Retired caterer Valerie Corbin and her wife Kristen have moved to the Big Island for their retirement. Exploring the island, furnishing their new home, and playing with their dog is fun but they miss the company of good friends.
This missed title from March is a re-release from publisher ReQueered Tales and is termed misadventure which places it at the edges of the mystery-thriller-suspense genre. Set in the Mexican-American community of East LA, Trebor Healey's Faun is an urban fantasy, a new fairy tale about pagan earth spirit, lust and faith, Los Angeles, and history.
Valerie and her wife Kristen are in Hawaii as a way for Valerie to begin to recover from the death of her brother, Charlie, in a fiery car wreck. Kristen visited years before she met Valerie and made friends with Isaac. Now the couple are Isaac’s houseguests.
Chef Sally Solari inherited the French-Polynesian restaurant, Gauguin, after the death of her aunt. Her father was none too pleased that she left the family's Italian seafood restaurant located on the historic Fisherman's Wharf. He’s got another gripe now—customers don’t like stepping over homeless people who are sleeping in the doorways and hurting business.
Sally Solari lives in the low-key beach community of Santa Cruz, California, amidst rich farmland producing bushels of fruits and vegetables perfect for any kitchen artist’s culinary creations. Sally grew up and honed her culinary skills in the family”s Italian seafood restaurant Solari’s, and recently inherited Gauguin’s restaurant from her Aunt Letta. She promoted the head chef, Javier, to co-owner, and now they’re experiencing excellent success.
Sally Solari worked at her family’s Italian family-style restaurant until she inherited her aunt’s fine dining restaurant, Gauguin. Too bad her dad doesn’t understand the concept of having her own place now.
This week we have reviews & giveaways of 2 food related mysteries perfect for your Valentine's Day reading-A Measure of Murder: A Sally Solari Mystery by Leslie Karst, and War and Peach: A Georgia Peach Mystery by Susan Furlong. Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy both books, along with links you can use to purchase them.
Solari’s Italian restaurant is an old-fashioned kind of place with fried zucchini appetizers, spaghetti carbonara entrees, men in the kitchen to make the dishes, and women in the front of the house to soothe cranky diners, make the schedules and balance the register at the end of the night.
There’s flowers in bloom, magic in the air, Georgia on our minds, and these terrific books to read!
After a successful party at Bodie Island’s Lighthouse Library in North Carolina’s Outer Banks, librarian Lucy Richardson is ready to curl up with Charles the cat and a good book.
