Bayou Book Thief, Ellen Byron
Bayou Book Thief, Ellen Byron
List: $20.00 | Sale: $14.00
Club: $10.00

Bayou Book Thief

Author: Ellen Byron

Narrator: Amy Melissa Bentley

Unabridged: 9 hr 40 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 06/07/2022

Synopsis

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?
 

About The Author

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.  

Reviews

Goodreads review by PamG on June 05, 2022

Ellen Byron’s new cozy mystery resonated with me. Bayou Book Thief is the first book in the Vintage Cookbook mystery series that features twenty-eight year old widow Ricki James. Her husband died doing a stunt and her boss was a criminal (unbeknownst to her) so she decides to move from Los Angel......more

Goodreads review by Carrie on August 13, 2022

Bayou Book Thief by Ellen Byron is the first book in the new cozy Vintage Cookbook Mystery series. As with most cozy mysteries each book of the Vintage Cookbook Mystery series will contain it’s own mystery to be solved so they can be read as a standalone if choosing to do so. There will be character......more

Goodreads review by James on February 13, 2022

Life can be intense sometimes; when your husband does something foolish and leaves you at the end of your rope, what's a girl to do? Start back over again in The Big Easy, where you were born and have some of your fondest memories. That's exactly what Ricki James does, and from the moment she arrive......more

Goodreads review by "Avonna on June 20, 2022

Check out all my reviews at: [URL not allowed] BAYOU BOOK THIEF (Vintage Cookbook Mystery Book #1) by Ellen Byron is an enjoyable contemporary cozy mystery set in New Orleans with everything I am looking for in a cozy mystery, wonderful characters, well-paced plot, and writing that gi......more

Goodreads review by Elle G. Reads on May 22, 2022

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 be......more

Quotes

Praise for Bayou Book Thief:

“What a fun read with a fabulous cast of characters! Lots of twists and turns will keep you guessing right up to the hilarious end. Beware reading while hungry. The food descriptions will make you want to book a ticket to New Orleans today.”
– Libby Klein, bestselling author, the Poppy McAllister Mysteries

“Fans of Byron’s award-winning ‘Cajun Country’ mysteries will enjoy her return to New Orleans with an engaging, fun cast of characters.”
- Library Journal

“BAYOU BOOK THIEF is a murder-mystery set around a shop for vintage cookbooks that includes a dash of a diverse cast of likeable characters, each with a pinch of eccentricity. This is a story with humor, expertly paced, and with more twists than a corkscrew. Cheer for a loveable heroine in Ricki James. Watch out for those peacocks. Nobody does New Orleans like Ellen Byron.”
- Gabriel Valjan, author of the Company Files and Shane Cleary Mysteries series.


“Rickie James-Diaz and her quintessential New Orleans friends are bound to captivate readers as they wander their way through mayhem and murder! Don't miss this first in a new series!”
– Terrie Farley Moran, Agatha Award-winning author of the Read 'Em and Eat Mysteries
 
“Byron’s love of New Orleans, its people, its history, its culture, its food, shines in every page in this charming book. California transplant, the delightful Ricky heads a cast of exceptional supporting characters, all as quirky as the city in which they’re lucky enough to live.   Bayou Book Thief is the start of what I am sure will soon become one of my favourite series and I can’t wait for my next visit.”
– Vicki Delany, National Bestselling author
 
"With a compelling New Orleans setting that makes me want to move from Los Angeles to Louisiana, just like fearless Ricki, Bayou Book Thief is an unguessable culinary mystery that will steal any book lover’s heart."
– Jennifer J. Chow, Lefty Award-Nominated author of the Sassy Cat Mysteries
 
“Ellen Byron is taking us on a trip to the Big Easy with her new Vintage Cookbook Mystery series. Not only do we get to experience delicious cuisine, a rich variety of characters, and a pair of naughty peacocks, THE BAYOU BOOK THIEF offers layers of mysteries that kept me guessing until the very end. Bravo!”
– Dorothy St. James, author of A Perfect Bind
 
“Ellen Byron's latest debut cozy is as delightful as the vintage cookbooks she features. Whet your appetite for murder with Bayou Book Thief!"
– Diane Vallere, national bestselling author of the Costume Shop Mysteries

“BAYOU BOOK THIEF is the first in a new series and it’s a great start.  New Orleans is colorfully depicted and filled with interesting and fun characters.  The ambiance is stellar and the camaraderie between characters is transparent.    Overall, this mystery is filled with fun people, good food, and a great whodunit.  An interesting cliff-hangar at the end will keep us invested until next time.  Vintage Cookbook recipes included!  Enjoy!” – Fresh Fiction
 
“Fans of classic sleuths, Agatha Christie mysteries and cookbook-lovers alike may enjoy this classic tale of mystery and suspense set in the historic Garden District of New Orleans.” –  Louisiana Life
 
 “Vintage Cookbook Mystery has been added to my list of favorite series.” –  Sandra Murphy, Kings River Life

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