Death of a Wicked Witch is the 13th installment in Lee Hollis' Hayley Powell cozy mystery series. It's the first one I've read, but I wouldn't say you need to read the other 12 before picking up this one. Hollis does a great job of giving readers all the necessary information on each character they encounter and is able to pull them into the story from page 1. The story was incredibly fast paced and I read the majority of the book in just a couple of hours. I loved the addition of cocktail and food recipes and will definitely be trying a few of them myself.

When Ted, the new town pastor, and his wife Trudy, the owner of a food truck called Wicked 'Wiches, arrive in town, Hayley and her husband Bruce make quick friends with the couple. However, just a couple of weeks after moving to town, Trudy mysteriously dies while catering the event of the season. Suspicion is quickly placed on her sole competitor, but Hayley and her friends aren't sure it's that cut and dry. Hayley puts her town connections and amateur sleuthing skills to good use and helps find out the truth about her new friend's death.

This was your typical cozy mystery. The town of Bar Harbor was quaint, and I could practically smell the fall air tinged with a sea breeze and pumpkin spice. For such a short book, there was quite the cast of characters which I found a bit hard to follow at times. However, that could be because I haven't read the first 12 books in the series. I loved guessing whodunit and figuring things out with Hayley, and I can honestly say I was surprised in the end. If you're looking for a quick and easy murder mystery (with some delicious sounding recipes thrown in) then this is the book for you.

A lucky 13th book in the Food and Cocktails mystery series. A Halloween time cozy mystery with wonderful characters and an intriguing mystery.

Who doesn’t like a good sandwich or better yet a mixed drink and a meaty masterpiece. Such wonderful recipes found throughout this cozy with a Halloween setting. The Garber’s annual Halloween party, the Witches Ball is the unfortunate setting for this cozy’s murder. The new pastor and his talented sandwich making wife are new to Bar Harbor which had one food truck and a very cantankerous owner who threatens the new comer and her Wicked ‘Wiches food truck with “ruing the day” if Trudy continues to encroach on her territory. Sounds pretty serious doesn’t it? Well not only does Trudy deal with a rival food truck but she also has to brush off the advances of the handsy Reverend Staples. When Trudy is found dead from carbon monoxide poisoning in her truck during the Witches Ball, Haley knows that she can’t rest until the culprit is caught. So many red herrings in this one and a few reported ghost sightings to add a little Halloween ambiance to the story. As always, Haley’s articles give great background and enhance the characters. This story did not have many of the usual characters since Haley’s daughter Gemma was in town for a visit and some advice. I found this to be another great installment in the series and several more recipes for me to try, especially the crockpot pulled pork and the Cuban sandwich. The story is a virtual roller coaster taking you up and down and round and round between suspects and scenarios. Just when you think it is over, a new twist and turn get you going again. This is a quick read because you are not going to want to put it down so I suggest you start with the Slow Cooker Cuban sandwich recipe found at the end of Chapter 15 to keep you from getting too hungry followed by the Godiva Chocolate Martini as a dessert cocktail which happens to appear on the page before the Cuban Sandwich recipe.

Halloween themes always grab me like a scary thief in the night! I loved this addition to the series.
Reading this series by Lee Hollis is like visiting old friends.
A good, fast paced story line that held my interest to the end.
A must read for cozy lovers.

Hayley Powell is a food and gossip columnist for a small newspaper in Bar Harbor, Maine. She's also a local sleuth, against the wishes of her detective brother-in-law. When a newcomer to the town is murdered during the annual Witches Ball, she can't resist investigating.
At the same time, her daughter is wavering between marrying and breaking up with her latest beau, Hayley's Halloween prep chore list is lengthening, and it looks like Bar Harbor is haunted.
Chapters of the mystery are interspersed with recipes for sandwiches and cocktails from Hayley's food column, each one enlivened with a story about friends and family.
The writing is folksy and the mystery is simple, but these books are always fun to read and I'm going to try out some of those recipes, too.

Set in Bar Harbor, Maine, DEATH OF A WICKED WITCH features Haley Powell, a food columnist for the local paper as the chief protagonist. This is the first book of this series that I have read although I did discover that there have been a dozen others that preceded this one. For this reader this offering was almost more cookbook than mystery since there were cocktail and sandwich recipes featured in Haley’s food columns which are liberally peppered throughout the narrative
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The story opens with Haley making a new friend, Trudy Lancaster, a food truck owner who has come to the newspaper office to place an ad for her fledgling business. The friendship is cut short when Trudy, while catering the town’s annual Halloween Witches Ball costume party at the home of a couple known as the Garbers, becomes a murder victim following a previous attempt on her life, and Haley makes it her business to discover “who dunnit”…….not an easy undertaking considering how many potential suspects there are.

I will admit that I was not fond of Haley’s new husband Bruce, who came across as a “wishy-washy” and a bit of a wimp….nor was her daughter Gemma a particularly charismatic character. She is not interested in her boyfriend Conner and is seriously considering breaking up with him until she sees another woman making moves on him. That’s when she becomes as possessive as a ‘dog with a bone”. The “handsy” and smitten Reverend Staples was a bit over the top too.

This also seems to be the year of novels featuring LGBTQ characters as friends, relatives and sidekicks. In this particular instance the honor goes to Haley’s brother Randy and his police chief husband, Sergio Alvarez..

Some of the business names were intriguing like the Burger She Wrote and Wicked Wiches food trucks and a couple of the cocktail recipes looked tasty. Additionally, there were a couple of interesting twists in the tale but not enough to make me want to go back and read the previous installments.

Thank you NetGalley and Kensington Books for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Reading this new entry in the series was simply pleasant. It takes place during my favorite time of the year, and from the first chapters, I knew I would want to find out who had committed the murder. I like that characters are not perfect, but not so badly flawed that we hate them. They help to propel the story forward, and they all serve their purpose in Hayley's investigating. The mystery was well built, but some of the elements made me feel sorry for one of the characters.

It was also great that Gemma was very present in this book, her side story was fun. I hope we will see this aspect growing in futre books. Death of a Wicked Witch is great for both fans of this series and newcomers alike. There are no spoilers for previous books, which is great in my opinion. The recipes are a welcome bonus, and worth trying.

Not Lee Hollis’ best effort but still an enjoyable read. The opportunity to reconnect with well known characters is like seeing old friends. The recipes are always a treat!

This is a delightful and light hearted mystery. The characters are a bit eccentric but it is holiday themed. I adored the plot. It turned out to be alittle more complex than I had thought. I loved the twists and turns. I really enjoyed this wonderful cozy. I definitely recommend it

I love love love this series. It was a great addition to the series and I would recommend it to others. It was good to catch up and it was a quick light read

This is the first book by Lee Hollis that I have ever read. Most times I can read a book in the middle of a cozy mystery series and just jump right in.. This one I would definitely recommend to start this series from the beginning.. I did enjoy this book quite alot, but I think I would have liked it even more if I had read all of the other books.
I loved all of the recepies strewn throughout the story, I def. want to try a couple of them!
The story starts out with a new couple moving into town. Trudy is going to be running a new food truck, and her husband Ted is going to be taking over as the new minister when the current one retires.
Ted and Trudy really hit it off with Hayley and Bruce and they seem to become fast friends. First Trudy gets poisoned with insecticide, then during the annual Halloween Party she is found dead inside of her food truck.
When her death is ruled as a homicide, Hayley decideds to start investigating on her own.
There are no end to the suspects that could have done it.. We have the owner of the other food truck in town, who was very upset someone was coming in to possibly take her customers. Also the current reverand who seems to be smitten with her, or his jealous wife who saw what her husbands been upto.. Or the greiving husband, whose marriage wasn't as perfect as it seemed..
I thought the mystery solving was really good, I had no idea until a bit before it was revealed who the killer actually was.
I would definitely read more of this author and especially this series, but I would start at the beginning first lol..

I love anything Halloween and Witches . So I couldn't wait to read this book.

There is a new food truck in Bar Harbor, Trudy has brought her exceptional Wicked Wiches food truck along with her husband Ted who is going to replace the current reverend.

Trudy meets Haley while placing an ad for her food truck in the local paper, Haley likes her right off. They get together for dinner with her husband Bruce at a local hangout and meet up with the neighbors who's husband can't take his eyes off Tudy, that host the Witches Ball every year at their house, so they ask Trudy to park her food truck in front of their house the night of the ball and cater it.

The other food truck owner in town isn't happy there is competition in town and shows it in her own way. Trudy has many men admire her from the retiring reverend to the men that stop at the food truck daily.

Also things are heating up at Haley's house from Bruce sneaking out of the house at night and her daughter and boyfriend Connor tip toeing around each other.

When Trudy is murderer Haley is positive it is the other food truck owner, but as time goes by more suspects come to light. And then many people think they are seeing the ghost of Trudy even Haleys own daughter. It is Halloween.

I loved this book. It was fast paced and had a couple mysteries going on and a surprise ending.

I love Lee Hollis books and can't wait for her next one.

cozy-mystery, culinary, murder, amateur-sleuth, situational-humor, family-dynamics, friendship, holiday-themed, verbal-humor, small-business, small-town

I hadn't read anything in this series, but I will now! It's a really good cozy mystery complete with interesting characters, plot twists, red herrings and misdirections, good laughs, and even recipes. The publisher's blurb is a good hook and no recap or spoilers here. I loved it!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley. Thank you!

A lovely quick cozy mystery. I haven't read any of this series.
I really enjoyed it.
Enjoyed that there were recipes throughout the book.
Liked the banter with Hailey and Bruce.
The minister was something else.
Didn't see who did it coming.

This book didn´t work so well for me, especially because of the writing style that kept throwing me off. I end up not finishing. The plot seems interesting, and I maybe try again in the future.

Lee Hollis’s new book Death of a Wicked Witch bewitches you, from the start. This mystery is hilarious, twisty, and cozy.

Trudy brings her delicious Wicked Wiches food truck to Bar Harbor with her husband Ted in tow. Trudy seems to grab the attention of every man. Ted has come to replace the current Reverend. They are greeted openly by the amazing Hayley and her husband Bruce. Hayley was lovely and a natural mother to her daughter and others. There are a great number of other characters that are fun to get to know. One of these town folks also has a rival food truck.

I did have the murderer figured out, but I could not figure out how it was done at all. There was a huge plot twist 75% of the way through the book that I did not see coming. There is a mini mystery and then the larger mystery which was another great plot twists well. I laughed throughout the entire story. The chapters were short, which kept me flying through the book. I read it in under 24 hours.

The book is perfect for those who love Halloween and witches but are not a fan of scary, graphic, or similar type books. I cannot wait to read the rest of the books in this series. It is one of the best mysteries I have read this year!

I received an electronic advanced reader copy from Kensington Books through NetGalley. All opinions are 100% my own.

Food trucks and Halloween, a great escape on a very hot day making me wish for cooler weather and food! Well written and enjoyable.

Death of a Wicked Witch was a fun, fast paced and engaging cosy mystery. The characters were well developed and interesting, even if I didn't like them all. However, I did enjoy all the recipes in the book and I'm tempted to try a few of them.

I enjoyed this book. Reading this series is like reading old friends. I like the characters and the story is well-paced so there are no slow parts. Hayley gets involved when a new food truck owner is murdered and finds the killer is a man who went to high school with her. The reveal is very exciting. #DeathofaWickedWitch #NetGalley

I loved visiting Bar Harbor last year on vacation so I was very happy to 'return' while reading this book. I am drawn to the characters and their relationships with other.

The mystery had twists and turns and kept me guessing until almost the end. Although Hayley manages to get herself into some 'not-too-safe', I had no doubt that she could take care of herself.

I'm ready for the next one and hope that we don't have wait too long.