Blurb
Beluga Stein is taking a cooking class and it's a real killer. This time she's traded her signature loud muumuus for ill-fitting chef attire, including a toque the size of her ego.
A well-liked chef is found dead and it's up to Beluga and her feline familiar, Planchette, to investigate. There's no recipe to follow, only the hope that her erratic psychic ability will hit the spot. Is a supernatural entity stirring up trouble, or something far more dangerous?
Beluga and Planchette can't stand the heat, but there's no way out of this kitchen while murder is the main dish.
Excerpt
Beluga Stein’s Diary
The evil smell lingers.
Even with all the windows in the house open, the doors cracked a notch, the attic fan going full blast, and Planchette’s tail fanning his face like he was Egyptian royalty preparing for personal delivery of a peeled grape, the odor of exploded eggs clings to everything like a sock stuck to the back of a shirt by static cling.
Alas, there is no magic laundry cloth to separate one thing from another. So for now I’ll have to live with sulfuric fumes and pretend I like them. Or at least pretend they weren’t there even after the water long since boiled out of the pot and left the eggs all alone. My choices are severely limited.
Not that I didn’t consider Tanya’s suggestion to move into a hotel room for the night. I did. Briefly. But my reputation in this small town precedes me, so the various housing entrepreneurs said. In rather unkind tones, I should add.
So what if my reservation for three included a surly goat, a cat with an attitude, and myself? Emerson, while a gifted goat in many ways, has not yet mastered opening a mini bar. Planchette has little interest in watching expensive in-room movies unless there’s a female cat in the leading role, and I’ve been housebroken for months now. So why not take us for the night?
Honestly, people can be so rigid.
To: Food-Co
From: Culinary Program
Re: Weekly Purchase Order
—Wheat flour, 100 lbs.
—All purpose flour, 100 lbs.
—Sugar, 50 lbs.
—Butter, 50 lbs.
—Eggs, 4 cases
—Body bag, 1
About the Author
Wendy W Webb (aka one of the many Wendy Webbs) has published dark fantasy short stories and novels, co-edited anthologies, and has had productions of stage and radio plays. After a hiatus as a doctoral student of emergency management and as a disaster responder, she welcomed the return to fiction with The Wild Rose Press writing the gothic Widow’s Walk, and two updated books in the Beluga Stein supernatural-humor-murder mystery series, Bee Movie and Mean Cuisine. Sunbury Press under the Milford House imprint published the paranormal, travel, “memoir,” Eye of the Gargoyle. She adores her husband; two dogs, one of which turns on iTunes whenever Wendy leaves her office; dry red wine; theatre; and travel as long as she doesn’t see anymore ghosts!
Barnes & Noble
Paperback
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mean-cuisine-wendy-w-webb/1007879485?ean=97815092592
eBook
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mean-cuisine-wendy-w-webb/1007879485?ean=2940184304267
Amazon
Paperback
https://www.amazon.com/Mean-Cuisine-Beluga-Stein-Mystery/dp/1509259279
eBook
https://www.amazon.com/Mean-Cuisine-Beluga-Stein-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0DM2NYQHZ
Wendy will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner.
2 comments:
Thank you so much for featuring MEAN CUISINE today.
This sounds hilarious, Wendy. Of course, as soon as I saw the black cat on the cover, I just HAD to host this tour. Hope you get lots of interest.
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