Murder A La Mode (Coffee & Cream Cafe Mysteries)
by Lena Gregory

About Murder A La Mode

Murder A La Mode (Coffee & Cream Cafe Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – New York
Gemma Halliday Publishing (August 8, 2023)
Digital – Number of Pages 230
ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C2LH144G

From author Lena Gregory comes a delicious new series that will warm your heart and leave you guessing until the very end…

When twenty-five-year-old Danika Delaney, black sheep of the Delaney clan, returns home to Long Island to take over Jimmie’s, her eccentric uncle’s old fashioned malt shop on eastern Long Island, she’s not exactly thrilled. But things start to look up when her uncle tells her she can do whatever she’d like with the shop, and it seems she might realize her dream of a small trendy café. That is, until she discovers the body of her ex-boyfriend’s estranged wife in a melted puddle of rocky road in the malt shop basement. With her two sidekicks, her sister and a good childhood friend, in tow, Dani searches for–or stumbles upon—one clue after another. But as she narrows down the suspect list, she realizes if she’s not careful she may end up in a puddle of her own…

About Lena Gregory

Lena grew up in a small town on the south shore of eastern Long Island, but she recently traded in cold, damp, gray winters for the warmth and sunshine of Central Florida, where she now lives with her husband, three kids, son-in-law, and four dogs. Her hobbies include spending time with family, reading, and walking. Her love for writing developed when her youngest son was born and didn’t sleep through the night. She works full time as a writer and a freelance editor and is a member of Sisters in Crime.

Author Links

• Newsletter: http://lenagregory.us12.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=9765d0711ed4fab4fa31b16ac&id=49d42335d1.
• Website: http://www.lenagregory.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lena.gregory.986
• Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Lena.Gregory.Author/?fref=ts
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/LenaGregory03
• Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14956514.Lena_Gregory?from_search=true
• Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/lenagregoryauth/

Purchase Links

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MURDER A LA MODE TOUR PARTICIPANTS

August 8 – Read Your Writes Book Reviews – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

August 8 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – REVIEW

August 9 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

August 9 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT

August 10 – Hearts & Scribbles – SPOTLIGHT

August 10 – Baroness Book Trove – REVIEW

August 10 – MJB Reviewers – REVIEW, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY

August 11 – Ruff Drafts – AUTHOR GUEST POST

August 11 – Christa Reads and Writes – SPOTLIGHT

August 12 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT

August 12 – Socrates Book Reviews – REVIEW

August 13 – Cozy Up With Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW

August 13 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT

August 14 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

August 15 – The Mystery Section – SPOTLIGHT

August 15 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW

August 16 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – REVIEW

August 16 – Jane Reads – CHARACTER GUEST POST

August 17 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR GUEST POST

August 17 – Mochas, Mysteries and Meows – CHARACTER GUEST POST

August 18 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW

August 18 – Brooke Blogs – REVIEW, INDIVIDUAL GIVEAWAY

August 19 – Reading Is My SuperPower – REVIEW

August 20 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT

August 21 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW

August 21 – My Reading Journeys – SPOTLIGHT

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A Sense for Murder (A Sally Solari Mystery)
by Leslie Karst

About A Sense for Murder

A Sense for Murder (A Sally Solari Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting – California
Severn House (August 1, 2023)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1448309050
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1448309054
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0BXPY61Q1

Chef Sally Solari has – to her own bewilderment – built a reputation as a talented sleuth who keeps tripping over dead bodies. But getting mixed up in the curious case of a cookbook killer threatens to be the final chapter in not just her investigating career . . . but her life.

It’s the height of the tourist season in Santa Cruz, California, and Sally Solari has her hands full, both juggling crowds of hungry diners at her French-Polynesian restaurant Gauguin, as well as appeasing her father, who’s distressed at the number of homeless people camped out in front of Solari’s, the family’s Italian seafood restaurant out on the historic fisherman’s wharf.

Nevertheless, when Sally gets the opportunity to volunteer at a farm-to-table dinner taking place at the hip new restaurant and culinary bookshop Pages and Plums, she seizes the chance. Not only is it a fundraiser for an organization aiding the homeless and seniors, but up for auction at the event is a signed boxset of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Sally’s hero, the renowned chef Julia Child.

But then the Pages and Plums dining room manager turns up dead – the locked cabinet containing the precious books now empty – and the irrepressible Sally once again finds herself up to her neck in a criminal investigation. She may have a sense for murder, but can Sally outwit a devious killer with a taste for French cooking before the villain makes mincemeat of her, too?

A Sense for Murder is a fast-paced, super fun culinary cozy mystery that will have your brain working and your mouth watering. And if you haven’t met sleuthing chef Sally yet, it’s safe to jump right in.

EXCERPT

If not for the clatter of my bicycle bouncing down the wooden planks of the Santa Cruz Municipal Wharf, I felt certain that every tourist I whizzed past would have been startled by the loud rumblings emanating from my empty stomach.

I’d set off on my morning ride with only a cup of coffee for sustenance, and the effects of the initial caffeine buzz had now been replaced by a severe case of low blood sugar. As a result (notwithstanding the million-dollar view of the historic fisherman’s wharf stretching out from the sparkling beach and the iconic roller coaster rising up behind), the only thing on my mind at that moment was the prospect of biting into one of my father’s famous ricotta-and-mascarpone-filled cannoli.

I spotted Dad’s tall, stocky figure standing in front of Solari’s Restaurant as soon as I rounded the bend near the end of the wharf. He was turned toward me, waving, so I waved back, then quickly grabbed hold of my handlebars as I hit a nasty bump in the road. Once closer, however, I realized he wasn’t waving at me. He hadn’t even noticed my arrival. Rather, he was shouting and gesticulating at a form sprawled on the sidewalk at the corner of the building.

‘Why the hell do you insist on camping out here?’ I heard him yell as I approached. ‘You and your kind are driving away my business!’

Wheeling up to the front entrance, I clipped out of my pedals and leaned my red-and-white road bike against the restaurant’s whitewashed wood siding. Through the neon Budweiser and Amstel Light signs hanging in the window above, I could see a table of early lunchers chowing down on plates of crab salads and linguine.

‘Hey, Dad. What’s going on?’

‘Sally.’ He turned to me with a frown. ‘I didn’t hear you ride up.’

‘Probably because you were making quite a bit of racket yourself.’

The person at his feet – a thin, gray-haired man wrapped in a dark green sleeping bag – pushed himself to an upright position and regarded the two of us with dull eyes. A fat seagull pecked at a discarded French fry not three feet from where he sat.

Dad returned the man’s gaze with an angry stare. ‘I’ve been trying for five full minutes to get this guy to move his sorry ass away from my restaurant, but he pretends like he doesn’t even hear me. Maybe I should just call the cops on you,’ he said to the cocooned man, ‘and let them deal with it.’

‘Maybe if you tried treating him like a human being, your powers of persuasion would be a little more effective,’ I responded. ‘I mean, really: “you and your kind”?’ But my father merely shook his head and turned to walk back inside Solari’s, clearly now annoyed not only with the guy in the sleeping bag but also his only daughter.

About Leslie Karst

Leslie Karst is the author of the Lefty Award-nominated Sally Solari mystery series and Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG. After years waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock band, she decided she was ready for a “real” job and ended up at Stanford Law School. It was during her career as an attorney that Leslie rediscovered her youthful passion for food and cooking and once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in culinary arts. Now retired from the law, Leslie spends her time cooking, cycling, gardening, observing cocktail hour promptly at five o’clock, and of course writing. She and her wife split their time between Santa Cruz, California, and Hilo, Hawai‘i.

Author Links

Website http://www.lesliekarstauthor.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lesliekarstauthor/

BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/leslie-karst

GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14220589.Leslie_Karst

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesliekarst/

Twitter https://twitter.com/LeslieKarst

Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org

TOUR PARTICIPANTS

July 25 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

July 25 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST

July 26 – Novels Alive – REVIEW – SPOTLIGHT

July 26 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT

July 27 – The Mystery of Writing – CHARACTER INTERVIEW

July 27 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT

July 28 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT

July 28 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR GUEST POST

July 29 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT

July 29 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT

July 30 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT

July 31 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

August 1 – Cozy Up With Kathy – AUTHOR INTERVIEW

August 1 – Carstairs Considers – REVIEW

August 2 – Cinnamon, Sugar, and a Little Bit of Murder – REVIEW, RECIPE

August 2 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT

August 3 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT

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