Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Leslie Budewitz | A Lunar New Year Celebration and a Murder Mystery
Author Guest / July 17, 2023

1–What is the title of your latest release? BETWEEN A WOK AND A DEAD PLACE: A Spice Shop mystery   2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? When Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, joins in a Lunar New Year celebration and a body is discovered in a long-closed residential hotel, she’s forced to investigate—before someone else’s fortunes take an unlucky change.   3–This is the latest entry in a series set in Seattle. Does it get harder or easier to write a series set in the same city? Why? I’ve loved Seattle since I was a college student there and writing about the city never gets old! Plus it’s an excuse to keep up with the city, since cities are always changing, and to make regular research trips. And by research, you know I mean eat!   4–Last year we asked if you would hang out with your protagonist in real life. This year we’ll ask which of your secondary characters in Pepper’s life would you like to hang out with the most? That’s easy! Sandra Piniella, the Spice Shop’s assistant manager, because she’s closely based on a real-life friend of mine,…

Leslie Budewitz | 20 Questions: PEPPERMINT BARKED
Author Guest / July 18, 2022

1–What is the title of your latest release? PEPPERMINT BARKED, Spice Shop Mysteries #6, out July 19, 2022 2–What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book? 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. 3–How did you decide where your book was going to take place? I fell in love with Seattle’s Pike Place Market as a college freshman, eons ago, and made it my life’s mission to eat my way through it. Best part, it’s constantly changing, so I’ll never finish! When I decided, a book or two into my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries,…

Leslie Budewitz | Five Reasons I Love Seattle’s Pike Place Market
Author Guest / October 20, 2020

I fell in love with Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market as a college freshman, not long after the city’s voters saved it from “urban removal.” I made it my mission to eat my way from one end to the other, and since the Market is constantly changing, that mission will keep me happy, and well-fed, for a long time! The Food. The Market is the heart and soul–and stomach–of the city. You can eat just about anything here. Start with a slice of pizza at DeLaurenti’s Italian grocery. Sample spice tea at Market Spice. Italian, French, Greek, Thai, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Persian, Vietnamese. Clam chowder, oysters, barbecue, dim sum, piroshky. Bagels, crumpets, crepes, and cheesecake. Stop at the original Starbucks. Sip wine, beer, ginger beer. Okay, I’m hungry now. History. Founded in 1907, the Market is considered the oldest continuously operating farmers’ market in the country. It was the first mixed-use commercial and residential project named to the National Historic Register. The Architecture. A historic commission oversees the Market’s physical operations, with a mandate to keep the look and feel accurate. Pike Place, the street running through the Market, is still cobbled. Buildings maintain their original designs, colors, and materials….

Leslie Budewitz | Author Reader Match: CHAI ANOTHER DAY
Author Guest / June 13, 2019

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors as a reader you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Leslie Budewitz!  Writes: Cozy mystery. My latest release is CHAI ANOTHER DAY, 4th in the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, coming June 11, 2018. The crimes are fiction; the food is real. About: Mystery author obsessed with food and the Northwest seeks readers for armchair travel to foodie heaven, the Pike Place Market in Seattle, with a savvy Spice Shop owner who doubles as the poster child for the cliche that life begins at forty. When she overhears an argument in an antique shop, she finds herself drawn into a murder that could implicate an old enemy, or ensnare a new friend. With her natural people-smarts and determination, she asks questions the detectives can’t, using her knowledge of the community to bring a killer to justice. What I’m looking for in my ideal reader match: Knows that reading, and friends, are the spice of life Looks at their TBR pile and thinks they need another bookshelf—or three…

Cozy Mysteries to Help You Love Agricultural (or learning about dirt from reading mysteries)
Readers / December 7, 2017

Winter is peeking around the corner in most parts of the nation but here in sunny Florida, fall is just another growing season. We’ve already produced quite a few lemons from our tree and I’m ready to start digging in the dirt again to see if we can grow more tomatoes and peppers for my husband’s yummy salsa. Cozy mysteries about organic planting and farms always appeal to me when I’m planting (or even thinking about planting) as they offer me tips, encouragement, and an entertaining mystery in the process, particularly long-running series that make me feel like I’m sitting down with old friends for a cup of tea. One of the first cozy mysteries I remember reading that featured gardening was THYME OF DEATH by Susan Wittig Albert. Long before going healthy and organic was popular and you could find a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s in almost every major city, the heroine, China Bayles, appeared on the scene as a high-powered attorney who left her job to open an herb shop. China has her own garden next to her store, Thyme and Seasons Herb Company, and it’s a place I’ve enjoyed visiting off and on over the years…

Leslie Budewitz | Where do you get your ideas?
Author Guest / July 1, 2014

I hear tell that some authors don’t like that question. Not me! Maybe because I have a great memory—but mostly because it’s fun to retrace, for myself and readers, how disparate images and incidents came together, shifted, and took shape on the page. In CRIME RIB, second in my Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries (out July 1), the TV show Food Preneurs comes to Jewel Bay, Montana to film the 35th Annual Summer Art and Food Festival and its centerpiece, the annual steak grill-off. My protagonist, Erin Murphy, manages a grocery specializing in local foods. After disaster struck the village in DEATH AL DENTE, Erin is content this time to stay on the sidelines, keeping her focus on the Merc and scouting festival vendors for new products. When the show’s producer is killed in a hit-and-run, Festival organizers beg her to step in and help out, to give Jewel Bay a shot at national publicity. How can a local girl say no? But when the host reveals a less than camera-ready side of himself, and a contestant is attacked and killed, Erin worries that the town’s reputation as a family-friendly, food-loving, vacation village will go up in flames. And when the…