Fatal Fudge Swirl

Fatal Fudge Swirl
Author: Meri Allen
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2023-06-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250267110

A movie production brings drama—and murder—to a close-knit New England village, forcing Riley Rhodes to scoop out the suspects. Former CIA librarian and amateur sleuth Riley Rhodes is loving her fresh start as the manager of the Udderly Delicious Ice Cream Shop. The leaves are turning, tourists are leaf-peeping, and Penniman, Connecticut is putting finishing touches on the weekend long Halloween Happening. But the village is also buzzing. Former child star Cooper Collins is overseeing the production of a romantic comedy that’s filming on the town green and his domineering socialite mother, Diantha, is planning her lavish Halloween themed wedding at her Inn on the Green. Her fiancé has run the Inn's kitchen for years, ably aided by his recent ex-wife, chef Mary Ann Dumas. An old friend of Riley’s, Mary Ann turns to her when the bride requests a spooky ice cream wedding cake. But the weekend takes a frightful turn when Diantha is found dead and suspicion falls on Mary Ann. The cast of potential suspects is long—each wedding guest had a chilling motive to kill the vicious heiress. Can Riley unmask the murderer before another guest ends up on ice?

The Rocky Road to Ruin

The Rocky Road to Ruin
Author: Meri Allen
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 227
Release: 2021-07-27
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250267072

Justice will be swirled by amateur sleuth Riley Rhodes in the first in Meri Allen's brand-new mystery series, The Rocky Road to Ruin! Riley Rhodes, travel food blogger and librarian at the CIA, makes a bittersweet return to her childhood home of Penniman, Connecticut – land of dairy farms and covered bridges - for a funeral. Despite the circumstances, Riley’s trip home is sprinkled with reunions with old friends, visits to her father’s cozy bookshop on the town green, and joyful hours behind the counter at the beloved Udderly Delicious Ice Cream Shop. It feels like a time to help her friend Caroline rebuild after her mother’s death, and for Riley to do a bit of her own reflecting after a botched undercover mission in Italy. After all, it’s always good to be home. But Caroline and her brother Mike have to decide what to do with the assets they’ve inherited – the ice cream shop as well as the farm they grew up on – and they’ve never seen eye to eye. Trouble begins to swirl as Riley is spooked by reports of a stranger camping behind the farm and by the odd behavior of the shop’s mascot, Caroline’s snooty Persian, Sprinkles. When Mike turns up dead in the barn the morning after the funeral, the peace and quiet of Penniman seems upended for good. Can Riley find the killer before another body gets scooped?

Mint Chocolate Murder

Mint Chocolate Murder
Author: Meri Allen
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250267080

When a cold-hearted photographer, who has a dark history of obsession with his models, winds up dead during the opening of his exhibit, former CIA librarian-turned-ice shop manager Riley Rhodes realizes there's more than one suspect who wanted to put him on ice.

The Dutch Wife

The Dutch Wife
Author: Ellen Keith
Publisher: Harlequin
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1488098662

A sweeping story of love and survival during World War II AMSTERDAM, MAY 1943. As the tulips bloom and the Nazis tighten their grip across the city, the last signs of Dutch resistance are being swept away. Marijke de Graaf and her husband are arrested and deported to different concentration camps in Germany. Marijke is given a terrible choice: to suffer a slow death in the labor camp or—for a chance at survival—to join the camp brothel. On the other side of the barbed wire, SS officer Karl MŸller arrives at the camp hoping to live up to his father’s expectations of wartime glory. When he encounters the newly arrived Marijke, this meeting changes their lives forever. Woven into the narrative across space and time is Luciano Wagner’s ordeal in 1977 Buenos Aires, during the heat of the Argentine Dirty War. In his struggle to endure military captivity, he searches for ways to resist from a prison cell he may never leave. From the Netherlands to Germany to Argentina, The Dutch Wife braids together the stories of three individuals who share a dark secret and are entangled in two of the most oppressive reigns of terror in modern history. This is a novel about the blurred lines between love and lust, abuse and resistance, and right and wrong, as well as the capacity for ordinary people to persevere and do the unthinkable in extraordinary circumstances. Don’t miss THE DUTCH ORPHAN! Ellen's next riveting novel set about a woman who must choose between family loyalty and her own safety.

Mint Chocolate Murder

Mint Chocolate Murder
Author: Meri Allen
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2022-07-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250267099

"Mint Chocolate Murder is a delightful confection of wonderful characters, a yummy setting, and an intriguing, twisty, and multi-layered mystery. It's the perfect book to curl up with on a lazy summer afternoon—preferably with your favorite flavor of ice cream close to hand." --Elizabeth Penney, Edgar-nominated author of the Cambridge Bookshop Series Riley Rhodes returns in the second delicious cozy set in a New England ice cream shop, Meri Allen's Mint Chocolate Murder! When Udderly Delightful Ice Cream shop manager Riley Rhodes is summoned to Penniman’s Moy Mull Castle, it’s the cherry on top of a successful summer season. The gothic pile built by an eccentric New England Gilded Age millionaire has been transformed into a premiere arts colony by Maud Monaco, a reclusive former supermodel. As part of Moy Mull’s Fall Arts Festival, Maud is throwing a fantasy ice cream social and hires Riley to whip up unique treats to celebrate the opening of an exhibit by Adam Blasco, a photographer as obnoxious as he is talented. As Penniman fills up with Maud’s art-world friends arriving for the festival, gossip swirls around Blasco, who has a dark history of obsession with his models. Riley’s curiosity and instincts for sleuthing – she was a CIA librarian – are piqued, and she wonders at the hold the cold-hearted photographer has over the mistress of Moy Mull. But when Adam is found dead behind the locked door of Moy Mull’s dungeon, Riley realizes there’s more than one suspect who’d wanted to put the malicious photographer on ice.

Cozy Case Files, Volume 18

Cozy Case Files, Volume 18
Author: Meri Allen
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2023-05-23
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250320623

Looking for a new cozy series? In the new edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of eleven charming cozy mysteries publishing in Spring/Summer 2023 for free for easy sampling. The eighteenth edition of Cozy Case Files features cozies from the following authors: Meri Allen, Donna Andrews, Olivia Blacke, Vivien Chien, Leonard Goldberg, Carolyn Haines, Olivia Matthews, Allison Montclair, Korina Moss, Mindy Quigley, and Katharine Schellman. Bring your appetite as you catch up on what's happening in your favorite eateries in Fatal Fudge Swirl, Curds of Prey, Misfortune Cookie, Hard Dough Homicide, and Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust. Take up birding in Birder, She Wrote. Travel west in A Fatal Groove and Tell-Tale Bones. Want to escape the present? Head to the past in The Wayward Prince, The Lady from Burma, and The Last Drop of Hemlock.

Cozy Case Files, A Cozy Mystery Sampler, Volume 12

Cozy Case Files, A Cozy Mystery Sampler, Volume 12
Author: Ellie Alexander
Publisher: Minotaur Books
Total Pages: 409
Release: 2021-05-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1250826020

Looking for a new cozy series? In the free edition of Cozy Case Files, Minotaur Books compiles the beginnings of fourteen charming cozy mysteries for easy sampling. The twelfth edition of Cozy Case Files features the latest cozies by the following authors: Ellie Alexander, Meri Allen, Donna Andrews, Eve Calder, Sheila Connolly, Cate Conte, Hannah Dennison, Jess Dylan, Leonard Goldberg, Carolyn Haines, Kylie Logan, Allison Montclair, S. C. Perkins, and Ashley Weaver. Have a sweet tooth? Get your fix in A Tale of Two Cookies, The Rocky Road to Ruin, and Mocha, She Wrote. Pick up some flowers and read Death in Bloom, then travel to your favorite cat café in Claws for Alarm. You can join in for preparations for a production of Macbeth in Murder Most Fowl, and stay the night at a hotel in Danger at the Cove. And in the morning, train cadaver dogs in A Trail of Lies, then help clear a professor’s name in Independent Bones. Perhaps you prefer to travel in time. A Sherlockian mystery awaits you in The Abduction of Pretty Penny. Visit England in WWII with a safe cracker in A Peculiar Combination. In post-WWII England, play matchmaker in A Rogue’s Company. Or you can stay in the present, with crimes tied to the past, in Fatal Family Ties and The Secret Staircase.

The Disappearing Spoon

The Disappearing Spoon
Author: Sam Kean
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2010-07-12
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0316089087

From New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean comes incredible stories of science, history, finance, mythology, the arts, medicine, and more, as told by the Periodic Table. Why did Gandhi hate iodine (I, 53)? How did radium (Ra, 88) nearly ruin Marie Curie's reputation? And why is gallium (Ga, 31) the go-to element for laboratory pranksters? The Periodic Table is a crowning scientific achievement, but it's also a treasure trove of adventure, betrayal, and obsession. These fascinating tales follow every element on the table as they play out their parts in human history, and in the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. The Disappearing Spoon masterfully fuses science with the classic lore of invention, investigation, and discovery -- from the Big Bang through the end of time. Though solid at room temperature, gallium is a moldable metal that melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit. A classic science prank is to mold gallium spoons, serve them with tea, and watch guests recoil as their utensils disappear.

A Game of Cones

A Game of Cones
Author: Abby Collette
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2021-03-02
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593099680

In this charming mystery series set in an ice cream shop, no case is too cold to crack! Bronwyn Crewse is delighted that Crewse Creamery, the ice cream shop her family has owned for decades, is restored to its former glory and serving sweet frozen treats to happy customers in the picturesque small town of Chagrin Falls, Ohio. But when a big city developer comes to town intent on building a mall, a killer with a frozen heart takes him out. After literally stumbling across the body, one of Win’s closest friends becomes the prime suspect, and to make things worse, Win’s aunt has come to town with the intention of taking command of Crewse Creamery. Even though Win has a rocky road ahead to help her friend and keep her ice cream shop, it'll take more than a sprinkle of murder to stop her from solving the crime and saving the day.

No Memes of Escape

No Memes of Escape
Author: Olivia Blacke
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2021-10-05
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593197909

Amateur sleuth Odessa Dean is about to discover the only thing harder than finding her way out of an escape room is finding an affordable apartment in Brooklyn in this sequel to Killer Content. Odessa Dean has made a home of Brooklyn. She has a fun job waiting tables at Untapped Books & Café and a new friend, Izzy, to explore the city with. When she's invited on a girls' day out escape room adventure, she jumps at the chance. It's all fun and games until the lights come on and they discover one of the girls bludgeoned to death... The only possible suspects are Odessa and the four other players that were locked in the escape room with the victim. She refuses to believe that one of them is responsible for the murder, despite what the clues indicate. In between shifts at the café, Odessa splits her time interviewing the murder suspects, updating the bookstore's social media accounts, and searching for the impossible--an affordable apartment in Brooklyn. But crime--and criminally high rent--waits for no woman. Can Odessa clear her and Izzy’s names before the police decide they're guilty?