Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Spotlight Sunday

Showing posts with label Spotlight Sunday. Show all posts

Sunday, June 28, 2026

Welcome to the Food Lovers' Village -- #giveaway #Spotlight Sunday

LESLIE BUDEWITZ: Most of you know me for my Spice Shop Mysteries, set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, where Pepper Reece runs a spice shop and solves crime. It’s a delicious series to write, inspired by the tastes, smells, and scents of a place I first encountered as an 18-year-old college girl, and still love. (Here’s my first Spotlight, back when we started the feature, on what inspired the Spice Shop mysteries.)

I also write the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, where Erin Murphy runs a local foods market in her family’s hundred-year plus Mercantile in the heart of the village of Jewel Bay, Montana, and solves crime.

It takes a village . . . to catch a killer.

And I'll be giving one lucky reader winner's choice of a Village mystery. Read on, friends!

Death al Dente won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel!

No surprise that Jewel Bay is based on the town where we live. I had to change the name so I could kill people. It really is the perfect cozy village, filled with great food, art galleries, live theater, and live music, on a bay formed where two rivers meet to create the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi. Behind both real and fictional towns are several mountain ranges formed, as Erin likes to say, by the glacial hand of God. (With help from a series of earthquakes and floods, back in geologic time.) Wilderness abounds – along with a 36-hole golf course designed by Jack Nicklaus. And there’s a real-live dude ranch literally 5 minutes from the village – just drive across the one-lane bridge and turn left. .

You can’t make this stuff up.

I’ll admit, that’s not what most people think of when they imagine a small town in Montana. And that’s what makes it the perfect cozy setting.

A patient of Mr. Right sent his bookmark through the wash!

So where did Erin come from? She’s half Italian, as you can tell by her name. Like me, she left Montana and worked in Seattle. I wanted her to have experience in retail and in groceries, so I made her a grocery buyer for SavCo, the international warehouse chain. (At the time, our niece was a buyer for Costco, though not in groceries.) That gave her the skills to come home and take over the struggling Merc and give her widowed mother, Francesca, a chance to focus on her own line of pastas and sauces – and a new romance.

And her name? Like the husband of a friend of my mother, Tom Murphy decided that because his wife had named the first two, it was his turn. And when she showed up on St. Patrick’s Day, her name was obvious.

Sadly, Tom Murphy was killed during Erin’s senior year of high school, in a hit-and-run that’s never been solved. Not until Erin returns home. I’ve lost count of how many readers finished the first book, Death al Dente – or murder not quite well done – and asked if we would ever find out what happened to him. Yes, yes, yes! Erin uncovers clues in each of the first three books, in addition to solving the crime in that book, and solves the mystery of her father’s death in Butter Off Dead, the third in the series.

The Food Lovers’ Village series includes five novels and a short story collection, with five short stories featuring Erin and the Villagers, and a prequel novella set in 1910, the year Erin’s great-grandparents, Paddy and Kate Murphy, married and started the Merc. Turns out Erin’s sleuthing skills may be inherited!

The one lane bridge dressed up for the holidays -- and on the cover of my Christmas short story, The Christmas Stranger! (Available in the collection Carried to the Grave and as an e-book standalone.)

I hope you’ll take a visit to the Food Lovers’ Village with me. Find out more about the books and read excerpts and praise on my website. And as a gift to my readers, newsletter subscribers get two free short stories, including “The Picture of Guilt,” in which Erin and her beau make a surprising discovery while huckleberry picking. If you’re new to the series, it’s the perfect taste of the Village!

Here's a link to one of my favorite Village recipes, Grilled Caprese Kabobs from Treble at the Jam Fest, the 4th Village mystery. I'll be back Tuesday with a yummy recipe for Shrimp with Pearl Couscous and Fried Capers.

I love visiting new-to-me places on the page! Talk to me about some of your favorite armchair travel. If you've been to the Food Lovers' Village, on the page or IRL, tell us what you love about the place and the books! One lucky reader will win their choice of a Food Lovers' Village mystery -- and if you've read them all already, we'll come up with something else! (Leave your email address to enter. US and Canada only. Winner to be announced Wednesday, July 1.)

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills.

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket.

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf.

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. Watch for Lavender Lies Bleeding, the 9th Spice Shop Mystery, on July 15, 2025.

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.

Sunday, September 28, 2025

Spotlight on Molly MacRae #SpotlightSunday

Where, oh where does the mystery writer write?

My original idea for this Spotlight Sunday piece was to post some of my favorite pictures from the places where I’ve set my stories. But how to choose from the scads of pictures of Scotland, Ocracoke Island, the Tennessee mountains, Cape Cod, and the Monterey coast that I’ve taken over the years?

As I sorted through them, I realized I didn't need to choose because I could put together a fun subset. Again, there were too many, but here's a smattering of photos showing me writing in, or not too far from, some of my story settings (or not writing because I stopped to snap a picture of the writing space). These pictures are my love letters to the writing life.

Where, oh where do I write? Pretty much anywhere.

The view from my window in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1974. For those of you who know Ian Rankin's Rebus novels, John Rebus lives to the left and around the next corner from here.

Paris, 1975. What you can't see in the picture is Norte Dame Cathedral, which is looming directly behind me.

Faithful editors, Numa (checking due dates) and Sheeta (tuning up the typewriter keys), who saw me through graduate school with fur-flying colors. Champaign, Illinois, 1978. The map on the wall also hung on my wall in Edinburgh.

Johnson City, Tennessee, 2000 (fast forwarding through the graduate school and small children years). Editor Gunnarsson considering the early draft of Wilder Rumors on the computer screen. There's a glass of water in the lower right hand corner of the picture. That same glass (with fresh water) is sitting on my desk as I type this.

Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, 2013. There are beautiful chickens on the other side of the fence. A cat came to visit most afternoons.

On the balcony in Mountain View Books in Mountain View, California, 2014. That's my brother Andy writing behind me.

Garrapata State Park, Carmel, California, 2014. I still use that pen.

Champaign, Illinois, 2014. Neko took over as editor when Gunnarsson retired. The sling was his solution to the problem of no lap when the writer prefers to stand.

Lees McRae College, Linville, North Carolina, 2014. I drove one of my sisters from Illinois to this beautiful spot in the mountains so she could attend the Grandfather Mountain Gaelic Song & Language Week. That's a draft of Knot the Usual Suspects on the screen.

Champaign, Illinois, 2016, catching a breeze in the window seat.

Champaign, Illinois, 2016, my writing space up under the roof.

Looking spooky on Washington Island, Wisconsin, 2019. I haven't set any published stories on Washington Island. Yet.

Hiding from mosquitoes in our backyard screen tent, Champaign, Illinois, 2021. Same water glass on the table.

Champaign, Illinois, 2022. When editor Neko retired, I had to muddle through on my own for a few years. From the mess I'm making, you can see why I needed another cat. Just barely visible, on the three-legged stool at the top of the picture, is the same water glass.

New editor finally installed. Dooley joined the staff in 2024. She is the consummate, and very furry, professional.

You can visit North Carolina, Scotland, Tennessee, Cape Cod, and California, too, in my mysteries. Happy reading!

The Boston Globe says Molly MacRae writes “murder with a dose of drollery.” She’s the author of the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. As Margaret Welch, she writes books for Annie’s Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and she’s a winner of the Sherwood Anderson Award for Short Fiction. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Instagram or Bluesky.

Sunday, April 27, 2025

HOW WRITER'S BLOCK INSPIRED OUR NEW MYSTERY by Cleo Coyle + Book & Tote #Giveaway #Spotlight

Once a month, each of us here at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen takes a turn stepping into the spotlight. This month is our turn, and Marc and I decided to shine a little of that light onto our creative process.

Nearly every writer stalls, panics, and wrestles with self-doubt at one time or another. But here’s the question of the day. Can a writer’s struggles lead to a deadly end? Reverse the words writer’s block to blocked writer—as in thwarted, stymied, stonewalled—and you may have an even stronger motive for murder. At least, that’s what my husband and I pondered as we set out to pen our latest murder mystery.

Cleo Coyle writes two
bestselling mystery

series with her husband.
To learn more, click here.

Ironically, though the thought of the dreaded "writer’s block" has sent fear into the hearts of many a scribe, that same literary affliction has also propelled entertaining plotlines in novels and films. There’s The Shining, of course; more recently The Plot; and the Nicolas Cage film Adaptation to name a few. In all of those stories writer's block eventually led to murder, and we were similarly inspired as we sat down to write.

Given our looming deadline, we stared at blank screens for a time and then—EUREKA!—our stalled progress itself became the inspiration...

The idea of writer’s block felt perfect for our Coffeehouse Mystery series. After all, coffee itself is known as "writer’s fuel," and the notion of writers scribbling (or procrastinating) in coffeehouses has been around about as long as there’ve been coffeehouses.

And so we were off and running, crashing through our own creative wall with the battering ram of writer’s block itself. Now the ideas were flowing. We saw our amateur sleuth—single mom and coffeehouse manager Clare Cosi—facing the devastating problem of sluggish foot traffic in her landmark Greenwich Village shop, the Village Blend...

How does Clare solve her problem? With the help of her loyal crew of baristas who suggest turning her shop’s second floor into a "Writer’s Block Lounge," something her century-old coffeehouse once embraced, only to abandon when something dark occurred. Although that history is shrouded in mystery, Clare agrees to the idea of resurrecting a space for writers. And it works. Maybe too well.

A quirky collection of creative types is soon packing both floors of Clare’s coffee shop. Unfortunately, many of these poets, playwrights, and novelists wrestle with the same demons of self-doubt, envy, and free-floating anxiety that many of us writers do, and as the pages turn in No Roast for the Weary, this stressful soup leads to murder.

Given our own two decades of experience with the exhilarating highs and gut-twisting lows of the creative process, we took to the idea of writer’s block with zeal but also empathy. Layered into our amateur sleuth’s quest for the truth behind several serious crimes (both past and present) are real and hilarious truths about the writing life, truths we know from our long experience living and working as professional writers in New York City.

Image courtesy giphy & @VirginAtlantic

Until our full-time careers as authors kicked into gear, we spent years working day jobs while writing on the side, which is why we know how crazy, inspiring, and exhausting life in the arts can be (yep, No Roast for the Weary), especially here in NYC, and we weaved some of that oddball knowledge into our newest Coffeehouse title.

At the close of our tale, we even included a short list of our favorite ways to combat writer’s block. Who knows, the tips may help inspire our fellow authors, if not prevent another deadly end. So, join us and hold on for this one. No Roast for the Weary is one heck of a caffeinated ride, and we hope you enjoy it.