RIP

Sheila Connolly

Your voice in mystery will forever be heard.

Your kindness and goodness forever missed.

4/20/20

Hello everyone!

Today I'm turning over control of my blog.

(Just for today)

I'll see you on Sunday.

Now, please welcome the authors of

SUMMER SNOOPS: DOWN UNDER

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ARE YOU RACING THROUGH YOUR TBR WHILE QUARANTINING AT HOME? HERE'S A GREAT WAY TO RELOAD YOUR KINDLE SO YOU'LL HAVE PLENTY TO READ THIS SUMMER. TWELVE COZY MYSTERIES FROM SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE AUTHORS AT A BARGAIN PRICE. PREORDER YOUR COPY NOW FOR RELEASE JULY 28TH TO GET A GREAT DEAL AND DO A GOOD DEED FOR WILDLIFE AFFECTED BY THE FIRES IN AUSTRALIA. RIGHT NOW WE HAVE A GREAT GIVEAWAY RUNNING FOR YOU. THE FIRST PRIZE IS A $50 AMAZON GIFT CARD. ADDITIONAL WINNERS, TOO! WE'LL HAVE OTHER SURPRISES FOR YOU ALONG THE WAY AND WHEN YOU DOWNLOAD YOUR BOX SET! 

https://bit.ly/Snoops3

$1.99

SUMMER SNOOPS DOWN UNDER 

12 COZY MYSTERY AUTHORS 

AND THEIR READERS TO THE RESCUE DOWN UNDER

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!!!GIVEAWAY!!!

Use the Rafflecopter form below to enter

USA only

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Looking for cool cozy mysteries for hot summer days?

Then you'll love our collection of stories in this purr-fectly paw-some cozy boxed set from twelve USA Today, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon best-selling authors.

Help us Help our Australian animal friends as you enjoy hours of fun sniffing out clues on sandy beaches, in shimmering waterways, at mountain top resorts, and small-town celebrations.

These cozy, friendly stories are full of wily sleuths, cagey plots, and un-fur-gettable tails!

Fetch your copy now to get these furr-ocious cozy mysteries at a bargain price and woof it up with us as we go to the rescue down under!

They're howlingly great reads!

ALL PROCEEDS SUPPORT THE WILDLIFE VICTORIA CHARITY RESCUING WILDLIFE AFFECTED BY THE BUSH FIRES IN AUSTRALIA.

Authors in order of appearance:

Judith Lucci

Colleen Mooney

Anna Celeste Burke

Dianne Harman

Sam Cheever

Amy Vansant

Fiona Quinn

Cindy Bell

J.A. Whiting

Kathi Daley

Summer Prescott

Tonya Kappes

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GOOD LUCK!!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by submitting your email in 

upper right hand corner of this page. (on the side bar).

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It's

Cozy Food Friday!

That means it's time to share a recipe from 

another great cozy mystery!

This week's recipe is from

GAME OF SCONES

Book 1 in the Sugar & Spice Mysteries

by Mary Lee Ashford

As co-owner of Sugar and Spice Cookbooks, Sugar Calloway has seen simple confections bring friends together and spark fiery feuds. Except this time, the recipe truly is to die for . . .
 
After losing her job as food editor at a glossy magazine, Rosetta Sugarbaker Calloway—aka “Sugar” to friends—isn’t sweet on accepting defeat and crawling back to her gossipy southern hometown. So when she has an opportunity to launch a community cookbook business with blue-ribbon baker Dixie Spicer in peaceful St. Ignatius, Iowa, she jumps at the chance to start over from scratch . . .
 But as Sugar assembles recipes for the local centennial celebration, it’s not long before she’s up to her oven mitts in explosive threats, too-hot-to-handle scandals, and a dead body belonging to the moody matriarch of the town’s first family. With suspicions running wild, Sugar and Spice must solve the murder before someone innocent takes the heat—and the real culprit gathers enough ingredients to strike again . . .
 
* Includes delicious recipes! *

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BETTY BAILEY'S BROCCOLI GRATIN

photo property if www.yummly.com

Ingredients

Kosher salt, to taste

2 lb. Broccoli

2 tablespoons of unsalted butter

¼ cup all-purpose flour

2 cups milk

½ small yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 bay leaf

1 cup grated Gruyère cheese

Freshly ground pepper

1 cup panko

¼ cup greated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

2 tablespoons of olive oil

photo property of  www.seriouseats.com

Instructions

   1. Bring a large saucepan of well salted water to a boil over high heat. Cut the heads from the broccoli stalks and cut the heads into small florets. Add the broccoli to the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes. Transfer the broccoli to a bowl filled with ice water, then drain well. 

   2. In a 10-inch fry pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add flour and stir well. 

   3. Slowly whisk in the milk and bring to a boil.

   4. Reduce heat to low, add the onion and bay leaf and simmer, stirring frequently, until the mixture thickens. 

   5. Remove and discard the bay leaf and add the Gruyère, stirring until the cheese is melted. 

   6. Carefully fold in the broccoli and spread in an even layer. 

   7. In a small bowl, stir together the panko, Parmigiano-Reggiano and olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. 

   8. Sprinkle the panko mixture over the broccoli mixture. 

   9. Transfer the pan to the oven and bake at 350°F for 40 to 45 minutes. 

You can make this in a stove-top to oven pan as Dixie does.
Or if you don't have that type of pan this recipe works just as well in a casserole dish. 

photo property of www.bunnyswarmoven.com

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Please keep reading to check out my 

installments of 

Book Beginnings on Fridays

and

The Friday 56

Both the BB and 56 are from

GAME OF SCONES

Book Beginnings on Fridays is a meme hosted by Rose City Reader

Share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading.

The Friday 56 is a meme hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules: *Grab a book, any book. *Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader (If you have to improvise, that's okay.) *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grab you. *Post it.

My Book Beginnings 

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen," my Aunt Cricket is fond of saying. And though that is great advice, everybody can't actually leave, can they? I mean, someone has to stay in the kitchen and take the or nobody eat.  

My 56

"It sure makes the fact that she's gone less worrisome, doesn't it?"

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by submitting your email in 

upper right hand corner of this page (on the side bar).

Reading from your phone? Scroll to the bottom of your page and click"View web version". Then follow the above directions.

WHAT'S COOKING? 

Dinner all wrapped up 

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FOIL PACK DINNERS

by Julia Rutland

Stop doing the dishes and grill (or bake) every night of the week instead with these 100 quick and easy foil pack recipes for complete, delicious meals the whole family will love.

Steaming food in packets has been a tried and tested method of cooking that the French and Italians have used for generations. There’s absolutely no other cooking method out there that’s as fast, fun, mess-free, and downright delicious as foil packs. All you need to do is wrap up your ingredients, fire up the oven or grill, and enjoy your meal without the dreaded thought of doing a pile of dishes afterwards.

Foil Pack Dinners offers a variety of meals with less than an hour of cooking time, making weeknight dinners a breeze! From Chicken Cordon Bleu and pepperoni pizza bread to smoky brisket and lime shrimp scampi, as well as vegetarian options like black bean enchiladas and stuffed squash, this book includes something tasty that everyone will enjoy!

Available May 12

I’ve always loved foil packed meals. Okay, I have always loved the idea of them. I’ve never made one, nor have I been where one was served. After reading FOIL PACK DINNERS, that will be changing! I may have to rummage through the kitchen after I’m done with this review and whip one up for supper!

Some of the amazing stomach growling recipes you’ll find are . . . Chicken with Creamy Tomato-Basil Sauce ~ Hot, Chicken, Bacon, and Corn Salad ~ Turkey with Sweet Potatoes ~ Easy Meatloaf ~ Stuffed Cabbage ~ Pork Tenderloin with Apples and Onions ~ Ham, Hash Brown, and Egg Bake ~ Smoked Sausage over Herbed Polenta ~ Shrimp Boil in Foil ~ Super Simple Wrapped Flounder ~ Baked Salmon with Orange and Herbs ~ Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches ~ Pepperoni Cheese Bread ~ Fish Tacos with Chipotle Lime Crema ~ Cheesy-Garlic Scalloped Potatoes ~ Big Batch Succotash ~ Mexican Sweet Corn ~ Vegan Tamale Dumplings. You won’t believe how many more!

FOIL PACK DINNERS starts with a brief introduction containing some very helpful advice, before moving on to recipes that cover over 100 pages and come with beautiful full color photos. I would testify I could smell could smell the food in those photos.  

With dinners that can be baked in the oven or cooked on top of the grill, FOIL PACK DINNERS has something for all year round. This one is a keeper!    

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by submitting your email in 

upper right hand corner of this page (on the side bar).

Reading from your phone? Scroll to the bottom of your page and click"View web version". Then follow the above directions.

Come join 20 authors and me as we beat the quarantine blues! There will be, author chats, Q&As, games, prizes and giveaways! This Thursday 23 - Sunday 26! All times are EST.

Check out this line up!

2:30 - 2:55 - Lisa Ks Book Reviews
3:00 - 3:45 - Vicki Vass
4:00 - 4:45 - Donna Walo Clancy
5:00 - 5:45 - Tina Kashian
6:00 - 6:45 - Terrie Farley Moran and Laura Childs
7:00 - 7:45 - Sherry Harris


Friday 24
2:30 - 2:55 - Lisa Ks Book Reviews
3:00 - 3:45 - Kaye George
4:00 - 4:45 - Edith Maxwelll / Maddie Day
5:00 - 5:45 - Linda Reilly
6:00 - 6:45 - Anna Celeste Burke
7:00 - 7:45 - Debra Sennefelder


Saturday 25
2:30 - 2:55 - Lisa Ks Book Reviews
3:00 - 3:45 - VM Burns Tentative
4:00 - 4:45 - Debbie De Louise Author
5:00 - 5:45 - Mary Lee Ashford
6:00 - 6:45 - Colleen Mooney
7:00 - 7:30 - Author Judith Lucci


Sunday 26
2:30 - 2:55 - Lisa Ks Book Reviews
3:00 - 3:45 - Lee Hollis
4:00 - 4:45 - Ellery Adams Author
5:00 - 5:45 - Lauren Elliott - Author of Mystery, Suspense and Murder
6:00 - 6:45 - Catherine Bruns Books
7:00 - 7:45 - Ellen Byron

Head over now and let me

know you'll be joining in on the fun!

Click Here

See you tomorrow!

Until then, stay safe and healthy!

A variety of Print, eBook,

and Audio release today!

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PRINT & eBook

The Agatha Award–winning author of Sifting Through Clues returns to the Cookbook Nook, where a combative food reporter gets her just deserts . . .

The denizens of Crystal Cove are salivating over the upcoming Food Bowl Week, when local chefs offer some of their best and most imaginative creations in bite-size portions all over town. Bookstore proprietor Jenna Hart is hungry to sample as many of the delicacies as she can, but when she stumbles onto the dead body of a local food reporter and learns that her best friend’s husband is the primary suspect, she’ll have to summon the appetite for a side dish of sleuthing to prove his innocence.

Jenna knows the ambitious and aggressive reporter, who was strangled at a fitness center with her shredded restaurant reviews scattered around her, left behind a long list of potential suspects. As she begins piecing together the scant clues, she uncovers illicit ties between the victim and a local newspaper owner, a spurned would-be lover, and a host of disgruntled restaurant owners not a bit torn up by the critical reporter’s demise. And with a solution so close she can almost taste it, Jenna turns up the heat on the culprit, realizing too late that she’s the next course on the murderer’s menu . . .

Includes tasty recipes!

Caterer River Holloway cooks like a dream and is known on Shell Island as a “finder” of things. Which is why a desperate mother begs River to track down her grown son, Chili Bolz, who’s vanished.

Deputy Lance Hamlyn can’t find the missing man, so he teams up with River. The missing person case boils over into something frightening when Chili’s mother falls victim to a brutal assault. Worse, her dying words incriminate River’s friends in both kidnapping and, now, murder. River soon finds herself caught in an unsavory recipe for disaster.

Despite catering events and the return of her absentee boyfriend, River finds the number of suspects growing longer than her food shopping list. Along the way she befriends a black cat who becomes her crime-solving partner. River must locate Chili and discover who killed his mother before her own goose is quite literally cooked.

Maggie Toussaint serves up a fun and captivating read in Seas the Day, the first in her Seafood Capers series.

App developer Mabel Skinner is about to discover something rotten on her late aunt's garlic farm—and it's not the compost heap . . .

Mabel doesn't know a stinkin' thing about garlic farming. She knows how to develop an app and how to code. But when her aunt, Peggy Skinner, dies suddenly, Mabel inherits her Stinkin' Stuff Farm in western Massachusetts. She arrives during peak harvest time—with three days to bring in the entire crop before rain can destroy it.

But Mabel has an even bigger problem: she suspects her aunt's “accidental death” was murder. As she digs for both garlic and clues, Mabel must contend with a mysterious crop thief, a rival garlic grower her aunt was suing, and a farmer who was after Aunt Peggy's green-thumb secret. It's up to Mabel to crack the code on a killer, before she joins the garlic bulbs six cloves under . . .

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eBook

Charlotte Claus is a sweet soul, who is known for spreading Christmas cheer wherever she goes.
When the town of Partridge Point is so inspired by her that they line the main street with such an overabundance of decorations that it busts the budget, Charlotte is flabbergasted and steps in to help.
The consummate do-gooder finds a local tree farm that agrees to host a pop up event in Partridge Point. They harvest the trees and bring them to an open lot for the locals, who are typically very bah humbug when it comes to the holidays.

When a tragic injury occurs at the lot, secrets unfold and suspicions are cast upon everyone who stopped by that day. Are the ties that bind the people of Partridge Point strong enough to withstand a murder investigation? Or, are the mysterious folks going to come between them and the spirit of the season?

Partridge Point is dealt a terrible blow when murder comes to town. Will sweet Charlotte be able to spread Christmas cheer that will stand strong and overcome the gloom caused by tragedy?
Find out in this heartwarming Cozy Mystery, that will take you back to sweeter times and fill your heart with the joy of the season, no matter what the time of year.

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Audio

Halia Watkins has her hands full cooking, hosting, and keeping her boisterous young cousin, Wavonne, from getting too sassy with customers. Having fast-talking entrepreneur Marcus Rand turn up in her kitchen is annoying enough when he's alive - but finding his dead body face-down on her ceramic tile after hours is much worse.

Marcus had his enemies, and the cast iron frying pan beside his corpse suggests that at last, his shady business deals went too far. Halia is desperate to keep Sweet Tea's name out of the sordid spotlight but her efforts only make Wavonne a prime suspect. 

Now Halia will have to serve up the real villain - before the killer returns for a second helping....

Between spending Valentine’s Day with her sweetheart Sam and shopping upcoming Presidents’ Day sales with the Good Buy Girls, everything is coming up roses and bargains for Maggie Gerber. But when the mother of Maggie’s nemesis comes to town, things stop looking so rosy. Summer’s mom is hoping to set her spoiled daughter up with Sam, and she’ll do whatever it takes to make the match happen.

When Maggie heads to her romantic rival’s house to put a stop to the scheming, she discovers Summer standing over a dead body - holding a weapon. As much as Maggie would love to see Summer get her just desserts, she can’t shake the feeling that the meddling menace is, in fact, innocent. 

Now Maggie and the Good Buy Girls will have to sort through racks of suspects to find a killer - or Summer will wind up getting a truly raw deal....

As always, please leave a comment and 

let me know what you think!

Follow my blog by submitting your email in 

upper right hand corner of this page (on the side bar).

Reading from your phone? Scroll to the bottom of your page and click"View web version". Then follow the above directions.