Kate Carlisle. The Paper Caper (Berkley, $27.00 signed).
San Francisco book-restoration expert Brooklyn Wainwright loves a good book festival except when murder is the main event in this thrilling new addition to the New York Times bestselling Bibliophile Mystery series.
Brooklyn is excited to be included in the Covington Library’s first annual Mark Twain Festival. She’ll rebind a rare first edition of The Prince and the Pauper before an enthusiastic audience of book nerds—her favorite people. The festival is the passion project of wealthy media mogul, book lover, and newspaper owner Joseph Cabot, who considers himself Twain’s biggest fan. Brooklyn’s hunky husband, Derek, and his security team once rescued Joseph from a corporate kidnapping attempt. Now Derek and his agents are charged with keeping Joseph and his beautiful young wife safe during the festivities taking place all over town.
The centerpiece of the festival is a citywide contest based on The Prince and the Pauper: one lucky look-alike will trade places with Joseph for a few days—with access to all the money and power that Joseph commands. Brooklyn and Derek worry that the contest might be generating some dangerous attention. And when someone is mysteriously poisoned right before Brooklyn’s eyes, she’s not convinced that the victim was the intended target. Now she and Derek must frantically chase clues and suspects through the streets of San Francisco before another murder becomes front-page news. . . .
Vicky Delany. Murder Spills the Tea (Kensington, $26.00).
Lily Roberts pores over the clues in a piping hot new case when a confrontational celebrity chef is murdered at her Cape Cod tearoom during the filming of a popular baking show in the latest Tea by the Sea mystery from national bestselling author Vicki Delany . . .
The country’s hottest TV cooking show is coming to Cape Cod. And against her better judgment, Lily Roberts is entering America Bakes! with her charming tearoom, Tea by the Sea. Filming is already proving disruptive, closing the tearoom during Lily’s busiest season. But tensions really bubble over when infamous bad-boy chef and celebrity judge, Tommy Greene, loses his temper with Lily’s staff, resulting in an on-camera blowup with Cheryl Wainwright. Just as Lily thinks the competition can’t get more bitter, Tommy is found dead in Tea by the Sea’s kitchen . . . murdered with Lily’s rolling pin.
Suspicion immediately falls on Cheryl, but the temperamental star has racked up plenty of culinary clashes in the past, both on- and off-screen. And nearly anyone associated with Tommy or the show could be the killer: be it one of Lily’s fierce competitors, a member of the beleaguered film crew, or even one of Tommy’s fellow judges—struggling cookbook maven, Claudia D’Angelo or beauty contest winner, Scarlet McIntosh. Now, while she’s baking up a storm for the show, Lily must also whip up an impromptu investigation . . . before the murderer rolls someone else away.