Bayou Book Thief

Ellen’s Cajun Country Mysteries have won the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel and multiple Lefty Awards for Best Humorous Mystery. Bayou Book Thief will be the first book in her new Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. She also writes the Catering Hall Mystery series under the name Maria DiRico. Ellen is an award-winning playwright, and non-award-winning TV writer of comedies like Wings, Just Shoot Me, and Fairly Odd Parents. She has written over two hundred articles for national magazines but considers her most impressive credit working as a cater-waiter for Martha Stewart. An alum of New Orleans’ Tulane University, she blogs with Chicks on the Case, is a lifetime member of the Writers Guild of America, and will be the 2023 Left Coast Crime Toastmaster.

A new mystery series from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron.Twenty-eight-year-old Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid YouTube stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki's teen mother disappeared from the hospital.Ricki's career dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff running the spectacular Garden District home of bon vivant Genevieve "Vee" Charbonnet, one of the city's most legendary restauranteurs. The mansion, built in 1867, has recently been opened to the public as an historical site. Ricki gets to turn her avocation - collecting vintage cookbooks - into a vocation by launching the house museum's gift shop, Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware, where she'll sell the cookbooks along with unique kitchenware, much of it also vintage or antique. In her free time, she'll hunt for the birth parents she never knew. When murder bedevils the site, Ricki will also find herself in the unexpected role of amateur sleuth, putting to use the observational skills she's developed ferreting out hidden treasures.Will Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success… or given some of the Crescent City's nefarious denizens, a recipe for disaster?Series Overview: Rickie James stumbles into murder while selling vintage cookbooks and antique kitchen related swag in a gift shop housed in a spectacular historical mansion in the Garden District of New Orleans .

AWARD WINNING AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING COZY AUTHOR: Ellen Byron is a cozy favorite winning both the Agatha (twice) and multiple Lefty awards.BEST OF BOTH WORLDS HOOK: Vintage cookbooks sold in a quaint shop in a historical mansion is a perfect hook for cozy lovers.EXCELLENT SETTING: Everyone loves New Orleans and the historic Garden District!