Baby, it’s cold outside! Time to stay warm and catch up on your favorite series. Check out these delicious and savory mysteries.
Tweet Revenge in Ellen Riggs’ eleventh Bought-the-Farm mystery. Hobby farmer Ivy Galloway and sheepdog, Keats, welcome a songbird to the animal rescue Runaway Farm and Inn. An antique birdcage attracted the bird who has a sad song to sing.
We need three places in our lives according to sociologist Ray Oldenburg in The Great Good Place: the place we live, the place we work, and another place beyond those where we can gather and interact and form community. That “third place” could be a pub, a coffee shop, or, in my case, my favorite bookstore, Third Place Books.
Haley Burke is excited, yet anxious, about her first public event as curator: a literary salon evening with author and tutor at a London college Arthur Fish. He graciously agreed to speak on “Fifty Ways to Murder,” and in exchange for the opportunity to sell his own books, he would waive his lecture fee. So, a win—win for both the First Edition Society and Fish himself.
In 2019, I reviewed a record 180 entertaining books along with connecting with talented and delightfully friendly authors, including some beta reading. It was a daunting task to choose my annual “Tops” because every book, and a few television shows, have provided me with hours of entertainment and some inspiration…
Weddings always seem to bring out romantic notions and queries about who could be next. However, Julia’s expectation that Michael’s desire to ask her “something” may be a proposal is interrupted when Pammy, Michael’s older sister (“Barely older,” she would say.), shows up asking to send the night.
Set in the Cotswolds, Prunella “Pru” Parke, a highly sought after professional gardener, receives a letter from Cora Summersun who reveals that in the near future she expects to inherit a lovely manor house and surrounding gardens known as Glebe House. She hopes to hire Pru as a consultant using her expertise to sort through copious amounts of journals, diagrams, and files, to design a plan to restore the gardens to their original grandeur.
The ever-busy Julia Lanchester has finally managed to carve out a weekend away from her job as the manager of Smeaton-under-Lyme’s tourist information center to spend a weekend away with her boyfriend Michael Sedgwick. It’s a shame that upon their return they find Detective Inspector Tess Callow greeting them with the news that Julia’s ex-husband has just been found in the summerhouse of Hoggin Hall.
In the two years since Pru Parke moved from Texas to her mother’s homeland in England, Pru’s life has transformed in ways she could never have imagined. Now married to former London Met detective chief inspector Christopher Pearse and settled in at Hampshire’s Greenoak, Pru receives the offer of a lifetime. The passionate gardener is being asked by the Austin Rock Garden Society to act as a liaison at the prestigious Chelsea Flower Show until their arrival.
Newlywed Pru Parke is happily settled in at Greenoak, the birthplace of her English mother. In this bucolic setting Pru is also working alongside her brother Simon, who only recently reunited with his American sister. Built-up tensions still simmer between them, as Pru can’t help but feel guilty for being raised by the parents who gave Simon up for adoption. Family ties and loyalty are at the core of Pru’s heart, and as a result she doesn’t hesitate to welcome her husband’s nephew Orlando, sent to visit due to the teenager’s Internet shenanigans.
Don’t count winter out just yet! Here, for your reading pleasure, are several “yummy” mysteries with recipes, debut mysteries, and stories set all over the USA, Mexico, and across the Pond.
