Guest Post & #Giveaway – Gnarly New Year by Anna Celeste Burke @aburke59 #cozy #recipe
Gnarly New Year! Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Paperback: 220 pages
Synopsis
The honeymoon’s not over yet! Kim and Brien’s excellent adventure at the swanky Sanctuary Resort & Spa continues when an unwelcome visitor drops in on New Year’s Eve. An elusive marine GPS device found and lost again, unleashes another wave of murder and mayhem in Corsario Cove! What is it about that thing? Will the secret be revealed when they visit the chamber of heinousness? Stooges, Krugerrands, and monks—oh my! Is it going to be a Gnarly New Year for Kim and Brien?
Guest Post
Welcome Anna to StoreyBook Reviews! I’m so excited that you are here and I love food too and always love to hear more…about food of course!
Brien Williams, Eating Machine, Helps Put Food Center Stage
Brien Williams, handsome newlywed and surfer dude, is one-half of the sleuthing duo in my Corsario Cove Cozy Mystery Series. If you’ve already read Cowabunga Christmas and Gnarly New Year, then you know he’s one-of-a-kind. A quirky guy, he’s likable and easy-going most of the time unless there’s a bad guy to be vanquished in true Thor-like fashion. In my mind, he looks much like a young Chris Hemsworth as Thor.
Brien has three major loves in life: his new bride, Kim, of course, surfing, and eating! Kim affectionately refers to him as an eating machine, in fact. “My surfer boy can put it away,” Kim tells us in Cowabunga Christmas. And so he does. Why not? It takes a lot of working out to keep that Thor-like physique and a lot of calories to stoke those workouts.
Brien’s capacity to eat is legendary among his sleuthing buddies in the Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery Series. That’s where Brien first makes an appearance. He’s always at center stage when the eating begins. In both series, food is sometimes a centerpiece of the setting and the action.
That’s also true in a third series I write, the Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series. In that series, she’s an executive in Food and Beverage Management at a Disney-like entertainment conglomerate. Founded on the success of a cartoon cat, Georgie fondly refers to her place of employment as the Cat Factory where she works for the cat. Georgie’s trained as a chef and started her career in the kitchen, so food is still a part of her life even though she’s moved out of the kitchen and into the boardroom at Marvelous Marley World Enterprises.
Why is food such a big deal in all three series I write? I didn’t set out for that to be the case, it just happened. I don’t think it was an accident, though. There are several reasons why the characters in my stories eat so well. The tagline for my website says a lot. That’s where you’ll find me: Snooping into life’s mysteries with fun, fiction, & food–California style!
Food, along with Hollywood, the sunshine, and beaches, is almost synonymous with the California lifestyle. A lot of the emphasis is on a healthy eating, but for better or worse, California is also the birthplace of fast food behemoths like McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, and others. Brien is a burger aficionado as are many Southern California—SoCal—residents. In fact, according to a post in Mother Jones, SoCal is the fast food Capital of the world! [http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2013/12/southern-california-fast-food-capital-world]. It’s not just fast food. Californians take their food very seriously. So, my characters’ foodie tendencies are, in part, an artifact of the culture they inhabit.
The presence of food and its role in the storytelling is also the result of my background intruding into the story. Like, Georgie Shaw, I was trained as a chef and worked for an entertainment conglomerate. Not Disney-like, but Disney. We called it working for the mouse at the Mouse Factory. Hired at Walt Disney World as a culinary assistant with very basic training in food preparation, Disney put me through their chef’s school. I learned a lot from training and apprenticeship at the hands of some terrific chefs. Not the easiest guys to work around—and I do mean guys. In those days, there wasn’t a woman chef in the bunch!
A third reason food is always on the table in my stories–if you’ll pardon the pun–is that I like to appeal to all of the senses. Sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. Food entails the use of all our senses as it sizzles, delights the eye with color or by design, tantalizes with enticing aromas, warms or chills us at the touch, and transports us with satisfying flavors. Food is a source of comfort, a focal point for social bonding, and provides an almost universal connection between us all as readers. I believe that’s the reason food is so prominent in cozy mystery—sensual, comforting, and social. What better antidote is there to murder and mayhem as sleuths seek out and vanquish evildoers?
So, what do you think? Why is food so much a part of fiction, especially the mystery genre? I’d love to hear from you.
While we’re on the subject of food, here’s a recipe for one of Kim’s favorite dishes: Cheesy Baked Artichoke Dip.
About the Author
Anna Celeste Burke is an award-winning and bestselling author who enjoys snooping into life’s mysteries with fun, fiction, & food—California style! Her books include the Jessica Huntington Desert Cities Mystery series
Twitter * Facebook * Website * Blog * Goodreads * Amazon Author Page
Giveaway
Check out the other Blogs on this tour
September 7 – The Self-Rescue Princess – CHARACTER GUEST POST
September 8 – StoreyBook Reviews – GUEST POST
September 9 – Author Annette Drake’s blog – SPOTLIGHT
September 10 – Island Confidential – CHARACTER GUEST POST
September 11 – Christa Reads and Writes – GUEST POST
September 12 – Queen of All She Reads – REVIEW
September 13 – Brooke Blogs – REVIEW
September 14 – Varietats2010 – INTERVIEW
September 15 – fundinmental – REVIEW
September 16 – Cozy Up With Kathy – INTERVIEW
Sue A.
Food is a universal language as is love! Love the recipe, not too high in calories and yet it still has cheesy goodness!
Caitlin
A murder mystery set in a beautiful location sounds like a good thing to me. Thanks for sharing.
lori byrd
The book sounds great!
Jeanine Carlson
I shouldnt read these after 9:00 PM! Yummy, I’m gaining weight just reading the recipe!
Sharon Guagliardo
Food is one of the basics that we all need. Not only for nourishment, but comfort. We also adapt to it wherever we are. I’m from Upstate New York and the food there is different than here in Chicago. There are foods that I can’t get here that I grew up with. Foods here (Italian Beef) that I’ve never heard of before, and I’m Italian! Food is part of our social set. We need it to survive physically, but mentally too.
Sharon Leach
Food is needed in cozies for stamina to hunt down the murderer. It is needed for comfort, it is used as a reward. It brings readers together.
Patti Griner
food is something most people can relate to!
Michele Hayes
I like that your characters enjoy eating together. Makes them seem more like family. Thanks for the chance to win.
Betsy Pauzauskie
Storeybook Reviews blog is the answer for today. How could I miss that before.
edye
Thanks for the giveaway! The book looks good.
Marianne Squire-Maszer
Interesting that you cooked at the mouse factory! Artichoke dip sounds yummy!
Amanda Daggett
My husband would love that artichoke dip recipe! I’ll have to steal it lol
Mari Hinton
Love food in books.
Sam McCarthy
I’m not so good with blogging either.
Dianne Casey
I think food is so popular in the cozy mysteries because you have stories set all over the country and it’s interesting to see what food is popular or distinctive to a certain area.
StoreyBook Reviews
Only because I have to approve everything…spammers make me crazy!
Sandy Lipinski
I submitted comment but I didn’t see it.
Sandy Lipinski
I never blogged before. Interesting.
Gayle
I am impressed with you having been a chef at Disney! Yes the recipe looks good. Will have to try it.
Beverly Laude
Food appeals to all our sense, for sure! Loved the post!
Cathi Gil
Food is important to all of us, not only for nutrition, of course, but also to comfort us when we are “in a mood.”
Aline
Food is important all your series
SoCal referred as Food Capitol of world
Thank you for the chance 💕
Sandy Giden
Good post. This is a new author for me.
Kathleen Costa
I am a big fan…and food, well, that goes without saying. I am a fan of food, too. I live in California right in the middle of the Central Valley. We have literally baskets full of various fruits and vegetables and some only found here. I also am a fast food fan! The A&W drive in started here, and root beer floats, car hops, and Papa Burgers were the best!
Susan Stitch
Great interview! Love all the details about how food is key in your stories. Personally, I like stories that deal with food because I can relate to them so well! Great recipe, too. Thank you
Robin L. Coxon
Thank you for hosting Anna Celeste Burke and her new book on your blog. The plot of the books seems to be a real twist on a mystery and I’m sure I will enjoy it.
Beth Ann Tilley
Thank you for the guest post, recipe & giveaway.
Dona
I haven’t read your books yet, but, now I want too.
Dona
The recipe sounds really good!
Anna Celeste Burke
Thanks so much for hosting me and my book, GNARLY NEW YEAR, on your fabulous blog! I hope your visitors enjoy hearing about Brien and Kim and will give the book & the recipe a try. Cheers!
Peggy Hyndman
The dip recipe sounds great. I really enjoyed reading the guest post for Anna Celeste Burke.