A fatal feast at Bramsford Manor

Review by Booklist Review

Chef Bunny MacBride is thrilled to be cohosting the new show Food and Spirits on the Mealtime Network, until she finds out the spirits in the title refer to ghosts; Bunny has been running from the supernatural since she left Scotland for the United States after a tragedy. For their first episode, the cast and crew travel to Bramsford Manor in England, supposedly haunted by the Mistletoe Bride, where Bunny is to create a "spirit supper" to attract the ghost. During the meal, Bunny's "white rabbit of doom" appears to her, and Bunny follows him, leading her to the manor's historian Marcus Bean's body, stabbed with Bunny's boning knife. With the help of Bunny's clairvoyant grandmother, the group investigates to clear Bunny, learning Bean was planning to reveal an explosive secret during the filming. Bunny must embrace her supernatural gift to help solve the murder, save a life, and lay to rest the ghosts of Bramsford Manor. The sympathetic, well-developed Bunny, who overcomes her fears, and the spooky frame add up to a satisfying cozy-series starter.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Clairvoyant chef Bunny MacBride stumbles into two murder investigations after launching a cooking show with a ghost hunter and a pseudo-psychic in this winsome series launch from Darci (the Beacon Bakeshop mysteries). As production for Food & Spirits begins at Bramsford Manor in Bunny's ancestral home of Scotland, she ignores the spiritual unrest she senses throughout the property. Her job, after all, is to prepare a meal for the young bride who died in the manor 300 years earlier. As she begins cooking, however, Bunny is drawn to the spirit of the property's manor historian--who, it turns out, has just been murdered with Bunny's boning knife. Bunny is arrested for the crime, and uses her phone call to contact her Granny MacBride, from whom she inherited the gift of "second sight." After being released from jail for lack of evidence, Bunny teams up with Granny MacBride and her supernaturally inclined cohosts to figure out who framed her. In the process, she gets wrapped up in the mystery of Bramsford's dead bride. Darci delivers memorable characters, a pair of rollicking mysteries, and plenty of humor. This series has legs. Agent: Sandy Harding, Spencerhill Assoc. (Sept.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

A chef and her grandmother attempt to solve a spooky ancient mystery, leading to a very modern murder. Bridget "Bunny" MacBride, raised on a Scottish farm, works for grumpy celebrity chef Mary Stobart in Connecticut. She's thrilled to be offered a job as chef onFood and Spirits, Mealtime Network's new show. What she doesn't know is that the show's spirits aren't potent potables but things that go bump in the night. Bunny, who knows all about ghosts, is appalled but can't turn down her crack at stardom. So she joins cameramen Cody Jenkins, Ed Franco, and Mike Miller; producer Trig Gunderson; show creator and ghost hunter Brett Bloom; and fake psychic medium Gifford McGrady in heading for Bramsford Manor, a stately English home run as a hotel. Bramsford is one of several places that has a story about the Mistletoe Bride, who vanished while playing hide-and-seek on Christmas Day in 1700, only to be found by her husband 50 years later trapped in a chest in the attic. Bunny heads right to the kitchen, where head chef Lilly Plum shows her the ropes and orders what Bunny will need to make a feast that will lure the bride, spotted by many over the years, into camera range. As it turns out, only Bunny and the grandmother she calls in to help have any real psychic ability. After a white rabbit leads Bunny to find manor historian Marcus Bean's corpse stuffed into the mistletoe chest with Bunny's missing knife in his chest, she must uncover the truth to stay out of jail. The intrepid heroine battles ghosts, her past, and a clever killer while serving great meals through it all. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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