Quiche of Death Guest Post and Giveaway

Author’s Guest Post

Family Dinners Can Be Deadly

First off, thank-you for letting me stop by. I’m excited about this latest installment in the Sugar & Spice Mystery series and appreciate the opportunity to talk about it.

Friends and business partners, Sugar Calloway and Dixie Spicer have done well with their community cookbook business but this latest commission is a little different.

Usually it’s an organization or club who contacts Sugar & Spice Cookbooks and wants to put together a book as a fundraiser. But this time it’s a family who has made their fortune in the food business – quiches to be exact – and they want to pull together a book of family recipes. Their father is gone and their mother is failing and so they’ve planned a family gathering to kick off the project. Sugar and Dixie are invited to join them for the weekend to help decide which recipes should be included and to perhaps collect a few family stories as well. Great food, shared memories, good times.

You can see where this is going, right?

Well, the food was certainly great. And the Arbor siblings seemed willing to share memories. But the rest of the plans went awry rather quickly with the arrival of Theo, the only grandson, and his fiancé, Collette, who stirs up a bit of trouble right away with her poodle.

By day two, Sugar and Dixie are not sorting recipes, they are instead trying to help sort out a murder.

Sugar and Dixie are great sleuths and I love writing the two of them. The book also gave me a chance to re-visit Arbor House, the fictional bed & breakfast where the story takes place. Plus, this installment had me trying some new recipes, as Sugar and Dixie do eventually get to go through all the Arbor family recipe archives.

About Quiche of Death

Quiche of Death (A Sugar & Spice Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
3rd in Series
Publisher: Lyrical Press (July 21, 2020)
Print Length: ~254 pages
ASIN: B0855Q9JFW

When editor Sugar Calloway and baker Dixie Spicer went into business creating cookbooks, they found a sideline as amateur sleuths. Now a bitter family grudge could leave a fatal aftertaste…

At Sugar & Spice Community Cookbooks, the friends and business partners have secured a tasty new commission: producing a cookbook for the Arbor family. The Arbors have made their fortune in quiches, and Sugar and Spice have been invited to a weekend gathering where all the siblings, along with crusty matriarch Marta, will be in attendance. But it’s soon clear that this trip will come with a hefty slice of drama.

Theo, the only grandson, arrives with his flaky fiancée, Collette, who quickly stirs up trouble . . . and is found dead the next day. As the investigation unfolds, secrets—and recipes—are shared, and Sugar and Spice realize just how messy and murderous the situation may be. As another family member falls ill, can they solve the case without getting egg on their faces . . .and a target on their backs?

* Includes delicious recipes! *

Excerpt

“Quiche me, you fool.”

The demand was followed by hoots of laughter as the sister—Jezzie, I think her name was—leaned into her spouse for a smooch. He hesitated but obliged.

I smiled at the boisterous group who clearly shared some inside joke about quiche and kissing. The warmth of the table and the sibling love melted my heart like butter on a biscuit. Taking a sip of water, I glanced over at Dixie, who sat across from me at the huge oak table.

She rolled her eyes.

“What?” I mouthed.

Dixie shrugged. Jezzie had perhaps a teensy bit too much wine, but still: When did my best friend and business partner get so darn stuffy? Maybe it was the inside-joke part that she found off-putting.

But we did know quiche was the family’s stock-in-trade, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch to figure out the expression had something to do with the Arbor family’s food business. After all, that was why we were here.

About Mary Lee Ashford

Mary Lee Ashford is a lifelong bibliophile, and avid reader, and supporter of public libraries.

In addition to writing the Sugar and Spice series for Kensington Books, she also writes as half of the writing team of Sparkle Abbey, author of the national bestselling Pampered Pets mystery series from Bell Bridge Books.

Prior to publishing Mary Lee won first place in the Daphne du Maurier contest, sponsored by the Kiss of Death chapter of RWA, and was a finalist in Murder in the Grove’s mystery contest, as well as Killer Nashville’s Claymore Dagger contest.

She is the founding president of Sisters in Crime – Iowa and a past board member of the Mystery Writers of America Midwest chapter, as well as a member of Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, Kiss of Death the RWA Mystery Suspense chapter, Sisters in Crime, and the SinC internet group Guppies. She loves encouraging other writers and is a frequent presenter for writers’ groups.

Mary Lee has a passionate interest in creativity and teaches a university-level course in Creative Management to MPA candidates, as well as presenting workshops and blogging about creativity.

She currently resides in the midwest with her husband, Tim, and cat, Zoey. Her delights are reading and enjoying her two sons and daughters-in-law, and six grandchildren.

Author Links

Website – https://maryleeashford.com/

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