Game of Scones book cover

The Secret Ingredient to Great Storytelling & a Free Book

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from Mary Lee Ashford *

It’s been a busy month or so here with a new book coming out in May (Night of the Living Bread), a book festival, preparing for Malice Domestic and beginning work on the next book in the Sugar & Spice mystery series.  Maybe because I’m at the very beginning of that fun process of starting a new book and thiOpen signs series is a culinary cozy mystery series, I got to thinking about food in fiction. And the role it plays in storytelling. Whether it’s the tantalizing descriptions of a cozy café (like the Red Hen Diner) in a small-town mystery, a feast fit for a king in a grand historical, or the comforting home-cooked meals shared between characters, food plays a vital role in storytelling.

Here are a few of the reasons I came up with as to why that is:

1. Food Adds Atmosphere and Setting

Food has an incredible ability to evoke a sense of place and time, immersing us in the world of the story. It adds layers of sensory detail that bring the book’s setting to life without a lot of descriptive narrative. Kind of a shorthand that give us clues to both place and vibe.

3. Food Appeals to the Senses

Reading about food is a feast for the imagination. When a novel describes the crunch of a flaky pie crust, the tang of freshly squeezed lemonade, or the aroma of slow-cooked stew, it engages our senses in a visceral way. These vivid descriptions make stories feel richer and more immersive.

3. Food Builds Character Depth

What a character eats (or refuses to eat) can tell us so much about them. Is the detective addicted to strong black coffee and greasy diner food? Does the heroine bake elaborate cakes as a way to process her emotions? The way characters interact with food—whether they savor it, scorn it, or use it as a coping mechanism—reveals their personality, background, and even emotional state. Additionally, who they share it with and how gives us insight into relationships in the story.

4. Food Can Add Comfort or Danger

In cozy mysteries, food often serves as a comforting, warm element—think charming bakeries and steaming cups of tea. But in darker genres, food can be used to heighten tension. A glass of wine could be poisoned. A fancy banquet might hint at secrets hidden beneath a veneer of civility. Whether it’s a source of comfort or conflict, food is never just about sustenance—it’s about what’s going on in people’s lives.

5. Food Evokes Emotions

Certain tastes have the power to transport us back in time. The scent of fresh-baked cookies might remind us of childhood memories or memories of when our children were young. A family recipe can stir up old memories and emotions. Food is tied to our personal histories. In fact, a recent Harvard study found that food is “an effective trigger of deeper memories of feelings and emotions.” There was a lot more about the hippocampus, neurotransmitters, and declarative memories but the bottom line is food is a strong connector to emotion.

What are your thoughts? Do certain foods bring back memories for you? Do you have a particular sub-genre of culinary mysteries that you enjoy? 

The Sugar & Spice Mysteries feature former magazine editor, Sugar Calloway and blue-ribbon baker, Dixie Spicer, who have launched a community cookbook business. One reviewer says, “When you add to the likeable characters, a fine small town setting, an interesting cozy mystery plot, and loads of yummy food, you have a recipe for success!”

Game of Scones book cover

Currently my publisher is offering a Kindle Deal on GAME OF SCONES, so if you don’t already have a copy here’s your chance to grab the first book in the series for free! GAME OF SCONES OFFER

 

*Mary Lee Ashford is the author of the Sugar & Spice mystery series from Oliver Heber Books and also half of the Sparkle Abbey writing team who pen the national best-selling Pampered Pets series. She is a lifelong bibliophile, an avid reader, and public library champion. Prior to publishing Mary Lee won the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense. She is the founding president of Sisters in Crime – Iowa as well as a member of Mystery Writers of America and Novelists, Inc. She lives in the Midwest with her family and her feline coworker.

A Puzzling Art Mystery Within an Actual Art Theft Within a Cozy Mystery Novel

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By Lois Winston

Marketing is the bane of every author’s existence. Whether the author is traditionally published or independently publishing, we’re all responsible for much of our books’ promotion these days. Currently, Guilty as Framed, the eleventh Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, is on sale through Amazon, Kobo, and Apple Books for only .99 cents.

In the retail advertising world, that’s called a “loss leader,” a product that’s sold at or below cost in the hopes that customers will make other purchases at the store while they’re there to scoop up a deal. In the book world, our hope is that readers will love the sale book enough to purchase other books by the author.

I often rely on current events and human-interest stories as inspiration for the plots and/or subplot in my books. However, in Guilty as Framed I incorporated an actual unsolved crime into the book.

I fell in love with the paintings of Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn as a teenager when I first walked through the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. From that day on, I spent many hours seated in front of my favorite of his paintings, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer. I even wrote a paper on the painting my senior year of high school.

Because of my love of Rembrandt’s works, I was devastated when the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was burglarized in 1990. Three of the thirteen works of art stolen were by Rembrandt. These included his only seascape, “Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee”, a painting that was nearly five-and-a-half-feet tall, and the postage-stamp sized etching “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” featured on the cover of Guilty as Framed.

I followed the investigation as it unfolded and have read countless articles on this still unsolved crime. I’ve also watched several documentaries about the burglary and the efforts to find both the perpetrators and the missing artworks. Thirty-five years later, it’s still considered the largest art heist in history. To this day, not only haven’t the perpetrators been caught, but none of the artworks have ever been recovered. Many of the witnesses and persons of interest have since died, some of natural causes, and at least one of not-so-natural causes.

In Guilty as Framed, I wanted to incorporate the actual museum burglary and the missing artworks into the plot of the book. This gave me quite a challenge. I had to figure out how to connect a decades-old museum heist in Boston to my humorous New Jersey-set cozy mystery series.

Writing fiction rather than true crime allowed me to invent some new characters, change the names of real persons (to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent), and weave various events from the actual crime into the plot of Guilty as Framed.

The original sale invoice

“Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” is also known as “Rembrandt ‘Aux Trois Moustaches.” For those of you who don’t speak French, that translates to “Rembrandt with Three Moustaches.” How could a man have three moustaches? One prevailing theory suggests that the second “moustache” is his beard and the third is the fur on his cap. However, I’ve never heard of a beard being called a moustache, and the cap “moustache” seems quite a stretch. Perhaps “Rembrandt with a Moustache, a Beard, and a Furry Caterpillar on his Cap” would have made more sense.

 

Rembrandt was a serious artist, though. He never displayed a sense of humor in any of his paintings or in the titles of them. It seems unlikely the three-moustache title came from him. Most likely, he titled the etching “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man,” a frequent title of his early self-portraits. Or he may have called the etching “Self-Portrait Wearing a Soft Cap.”

“Rembrandt ‘Aux Trois Moustaches” is a mystery within the mystery of the heist. I knew I had to explore that in my story. I began researching and discovered the tiny etching was purchased for Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1886 from the art dealer Frederick Keppel & Co., who listed the etching as such on the sales invoice. Was the three-moustache title Keppel’s idea of a joke? We’ll never know.

Finally, and most unfortunately, my research didn’t lead to the discovery of the missing artworks, which is a shame because there’s still a huge outstanding reward for information leading to their recovery.

But what does this miniature Rembrandt self-portrait have to do with my reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack? You’ll get no spoilers from me. For an answer to that mystery, you’re going to have to read Guilty as Framed. Through April 7th, you can do so for only .99 cents.

Guilty as Framed

An Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery, Book 11

When an elderly man shows up at the home of reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack, she’s drawn into the unsolved mystery of the greatest art heist in history.

Boston mob boss Cormac Murphy has recently been released from prison. He doesn’t believe Anastasia’s assertion that the man he’s looking for doesn’t live at her address and attempts to muscle his way into her home. His efforts are thwarted by Anastasia’s fiancé Zack Barnes.

A week later, a stolen SUV containing a dead body appears in Anastasia’s driveway. Anastasia believes Murphy is sending her a message. It’s only the first in a series of alarming incidents, including a mugging, a break-in, another murder, and the discovery of a cache of jewelry and an etching from the largest museum burglary in history.

But will Anastasia solve the mystery behind these shocking events before she falls victim to a couple of desperate thugs who will stop at nothing to get what they want?

Buy Links:

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Apple Books

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USA Today and Amazon bestselling and award-winning author Lois Winston writes mystery, romance, romantic suspense, chick lit, women’s fiction, children’s chapter books, and nonfiction. Kirkus Reviews dubbed her critically acclaimed Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery series, “North Jersey’s more mature answer to Stephanie Plum.” In addition, Lois is a former literary agent and an award-winning craft and needlework designer who often draws much of her source material for both her characters and plots from her experiences in the crafts industry. Learn more about Lois and her books at her website www.loiswinston.com where you can also sign up for her newsletter and follow her on various social media sites.