A Second Helping of Murder (A Comfort Food Mystery)

Trixie Matkowski is warming up to running her family's diner in the small town of Sandy Harbor in upstate New York. But the only thing more demanding than serving piping-hot comfort food twenty-four hours of the day is getting to the bottom of a double homicide...

Trixie fondly remembers summers as a child spent visiting the shores of Lake Ontario. Not much has changed there are still vinyl boots at the Silver Bullet Diner, families eating home-cooked comfort food, and days of swimming in the lake. 

But befor Trixie can say "Order's Up", someone's summer is abruptly cut short. One of the cottage residents is found dead, and Trixie suspects the crime might be linked to an unsolved disappearance in the picturesque town's past. 

As Trixie works with Deputy Ty Brisco to solve both mysteries, their shocking discoveries will shake up the small town. And when word gets out that she's on the case, Trixie's in trouble, after all, the murderer won't spare her life just because she makes a killer corned beef sandwich... 

Summer has finally come to Sandy Harbor and Trixie Matkowski has finally gotten her Silver Bullet Diner off to a great start! This year she has done some renovations to the lake side cottages on her property in hopes that the summer renters will come to visit like they have before when her Aunt Stella and Uncle Porky own them. Trouble starts when a decade old mystery is uncovered at the beach and leads back to those very same cottages. Can Trixie track down the killer or has she finally bitten off more than she can chew?

This second helping of mystery was a great follow up to the first edition, and I can't wait to read more from this great series. Trixie is sassy and funny and when it comes down to mystery...well, she's always cooking up more trouble! This book has a great group of characters and is written at a perfect pace. The plot was very intriguing and had me turning pages faster than you can say "Orders up"!

Rebel Without a Cake (A Piece of Cake Mystery)

Halloween is approaching, and co-owners of Zydeco Cakes, Rita Lucero and her former mother-in-law, Miss Frankie, have scored a sweet treat. A fantastic catering opportunity that could lead to a rich future for their bakery. But their good news is quickly rattled by a bump in the night when Miss Frankie's neighbor, Bernice, barrels into her kitchen toting a Bible and a gun, and serves up a story about a ghost at her window. 

Bernice swears she just saw the ghost of her moonshiner uncle who disappeared in the swamp fifteen years ago. When her cousin goes missing in the same swamp, Bernice is certain someone's playing a nasty trick, and convinces Rita and Miss Frankie to help her investigate. They'll just need to watch their steps, or these ladies are liable to get mired in a very swampy mystery...

Rita Lucero; Zydeco Cakes owner, danger magnet and part time amateur detective is up to her cupcakes in swamp mystery this time. It's almost Halloween in New Orleans, one of the cities most favorite holidays next to Mardi Gras, and there is plenty of whodoo and voodoo to go around. This time trouble shows up at Miss Frankies neighbors house in the form of her moonshining uncle that supposedly disappeared many years ago in the Louisiana Swamps. The mystery continues when a Voodoo Priestess tells them how much trouble Bernice's family might just be in. A deep family secret and moonshining danger might not be all that is lurking around down on the bayou of Baie Rebelle. Rita and her friends will have to solve this mystery soon before someone end's up as gator bait!

This is Jacklyn Brady's fifth edition in the "Piece of Cake Mystery" series. I have really enjoyed all of the books throughout this series and it just keeps getting better and better with each book. If you love reading about New Orleans and want a good bit Southern sass to go with it, then you'll love this book and this series too!

The Wedding Soup Murder (An Italian Kitchen Mystery)

 Victoria Rienzi came home to the Jersey Shore to write a new book, learn the family restaurant business, and practice the fine art of Italian cooking. But when delicious dishes are paired with murder, Vic has a little too much on her plate...

When Vic asks her nonna for more responsibility in the kitchen, she doesn't mean forming a thousand tiny meatballs by hand for the family's famous wedding soup. The dish is to be served at the reception for a close family friend at the exclusive Belmont Beach Country Club. And once there, Vic has to deal with a demanding bridezilla and clashes in the kitchen between the staff and servers, between two egocentric head chefs, and between the country club president and well... everyone.

The wedding comes off without a hitch, until the body of the club's president is found on the beach below a high seawall. Now Vic will need to use her noodle to find out who pushed whom too far... before she's the one who lands in the soup! 

La Famiglia at the Casa Lido Resturant in Oceanside Park is as tight knit as ever. With this summer in high swing Victoria Rienzi is not only back in the kitchen she's back to solving murder at the Jersey Shore once again. This time she learns just how deep family secrets can be. With her crazy but sweet SIL (Sister-In-Law) Sofia and the infamous red folder by her side, she'll have this murder solved faster than you can say Pasta Premavera!

I seriously loved everything about this book! Once again Rosie Genova you continue to impress me with your writing! I love the characters and I find myself always thinking of Nonna whenever I am trying to make sauce in my own kitchen (mostly fearing that I might get whacked with her giant wooden Italian kitchen spoon!) I can honestly say; I laughed, I cried, I smirked and was left speechless reading this amazing book! I love simply love this series and if you love sassy Italians, great plots, crazy twists and a family as thick as the best pasta sauce you've ever had... then you will love this book and the series! 

Caught Dead Handed (A Witch City Mystery)

 "She's not a psychic, she just plays one on TV."

Most folks associate the city of Salem, Massachusetts with witches, but for Lee Barrett, it's home. This October she's returned to her hometown where her beloved Aunt Ibby still lives, to interview for a job as a reporter at WICH-TV. But the only opening is for a call-in psychic to host the late night horror movies. It seems the previous host, Ariel Constellation, never saw her own murder coming. 

Lee reluctantly takes the job, but when she starts seeing real events in the obsidian ball she's using as a prop, she wonders if she might really have psychic abilities. To make things even spookier, it's starting to look like Ariel may  have been an actual practicing witch, especially when O'Ryan, the cat Lee and Aunt Ibby inherited from her, exhibits some strange powers of his own. With Halloween fast approaching, Lee must focus on unmasking a killer or her career as a psychic may be very short lived...

This book was amazing!!! Seriously, for a first in a new series; I was completely blown away!!!
The characters are great, the story is fast paced and has you running for the end to see if what you think might be true! There are so many twists to this story that you will be surprised at the end of every chapter!!! There was a point for me, in the middle of the book where I even put the book down to say; "Shut up, no way... OMG I did not see that coming!" -- true story!!! There hasn't been many books that have made me do that. It's a fantastic read and I can't wait to read Carol J. Perry's next book in this fabulous series!

Lee Barret aka Crystal Moon WICH-TV's fake... or maybe not so fake after all late night psychic will have you thinking you might just be psychic yourself! This first in a series is an amazing, gripping and thrilling Halloween roller-coaster ride through modern day Salem where sometimes the past isn't always dead after all...If you love Mysteries and are wanting a spooky read for Halloween I defiantly recommend this book, it will keep you in suspense and shock throughout it's chapters! 

Well Read, Then Dead (Read'Em and Eat Mystery)

 Nestled in the barrier islands of Florida's Gulf Coast, Fort Myers Beach is home to Mary "Sassy" Cabot and Bridget Mayfield, owners of the bookstore cafe, Read' Em and Eat. But when they're not dishing about books or serving up scones, Sassy and Bridget are keeping tabs on murder. 

Read' Em and Eat is known for it's delicious treats and colorful clientele. There's Miss Augusta Maddox, who enjoys lecturing tourists on the rumors of sunken treasure among the islands, and her cousin Delia Batson, a regular at the Emily Dickinson table who is painfully shy... which makes the news of her murder all the more shocking. 

No one is more distraught than Augusta. She wants Delia's killer found and she's not taking no for an answer. Now Sassy is on the case, and she'd better act fast before there's any more trouble in paradise. 

I was really excited to actually read a cozy mystery about my "hometown" of Ft. Myers, Florida. The book is very well written and has a great story line. I like a lot of the characters and reading it really did make me a bit homesick. However, in the beginning I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of characters that were thrown at you in the first few chapters. I had a hard time keeping people straight and where they fell into the story. Once I got past those chapters though it was pretty easy to follow along. The only other thing I wished the book had was a slow build to the big reveal in the end. There were really no clues on who actually did it and I still had no suspicions even about a third of the way through the book. However, it does get really exciting at the end and you will never realize who really is the one to almost get away with murder. Overall I did like the book and I will be happy to continue the series. 

Death on Eat Street (A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery)

When she's once again passed over for a promotion at work, Zoe decides to take the big leap and go for her dream. She quits, gives up her fancy digs, and buys a fixer-upper diner in a shady part of town. To keep above water during the renovation, she buys a used food truck to serve the downtown and waterfront of Mobile, Alabama. 

Zoe starts to dish out classic Southern food but her specialty is her deep fried biscuit bowls that blow 
traditional bread bowls away. After a promising start, things begin to go downhill faster than a food truck without brakes. First, someone tries to rob the cash register. Next, Zoe is threatened by the owner of a competing food truck for taking their spot. And when the owner ends up dead inside Zoe's rolling restaurant, Zoe and her sole employee, Ollie, find themselves hopping out of the frying pan and into the fryer. They need to find the real killer... before both of them get burned.

For a first in a series reader I was thoroughly impressed! The book was very easy to read and had a very comfortable pace. I liked that the author clued you in by adding "evidence" of where the plot was headed. This gave you a sense that you were really onto something with your own assumptions but also didn't give too much information away either and still gave you that "whoa, I didn't see that coming" kind of ending as well. The characters were well thought out and had a great personalities and humor behind them. The setting was described perfectly, having been to Mobile Alabama many times, and seeing the places they described in the book first hand, I knew right away that I was going to love this book. If you like good homemade Southern comfort food with a side of "who-done-it" then this is the cozy for you! I will definitely be looking forward to the next book from this series!

Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery)

Tucked away in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York is the charming town of Gracious Grove, where time moves slowly, gossip spreads quickly, and the scones are to die for..

When her fashionable Manhattan restaurant goes under, Sophie Taylor retreats to her grandmother's cozy shop, Auntie Rose's Victorian Tea House, where serenity is steeped to perfection in one of her many antiqued teapots. The last thing Sophie expects is a bustling calendar of tearoom events, like her old friend Cissy Peterson's upcoming bridal shower. 

Not everyone is pleased with the bride-to-be's choice of venue, like Cissy's grandmother, who owns a competing establishment, La Belle Epoque, and has held a long simmering grudge against Rose for stealing her beau sixty years ago. Tensions reach a boiling point when Cissy's fiance's mother dies while sampling scones at La Belle Epoque. Now, to help her friend, Sophie will have to bag a killer before more of the guest list becomes a hit list. 

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book. There were a lot of parts I liked about it and there were also a lot of parts I disliked about it. I am willing to chalk it up to the fact that it's a "new in a series" and I will not be dismissing this series so easily. I liked the characters and I loved the close tight knit community the story takes place in. I do feel though, that it was a lot to take in the just the first novel. There are a lot of characters and if you don't pay attention it can get confusing at times as to whom everyone is related to. The beginning was a little slow for my taste but the middle was very gripping and had me gunning for the ending to figure out who really did it. When I got to the end though I was kind of bored with still trying to figure out who really did it. The big reveal at the end was not as exciting as I though it was going to be, and there weren't a lot of "aha" moments at all. I feel like the ending was drawn out a little too much when a little more should have been revealed slowly though out the whole book. So all in all, it wasn't my favorite but I am willing to give the series another shot.