First in series

Danielle Postel-Vinay: Murder Most Delicious

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Series Debut

There are several ways to judge a book.  If three are present – plot, character, and setting – the book (to me) is good, if not great.  The x factor is prose style.  This novel has three excellent elements – character, setting and lovely prose.  The plot is OK and I figured out whodunnit long before the last page, but the prose just sings as does the setting of the novel, and I was carried away.

That setting is a tiny Paris neighborhood, Gros-Caillou, abutting the Eiffel Tower. The arrival of American sommelier Olivia Beech to a local anchor restaurant, Chez Jacques, is something of a sensation, becoming even more so when, during a wine tasting, the eponymous Jacques falls dead at Olivia’s feet.  While Olivia has been gifted with an extraordinary “nose” for wine, covid has taken away her sense of taste, which for a sommelier is a disaster.  Surfacing from a career crisis in an attempt to reclaim her life, she’s pinned her hopes on a resurrection at Chez Jacques. read more

Uzma Jalaluddin: Detective Aunty

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Kausar Khan #1

This is the first mystery for writer Uzma Jalaluddin, though she’s already had a successful writing career creating women’s fiction.  Her detective, a recent widow named Kausar Khan, lives in North Bay, Canada.  One morning she gets a call from her daughter Sana, back in Toronto, telling her there’s been a murder and she’s the prime suspect.  Then she hangs up.  Kausar, who hasn’t been back to Toronto since the death of her son many years ago, nevertheless hurriedly packs a bag and jumps on a plane. read more

Lauren Elliott: Steeped in Secrets

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Anyone looking for a new cozy series that has a strong protagonist, multiple levels of enigmas, and a supernatural flair, need look no further than Lauren Elliott’s Steeped in Secrets. The main character, Shayleigh Myers, finds herself back in her hometown of California’s Monterey Peninsula due to her life falling apart. This is thanks to her ex-husband Brad’s scheming and cheating, both in love and in business. Shayleigh is left destitute and discredited from her chosen profession of gemologist and has nowhere to go but back to her hometown and crashing on her sister’s couch.  Just as everything seems hopeless, however, she receives unusual news from the estate of Bridget Early. read more