Guest Leslie Budewitz To Err is Cumin #giveaway
Edith/Maddie, happy it’s Friday north of Boston.
I’m also so happy my good friend Leslie Budewitz is joining us today. One of my favorite series is her Spice Shop Mysteries. To Err is Cumin, the newest installment, came out in audio this week and will release in trade paperback and ebook August 6. Order your copy now!
I love the cover! Here’s the blurb:
One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . . When Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece finds a large amount of cash stuffed in an old chair, she investigates—never suspecting a wingback will set her off on a trail of deception, embezzlement, and murder, and put her own life in danger.
Treasure in the Trash
Mr. Right and I live in the country, with no trash pickup. That means regular trips to a dump site to drop off trash and recycling. Years ago, before the switch to controlled access and staffing, I spotted a beat-up wingback chair left next to one of the big containers. Too heavy for the former owner to lift? Or left in hopes that the right customer would come along before the big crushing machine? Sadly, I drove a Subaru Legacy—and had no cell phone to call my hunny to rescue me with his bigger rig.
I’m still in mourning.
Like my Wicked friends, I’m a squirrel when it comes to story ideas, tucking them away for who knows when. A while back, I read a streak of stories about people who found cash in a chair seat, or a diamond ring inside a hidden pocket in a purse they bought at Goodwill.
(Shown below is Leslie in World Spice, a shop that might or might not have inspired her series…)
Pepper Reece, the main character in my Spice Shop series, loves vintage. At least, that’s what she calls it. Others call it trash. Her dining room table is a cast-off round cedar picnic table her former mother-in-law found on the curb—by no real coincidence, we have one just like it in our yard. I didn’t scavenge it, but thanks to a close encounter with a pipe fence on a windy day, it is pretty beat-up!
But we don’t have the pink cast-iron chairs Pepper’s ex-husband calls refugees from an ice cream parlor. (I spotted this pair at a coffee shop below Pike Place Market in Seattle, where Pepper works, a few years ago.)
Coffee shop on Western #2So of course, I knew exactly what Pepper should do when she and her pal Laurel come across a ratty old wingback on the sidewalk, left for the taking. Later, she finds a wad of cash—we’re talking serious green—in the seat cushion.
No wonder it was so lumpy.
But where did it come from and why was it abandoned? The discovery and the questions it raises set Pepper off on the trail of the young woman who may have owned the chair. Her path crosses that of a chef she’s encountered in the past and would rather not meet again, thank you very much. But the found money and her deep sense of justice merge into a feeling of responsibility that compels her forward—even when tragedy strikes.
Because when Pepper sees someone in trouble, she can’t walk away.
I just wish she’d been with me that day at the dump.
Earlier this week, I visited with the Jungle Red Writers to talk about one of my guilty pleasures, newspaper advice columns. A story I didn’t relay there ties in neatly here: A reader and her mother agreed that a particular ring the family owned was bad luck, so they deliberately left it in the pocket of a coat they gave away, knowing the find would be a lucky one to the recipient and change whatever cursed energy the ring carried.
You gotta love it. Pepper would.
Readers, what’s the oddest thing you’ve ever seen left for the taking? What have you picked up? If you found cash, or a ring, what would you do? I’ll give one lucky reader a signed copy of To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop mystery. (US or Canada addresses only, please.)
Leslie Budewitz writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market and the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, set in NW Montana. She also writes historical fiction—watch for All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection coming in September 2024. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. She cooks, reads, paints, hikes, and gardens in NW Montana. And yes, there are bears in her yard.
Read excerpts and more at http://www.LeslieBudewitz.com
