Crafts and Life

Spices are flying off the shelves of Spice It Up!, and Piper Prescott couldn't be happier. It's that time of year again–time for the annual Brandywine Creek Barbecue Festival. Soon contestants and BBQ aficionados from all over the Southeast will converge on the town. Many of Brandywine Creek's citizens plan to participate in the week-long festivities and are busily concocting savory rubs and sassy sauces. Among the locals vying for the grand prize are Becca Dapkins and Maybelle Humphries. The women have been arch enemies ever since Buzz Oliver dumped Maybelle after a thirteen-year courtship and started seeing Becca.

When Becca's body is found near one of the festival booths, bludgeoned by a brisket, Maybelle becomes one of Chief Wyatt McBride's top suspects. Determined to help clear her friend's name, Piper begins her own investigation, much to McBride's consternation. As the festival draws closer, will Piper and Reba Mae be able to find the real killer and clear Maybelle's name? Will Piper make it to the annual shag contest with Doug Winters, the mild-mannered vet she's been seeing? And, who will win the BBQ cook-off?

Spice It Up! (and by extension Piper) is doing well, especially as the annual Barbecue Festival is just around the corner (meaning people are trying new flavours to edge themselves to the top of the taste charts!), tempers are also hot and there is particular enmity between Maybelle and Becca (the latter stole Maybelle's fiance), no one though expected a dead body to be the outcome of any arguments.  Piper and Reba Mae are sure that Maybelle is innocent, now all they need to do is prove it to McBride, add into the mix a local girl made good in the form of Barbie Quinlan (aka Barbie Q) who seems to favour McBride and loathe Piper, Lindsey is pushing the boundaries again and Doug wants Piper to take part in the Shag Dance off (he also hopes to take home a prize for his pork butt!)

We have some new people in Brandywine which makes life a little tricky for Piper to track down a murderer but Gail Oust wrote another humdinger of a story which flows easily from hiccup to hiccup for our two BFF's, a great 2nd book and I am ready to read #3.