BAYOU BOOK THIEF BY ELLEN BYRON

Bayou Book Thief is a great start to this brand new cozy mystery series! I'm already excited for the next book to release!

​Rating: ★★★★
​Release Date: June 7, 2022
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Series: Vintage Cookbook Mystery #1
Pages: 301 pages
Format: eBook. Source: ​Publisher (Berkley)

A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award–winning author Ellen Byron.

Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet 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 dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve “Vee” Charbonnet, the city’s legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation – collecting vintage cookbooks – into a vocation by launching the museum’s gift shop, Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.

​The skills Ricki has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki’s past as curator of a billionaire’s first edition collection comes back to haunt her.
 
Will Miss Vee’s Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success … or a recipe for disaster?

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READ MY BOOK REVIEW

Cozy mystery books are my comfort reads! Whenever I want to get lost in something easy, breezy, and fun I generally pick up a cozy. Sometimes I go back to old series that I love (I’m slowly reading them because I don’t want them to end) and other times I grab a book from an author I’ve never read before like this one. Ellen Byron is a new to me author and I’m so thrilled to have finally read her books! I’ve heard her Cajun Country mysteries were really good so when I saw this one on netgalley I grabbed it! Like her other series, its set in New Orleans and showcases all the wonderful food, historical venues, and charm. In particular though it mainly focuses on the main characters new business venture of opening a gift shop with vintage cookbooks and cookware. I’ve never read something like this and was really intrigued by all the cool things she found and used in her shop!

Readers of Bayou Book Thief can also be sure that they’ll get an intriguing mystery out of the story with a set of interesting side characters and a killer who is hard to figure out! Personally, I wasn’t even thinking about who the killer actually was because I was so mesmerized by the setting and our MC Ricki, so it shocked me when he or she was revealed! Now that’s great writing!

If you’re a cozy mystery reader, then this is a must read to add to your list of books! I’m so excited to follow Ricki and the gang in the next book, Wined and Died in New Orleans which releases on February 7, 2023! While I hate to wait that long I think it’ll be worth it!

𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗙𝗔𝗡𝗦 𝗢𝗙:
• Cozy Mysteries
• Vintage Cookware and Cookbooks
• Books that take place in New Orleans

𝗠𝗬 𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗡𝗚: ⭐⭐⭐⭐