A CHOCOLATE IS ANNOUNCED

Bean to Bar Mystery, #7

By Amber Royer

Cozy Mystery / Culinary Mystery / Women Sleuths

Publisher: Golden Tip Press

Pages: 277

Publication Date: June 25, 2024

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SYNOPSIS

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Felicity Koerber is finally getting her life together. She has a fiancé, her bean to bar chocolate shop on Galveston’s historic Strand has become a gathering spot for the community, and she is ready to embrace whatever the future holds. She’s ready for another launch party – despite the disaster at her grand opening, when she’d first gotten involved with solving a murder. And this time she’s embracing her status as a sleuth. She’s hosting a murder mystery weekend to celebrate the new Mystery Flavor line of craft chocolate bars. She’s held a contest to choose the attendees, who will all stay at her aunt’s flip hotel and enjoy the island. It’s all supposed to be perfectly random – only, Felicity starts to uncover connections between her guests. When one of them winds up murdered, Felicity has to keep her aunt from becoming the main suspect.

The killer is very clearly calling Felicity out, leaving clues that mean little to anyone other than her. But that doesn’t narrow down the suspect pool. Her guests are there because they love the true crime podcast she’s been featured on. And she can’t decide whether the killer wants her to catch them – or just wants to taunt her.

Meanwhile, Felicity is also playing host to her future in-laws and discovers that her fiancé’s sister, who is also a cop, is very competitive. Can Felicity hold her own and make a good impression, while keeping her business together and her aunt out of jail? And can Felicity solve it in time to protect the people she cares about from becoming additional victims?

Satchmo the retired police dog turned therapy dog returns to help her sniff out a few clues, and one of the guests brings along a ferret named Cheeseburger, who keeps showing up in the most unexpected places.

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BOOK TRAILER

Top Ten Ways to Ruin a Mystery Weekend

Top Ten list for A CHOCOLATE IS ANNOUNCED by Amber Royer

In my newest Bean to Bar Mystery, A Chocolate is Announced, my protagonist Felicity hosts a murder mystery weekend at the hotel her aunt is in the process of flipping. Of course, everything goes horribly wrong.

Mystery weekends are something between a party, a play and a game. There are so many moving parts, it would be easy for something to go wrong. And in a book, it’s best if everything goes wrong. So what are my top ten ways to ruin a mystery weekend?

10. Show up early and ask lots of questions to the folks trying to get everything set up. This is sure to put them in a bad mood when dealing with the guests that arrive on time. This happens to Felicity – before she’s even had her coffee.

9. Bring a pet, without asking permission. Everyone is bound to love your little snookums, right? Nobody will be allergic to or frightened of your pet, right? Well . . . not always.

8. Bring your laptop and phone. You can spend your down time working on something else. That won’t annoy anyone at all, even if you don’t really engage with what’s going on.

7. Show up drunk. It’s bound to be 5 o’clock somewhere. Especially in a beach town like Galveston, where my Bean to Bar stories are set.

6. Take pictures and video of everything, without permission, even during parts of the event that are clearly scripted, and post it immediately. (Felicity has to set ground rules about this one.)

5. Criticize the food. Imply that it’s unappetizing and unsafe. Even if someone winds up being poisoned on sight, you shouldn’t just blame the buffet. So go ahead and make everybody paranoid.

4. Steal things. Nothing will turn people against each other like making them suspect that someone is a thief.

3. Invite extra people. Or even better, manipulate the guest list so that you replace the people who should have been invited with people who know and dislike each other.

2. Make it impossible for everybody to leave. Otherwise, how can they be fully annoyed by all the steps you’ve taken to ruin the fun.

1. Commit an actual murder. This is sure to overshadow whatever lame mystery was scripted for the weekend. Congratulations! You have become a genuine villain. Look forward to being caught by a LARPer or armchair detective.

Of course, not all of these steps are likely to be committed by the same person. Which leaves Felicity with a large pool of suspects, and a lot to deal with as she sifts through the clues. It was a fun book to write. I hope you enjoy the read!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Amber Royer writes the Chocoverse comic telenovela-style foodie-inspired space opera series, and the Bean to Bar Mysteries. She also teaches creative writing and is an author coach.

Amber and her husband live in the DFW Area, where you can often find them hiking or taking landscape, architecture, and wildlife photographs.

If you are very nice to Amber, she might make you cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes, of course! Amber blogs
about creative writing technique and all things chocolate at http://www.amberroyer.com.

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