Lefty awards for her Cajun Country Mysteries, Vintage Cookbook Mysteries, and Catering Hall Mysteries (as Maria DiRico). A Very Woodsy Murder is the first book in her new Golden Motel Mystery series. She is also an award-winning playwright and non-award-winning writer of TV hits like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly OddParents, but considers her most impressive achievement working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. Visit her at Cozy Mysteries | Ellen Byron | Author

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.