Pepper’s Bookshelf – Between a Wok and a Dead Place

(With the Lunar New Year approaching, I went to the blog in search of this post to share it again and discovered I’d never posted it! But if you enjoy a bit of seasonal reading, then the timing is just right!)

Spice Shop readers tell me they love spotting names of books and authors they recognize and potential new reads on Pepper’s bookshelves, both in her loft and in the shop. And Pepper and Kristen, who handles most of the Spice Shop’s book buying, love creating seasonal book displays.

For the Lunar New Year, they’ve set out several foodie cozies with an Asian theme: Vivian Chien’s noodle shop mysteries, Jennifer Chow’s LA Night Market series, and Mia Manamsala’s Tita Rosie’s Kitchen mysteries, set in a family-run Filipino restaurant. I have read and enjoyed them all. And I’ll confess that I’m the customer who told them about The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, a fascinating novel about an American food reporter who meets a Chinese-American chef in China, a man determined to keep alive an intricate, formal style of Chinese cooking far beyond what most of us can imagine.

Pepper forges a working relationship with the owner of the new cheese shop in the Market, Say Cheese!, and seals it by giving her copies of For Cheddar or Worse by Avery Aames and Cheddar Off Dead by Korina Moss, both mysteries set in cheese shops. Food puns rule.

The staff steered customers planning a trip to France to cookbooks by two American food writers who focus on French food, David Liebovitz and Dorie Greenspan, along with a shop favorite, The French Country Table: Simple recipes for bistro classics, by Laura Washburn. Not coincidentally, all are favorites in our home.

Between a Wok and a Dead Place -- book cover, showing shop interior decorated for the Lunar New Year, and an Airedale terrier
Book cover for Between a Wok and a Dead Place

The book Lena insists Pepper read is The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford, set in Seattle’s Chinatown during World War II and the present day.

I discovered some terrific resources in my research, mentioned in the acknowledgments: Building Tradition: Pan-Asian Seattle and Life in the Residential Hotels, by Marie Rose Wong, Ph.D., an account not just of the CID’s residential hotels but of the economic, political, and social forces that shaped it.

Two books provided helpful personal accounts, photographs, and historical research: Divided Destiny: A History of Japanese Americans in Seattle by David Takami, and Reflections of Seattle’s Chinese Americans: The First 100 Years by Ron Chew and Cassie Chin.

I was totally absorbed by the memoir Long Way Home: Journeys of a Chinese Montanan by Flora Wong and Tom Decker. The experience of American-born Flora, whose daughter is a friend of ours, in returning to China as a small child in the 1930s, enduring tremendous hardship on a small family farm, then returning to the US in the late 1940s through an arranged marriage pulled together all I had read, and helped me understand more about the hardships of life in China and the tug that many immigrants felt, even after making the difficult decision to leave.

Another interesting reference, though one I barely dipped into, is Herbs and Roots: A History of Chinese Doctors in the American Medical Marketplace, Tamara Venit-Shelton, Ph.D. And while not part of my research, some readers may be intrigued by The Middle Kingdom Under the Big Sky: A History of the Chinese Experience in Montana by Mark T. Johnson. Both Professor Venit-Shelton and Professor Johnson speak widely about their research, and videos of their talks are available on YouTube and elsewhere on the Internet.

Finally, I always learn something interesting from Seattle Walks: Discovering History and Nature in the City by David B. Williams.

The murder is fiction. The food is fact.

Ebook and Audio Deals! News from Author Leslie Budewitz

Cover of The Solace of Bay Leaves audio book, showing an Airedale Terrier, sunflowers, and a wall of spice jars

All this month, BITTERROOT LAKE is a $1.99 Kindle Deal! Talk about sweet, right? BITTERROOT LAKE is my first standalone suspense novel, written as Alicia Beckman. When a young widow returns to her family’s lakeside Montana lodge in search of solace, murder forces her to reconnect with estranged friends and confront everything she thought she knew about the tragic accident twenty-five years ago that tore them apart.  

But wait, there’s more!

The Solace of Bay Leaves is half price at Audiobooks.com, through February 24!

Pepper Reece never expected to find her life’s passion in running the Seattle Spice Shop. In The Solace of Bay Leaves, 5th in the Spice Shop series, evidence links a friend’s shooting to an unsolved murder, and her own regrets surface. Can she uncover the truth and protect those she loves, before the deadly danger boils over?

The audio, narrated by the fabulous Dara Rosenberg, is 50% off at Audiobooks.com, an independent audio bookseller, through Feb. 24.  

A Good Year for Reading

2022 was, well, I think we can all agree it was a challenge for the world, in so many ways. Upsides for me: a fabulous trip to Switzerland and Italy with my husband, brother, and sister-in-law, two books out (Peppermint Barked, the 6th Spice Shop mystery, and Blind Faith, written as Alicia Beckman), and a return to in-person events, where I relished in the opportunity to reconnect with readers and meet new ones. And, reading. I read 59 books, including a few audios. Nearly 2/3 were crime fiction! Seventeen were by writers of color (including 4 nonfiction books that were part of my research for Between a Wok and a Dead Place, aka Spice Shop #7, coming in July) and seven were by LGBTQ+ authors. I’m delighted to see a more diverse pool of authors getting shelf and review space, awards and nominations, and general buzz. No matter how we categorize ourselves, we’re better off as readers and writers when the community widens.

My two favorite debut mysteries were both published this year: Magic, Lies, and Deadly Pies by Misha Popp and The Bangalore Detectives Club by Harini Nagendra, a historical mystery. .

The rest of my list – all recent, though none new in 2022, in order read:
Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead
Clark & Division, Naomi Hirahara
The Midnight Library, Matt Haig
This is What Happened, Mick Herron
The Dutch House, Ann Patchett,
The Turn of the Key, Ruth Ware

And two years in a row, my favorite read of the year was the last, literally finished at the 11th hour, on New Year’s Eve:
Beneath a Scarlet Sky, Mark Sullivan

Wishing you a year filled with deep joy of a life you love — and lots of good books!

Pepper’s Bookshelf — Peppermint Barked

Like me, Pepper Reece believes that every retail shop is a little sweeter — and a little more successful — when it includes books, whether it’s books on wine and wine country travel in a wine shop, regional art in a gallery, or local ghost stories in a coffee shop! In the Spice Shop, Pepper’s haven in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, you’ll find shelves and shelves of cookbooks, especially those that focus on spice or cooking for whatever holiday she’s celebrating! You’ll also find a healthy dose of foodie fiction, combining two of her favorite things — yours and mine, too!

In Peppermint Barked, Pepper sends a customer with a daughter just learning to cook home with Mark Bittman’s classic How to Cook Everything and Ian Hemphill’s go-to compendium, The Spice and Herb Bible. The customer adds a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s Dorie’s Cookies to the stack for a friend, then treats herself with David Lebovitz’s Drinking French. Not coincidentally, three of those four are go-to books in our house. And while we don’t have a copy of Dorie’s Cookies yet, I do love her classic Around My French Table, not least because it includes a recipe for a fabulous pepper steak from Bistro Paul Bert, a restaurant we discovered on our first trip to Paris in 2009 and revisited in January 2020. It also includes the marvelously simple recipe for chocolate mousse from the back of the Nestle’s chocolate bar sold in France, which we make often. (My girl Erin Murphy, from the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, adds a Montana flavor to it with huckleberry syrup. Here’s the recipe for her Huckleberry Chocolate Mousse.)

Of course, Pepper loves a good mystery, too, especially one with a foodie theme. In Peppermint Barked, she’s enjoying the delicious combination of crime, retail, and food served up by Cleo Coyle, Ellen Byron who also writes as Maria DiRico, and Maddie Day aka Edith M. Maxwell.

Arf (cropped)

And as always, she calls on her spirit guide, the medieval monk and herbalist Brother Cadfael, from the oh so good series by Ellis Peters that she discovered in a box books and videos her parents left in her storage locker before heading off to Costa Rica.

Here’s what Pepper was reading in The Solace of Bay Leaves and Chai Another Day, along with Parts One and Two of Pepper’s Bookshelf, dishing on her discoveries in the first three books of the series, Assault and Pepper, Guilty as Cinnamon, and Killing Thyme.

I’m deep into Book Seven as I write this, and I can tell you, she’ll have some great fiction to recommend as well as some intriguing nonfiction diving into Seattle history.

The Saturday Creativity Quote — celebrating success and “failure”

Most of you read this blog for creativity sparks and writing advice, but once or twice a year, I let you know what’s new for me. Next Tuesday, July 19, my sixth Spice Shop Mystery, Peppermint Barked, launches! I‘m celebrating on my Facebook Author page with a Christmas in July party and presents. (“Beat the heat — pretend it’s December!”) If you’re in Western Montana, come join me for a book talk and signing at Bigfork Art and Cultural Center, in the Village, Sat, July 23, 12:30 – 2:00, followed by a signing at Roma’s Gourmet Kitchen Shop.

Just a pinch of murder . . . When her life fell apart at age 40, Pepper Reece never expected to find solace in bay leaves. But her impulsive purchase of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market turned out to be one of the best decisions she ever made. Between selling spice and juggling her personal life, she also discovers another unexpected talent – for solving murder.

A Dickens of a Christmas turns deadly . . . In Peppermint Barked, the 6th Spice Shop mystery, Pepper investigates when a young woman working the Christmas rush in her friend Vinny’s wine shop is brutally attacked, on the busiest shopping day of the year.

So here’s the promised quote: “It’s easy to celebrate the publications, the performances, the exhibitions, compositions, recognitions and awards. All of the achievements that form into important lines on a professional resume…
“But what is also to be acknowledged are all the attempts that never find their way to this self-proclaimed piece of paper we’ve come to value as our calling card of worth to the world: countless hours spent in pursuit of your vision, researching, writing, creating a practice that creates myelin and muscle memory; time spent pushing away doubt and feelings of ineptitude; all the added up minutes spent pondering that gap between where you are and where you wish to be, who you are and who you know you can be… wanting to know in some unassailable way that your art makes a difference, that you matter.
“There are many tender moments in life that get tucked away into corners, shoved into closets and into boxes because they feel like failures. Yet I would suggest there is no such thing as a failure because these difficult moments have a rugged beauty and place in our lives. They provide contrast that leads us to a deeper understanding of ourselves, of our art, of the world we live in. They shape us as surely as each achievement.”

~ fia j. skye, Flying Edna newsletter, 3/31/22

Celebrate it all!

(P.S. Writing Wednesday is taking the summer off, because of my deadlines. It will return this fall.)

Book News! Book News!

Thank you, thank you, friends. We did it. YOU did it!  

I’m thrilled to say that Crooked Lane Books will publish Alicia’s next suspense novel, tentatively titled BLIND FAITH, on October 11, 2022. Two women whose paths crossed in Montana when they were teenagers discover they share keys to a deadly secret that exposes a killer—and changes everything they thought they knew about themselves and their families.

And I credit YOU for giving BITTERROOT LAKE the push we needed to persuade them!

Who’s Alicia Beckman? You may remember that with BITTERROOT LAKE, the publisher wisely asked me to write my suspense novels under a pen name to avoid confusion with my cozies. (Don’t worry—Leslie will keep writing cozies!) Alicia novels are moody and I hope, suspenseful; still no gore, not much blood, but some darker moments. The name honors my mother, Alice, and my maternal grandparents.  

I’ll be diving deep into revisions with my fabulous editor shortly.

Meanwhile, more good news! AS THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CRUMBLES, the 5th Food Lovers’ Village mystery, was re-released in paperback and e-book on November 9, by Beyond the Page Publishing. I’m so pleased to have all the Village books available again, after the sad closure of publisher Midnight Ink. And just in time for holiday reading — and gift-giving! (If you love Christmas mysteries, be sure to read “The Christmas Stranger” in CARRIED TO THE GRAVE AND OTHER STORIES, the 6th Village book.)

Speaking of short stories, Erin, Adam, and the villagers will return in “The Picture of Guilt,” in MURDER IN THE MOUNTAINS: A Destination Murder Collectionfeaturing short stories by nine terrific authors, out in paperback and ebook on February 1, 2022. Isn’t the cover a delight? And you can pre-order the ebook now for only 99 cents! (WoW!) 

Last, but so not least, we have a publication date for PEPPERMINT BARKED, the 6th Spice Shop mystery, coming from Seventh St. Books on July 19, 2022. (Available for pre-order now.) Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece investigates when a young woman working the Christmas rush in her friend Vinny’s wine shop is brutally attacked, on the busiest shopping day of the year. 

Meanwhile, I’m working on the first draft of another Alicia novel, using tips I picked up in a class to help me clarify the emotional heart of the story and identify what actions the characters take as a result. That’s always been key to me as a writer and reader, and I’m loving having new tools to help me heighten that story element. 

For sheer fun: Reader Carol sent me the link to this smile-out-loud video the Seattle Police Department created for the 2018 Lip Sync Challenge, with officers and student dancers performing to a medley by Seattleite Macklemore. Naturally, it won!

(Reader Carol, who lives in Seattle, also bought SIX copies of ASSAULT & PEPPER as holiday gifts. I heart Reader Carol. And I sent her bookmarks. Drop me a line if you’d like a few to tuck in your holiday packages.) 

I also heart libraries! The Mercer Co. (NJ) library system creates videos of authors sharing a bit of book-related triviaI’m part of this compilation of mystery, suspense, and other fiction authors. Check the library’s channel for more trivia videos, including mystery and children’s books. 

Reader Barb asked if I’d ever published the recipe for the Spice Shop’s signature spice tea. Surprise—I never had! CHAI ANOTHER DAY includes Pepper’s chai recipe, and PEPPERMINT BARKED will include both the pie spice recipe Pepper often puts in coffee and her peppermint mocha recipe, but the tea? I knew what was in it, so I headed down to the kitchen and brewed up a cup. For one cup, use a teaspoon or more of black Assam tea leaves, a slightly crushed cardamom pod, two allspice berries, and about 1/8 teaspoon dried grated orange peel (or fresh if you’ve got a willing orange). Use an infuser or a strainer. Steep 3-5 minutes, then pretend you’re sipping tea in the Spice Shop with Pepper, Sandra, and Arf!

Wherever you are, I hope you are safe and well, with a good cuppa and a good book close at hand. 

My deepest thanks for keeping me company on this journey. 

Leslie 

Sometimes Christmas Comes Twice

As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles

You better watch out
You better not cry
You better not pout
I’m telling you why
Santa Claus is coming to town!

Today is the re-release day for As the Christmas Cookie Crumbles, the 5th Food Lovers’ Village mystery.

From the cover: Erin is one smart cookie, but can she keep the holiday spirit—and herself—alive til Christmas?

In Jewel Bay, Montana’s Christmas Village, all is merry and bright. At Murphy’s Mercantile, AKA the Merc, manager Erin Murphy is ringing in the holiday season with food, drink, and a new friend: Merrily Thornton. A local girl gone wrong, Merrily has turned her life around. But her parents have publicly shunned her, and they nurse a bitterness that chills Erin.

When Merrily goes missing and her boss discovers he’s been robbed, fingers point to Merrily—until she’s found dead, a string of lights around her neck. The clues and danger snowball from there. Can Erin nab the killer—and keep herself in one piece—in time for a special Christmas Eve?

Why a re-release, you may be wondering. Cookie, as I call it, was originally published by Midnight Ink in June 2018. Midnight Ink’s parent company closed the line later that year and stopped distribution two years later, leaving both Cookie and its predecessor, Treble at the Jam Fest, without a publisher. (The audio books were not affected and have remained fully available.) Beyond the Page Publishing stepped in and picked up both titles, re-releasing Treble last March. Both feature the same fabulous original covers by artist Ben Perini! They also published Carried to the Grave and Other Stories: A Food Lovers’ Village Collection, in May. Now, with this re-release, all the Village books will again be available in ebook and print.

So some of you may have read Cookie. Thank you! Now you can share it with your friends, and what better Christmas gift for a reader than a Christmas mystery?

I’m also delighted to tell you that Erin and Adam and other villagers will make a return visit in Murder in the Mountains: A Destination Murders Short Story Collection, featuring short cozy mysteries by NINE fabulous authors! The collection will be out February 1, and for a limited time, you can pre-order the e-book for only 99 cents!

Merry Christmas, and Happy Reading!

Celebrating Bitterroot Lake — upcoming events and recent guest blog posts

Ganesh, reading (photo by Edith Maxwell)

Well. Bitterroot Lake is out in the world. Readers and friends have sent me pictures of their copies, paired with coffee, wine, or a curious kitten, or of the book on bookstore shelves. I adore those sightings in the wild—if you post one on Facebook, make sure to tag me so we can all join in the fun.

Just one event to mention this week. Tuesday, April 20, at 7 pm Mountain, I’ll be joining the mystery readers at the North Lake County Library in Polson, MT, by Zoom. Call or email the library for the link. The staff and readers there are great fun and I know we’ll have a lively conversation.

This past week, I was the guest at several blogs, talking about inspiration for the book, the writing process, and a few things I learned along the way.

At my friend Clea Simon’s blog, I talked about the influence of a book I read more than 35 years ago, “. . . And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santmyer, a loving (and long!) illustration of the crucial connections women forged in small towns of the past.

I visited with my friends at Chicks on the Case, writing about “If A Tree Falls”—how real life influences story events and the writing process.

At the Jungle Red Writers, I revealed “Five Amazing Things Alicia Beckman Learned While Writing Bitterroot Lake.” With pictures!

My friend Dru Ann Love, winner of the Mystery Writers of America’s Raven Award for her excellent blog and reviews, featured my main character, Sarah McCaskill Carter, in her “Day in the Life” series.

It was lovely to get out and about for a drop-in signing at the Bigfork Art & Cultural Center Saturday afternoon and to visit with readers, new and old. BACC has signed books; Bookworks in Whitefish quickly sold out of the signed copies but will have new stock shortly, as will the Bookshelf in Kalispell.

Happy reading!

Launch Day for Bitterroot Lake!

You know how you know a particular event is going to happen—say, your wedding day or a big trip—but it’s so far away, it doesn’t seem real, and then, all of a sudden, here it is?

Bitterroot Lake

That’s what launching a book is like.

Today, please welcome Bitterroot Lake, by my other self, Alicia Beckman. It’s out today in hardcover, ebook, and audio (narrated by the amazing Linda Jones). 

When a young widow returns to her family’s lakeside Montana lodge in search of solace, murder forces her to reconnect with estranged friends and confront everything she thought she knew about the tragic accident twenty-five years ago that tore them apart. 

I want to acknowledge that this is still a difficult time, a time of loss and grief for so many, and it feels a little strange to be celebrating a book launch. And yet, we are all readers here and we know what comfort books have brought us this past year.

I hope a few hours in an imaginary lodge on an imaginary lake outside an imaginary town in NW Montana will bring you some much-needed pleasure.

And a bit of armchair travel is always a welcome break. 

I’ve long wanted to write a book focused on women’s friendships—although if you read my Spice Shop mysteries, you know female friendships are central to the books, especially The Solace of Bay Leaves. And the historic lodges of western Montana, public and private, have fascinated me since I first set tender foot in them as a young girl. I’m sure I’m not alone in believing that places convey emotions, and that houses and the woods sometimes talk to us. All that and more come together on these pages. 

If you’d like to see some of the images that inspired me, take a peek at my Pinterest board, Life at Bitterroot Lake. 

Whether you’re part of a book club or read solo, I hope you’ll find some food for thought on the For Book Clubs page of my website. 

Thank goodness libraries, booksellers, and community groups around the region are welcoming authors and readers to their virtual spaces. I’ll be doing quite a few online events this spring, by myself and with other authors, to celebrate the launch of Bitterroot Lake. The full schedule is on my website.

And today, I’ll be posting several short videos, taking you behind the scenes on launch day, on my Facebook Author page, going live at 5 pm Mtn / 7pm E, when I’ll toast you all with the ritual pink champagne and give you a peek at my office!

It is a bit unnerving to send a book out into the world. Any book or story, but especially something new. A piece of ourselves goes out with every project. All I can do is sit here and wave, and wish it well, and hope you love it the way I do. Let me know, and if you like it, tell your friends. 

My thanks, as always, for joining me on this writing journey. 

From my heart,
Leslie 

PRAISE FOR BITTERROOT LAKE 

“A complex, richly imagined, atmospheric mystery,  Bitterroot Lake kept me guessing whodunit until the very end.”
—A. J. Banner, #1 bestselling author of The Good Neighbor

Atmospheric, character-driven, and truly absorbing, Bitterroot Lake is crime fiction at its finest.
—Christine Carbo, award-winning, best-selling author of the Glacier Mystery Series

Bitterroot Lake is a twisty, haunting thriller propelled by a delicious hint of otherworldliness. It’s a book that’s both an expert mystery and an affirmation of love and family. I was absolutely enthralled.”
—Emily Carpenter, bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls

“With a rich sense of place and a deft handling of fractured relationships, the pull of the past, and the pain of new grief, Alicia Beckman weaves a satisfying tale of secrets and lies eating away under the surface of happy families and close-knit small towns. And a touch of magic too!”
—Catriona McPherson, Edgar-nominated author of Strangers at the Gate

“Beckman paints a gorgeous picture of an idyllic small town. With some paranormal aspects, secrets past and present, and a multitude of murder suspects, this suspense debut is sure to attract readers.”
—Library Journal

Armchair Travel

The Solace of Bay Leaves

“There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away,” Emily Dickinson wrote, and though she rarely left Amherst or even her home, she was so right. Many of us had trouble reading when the pandemic first hit—days at home with no appointments, no running around, seems like the perfect time to read until it descends, dusted with anxiety and uncertainty. But that sense has eased for me, and I hope for you, too.

Mr. Right and I had a grand adventure in January, traveling to Paris to see the Louvre’s exhibit commemorating the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo DaVinci in France, in 1519. Besides spending the day at the exhibit, which was truly magnificent, we walked, wandering Paris, getting lost, finding churches and statues and gardens we might never have found with a plan. So in May, I found myself craving a touch of Paris. The only unread book on my shelves set there was an ARC (advance review copy) of Mission to Paris by Alan Furst, historical espionage set in 1938-39, following an Austrian-born American actor in Paris to make a movie who finds himself the target of German operatives who need a mole in the industry. I have no idea how I got the book—most likely a promo copy in a mystery convention book bag—but it was great fun. The actor’s home base in Paris is a hotel in the First—la Premiere—the district where we stayed, and I enjoyed tracing his travels through the city with the map on the frontispiece and my own memory. Furst has written a series of novels set in Europe in the run up to WW II and during the war, and they’re worth searching out.

Then a friend gave me The Little French Bistro by Nina George, author of The Little Paris Bookshop. Though Bistro starts and ends in Paris, much of the book is set in a small town on the Breton coast, a part of the country I haven’t visited. Not in person, anyway. It’s delightful—the story of a woman blossoming at 60 after a lifetime of oppression, finally making her own choices and finding joy in happy accidents.

I loved New Orleans on my one visit and am eager to return with Mr. Right, but visiting on the page is great—no heat, no bugs! Plus it’s so easy to get out of the city—just turn the page! The Orion Mask by Greg Herron is an homage to the gothic mysteries of Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart, following a young gay man who discovers that the mother he never knew came from a family with a grand history and a terrible secret that could have consequences for him all these years later. Set partly in NOLA and partly on a plantation a short drive away. Spooky, atmospheric, and fun.

If there were a prize for best title, The Murderess of Bayou Rosa by Ramona DeFelice Long would win. How can you not pick that up? Set in the early 1920s in a small town southwest of NOLA, with later scenes in Baton Rouge and Memphis, it’s the story of Geneva Amais, a young teacher, and her mother, Joelle, the murderess. Family secrets drive this book, too, and it’s a great trip.

Where to next? So many choices! Where are you booking your travel these days?