Six Feet Deep Dish plus Sugar and Salt

Two new books which deal with a delicious mix of recipes, relationships, and secrets:

SIX FEET DEEP DISH by Mindy Quigley is the start of a new cozy mystery series. It’s set in Geneva Bay, Wisconsin – a small resort town with past connections to organized crime and bootleggers. Deliah O’Leary is an aspiring entrepreneur with exciting plans for a new deep dish pizza restaurant. The night of the soft opening for family and friends ends in a murder – with her elderly aunt holding the gun! There are plenty of twists and a list of suspects, plus a helpful set of assistants (bartender, hostess, sous-chef, and wait staff) to aide this amateur detective in her quest to solve the mystery. Oh, and don’t forget the local law enforcement – including Officer Capone. There’s opportunity for more romance between him and Deliah in the next installment.  Several fun deep dish recipes and plenty of suspense round out the menu!!       

SUGAR AND SALT by Susan Wiggs (The Lost and Found Bookshop) is a LibraryReads selection for July 2022. Wiggs, an international best-selling and award-winning author, relates the story of Margot Salton who is striving to start her own barbeque restaurant in San Francisco after fleeing a past (when she was called Margie Salinas) in Texas. Margot shares the commercial kitchen with the bakery next door and some sparks fly with the head baker, Jerome Sugar. His mother, Miss Ida, is a key support for both of them and Wiggs includes flashbacks to the 1970s protest era to develop interest in Miss Ida’s own romantic past. There are references to social justice, sexual assault, and judicial system reform so this story has its heavier moments, but much of the emphasis is on resilience and optimistic dreams – both in terms of the efforts associated with retail food businesses and blossoming romantic feelings. Margot is a strong character who “wanted people everywhere to know they had a right to tell their stories, and to keep telling them until someone finally listened.” Although the novel starts slowly, the pace and intensity increase and Wiggs’ many, many readers will certainly be captivated by SUGAR AND SALT which is based in part on actual events.