Murder on the Page

Book 1: Literary Dining Mystery

by Daryl Wood Gerber

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Culinary Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Featuring twin hooks that cozy readers can’t get enough of—classic books and delicious food—this new series from the Agatha Award-winning, nationally bestselling author of several much loved series, including the Fairy Garden Mysteries and the French Bistro Mysteries, is a delicious treat for mystery lovers, especially fans of Ellery Adams, Krista Davis, and Lauren Elliott.

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that a genuinely top-notch party must be in want of a theme. Allie Catt, caterer and personal chef in the beautiful mountain community of Asheville, North Carolina, has devised a winning formula by using her clients’ favorite books as inspiration. Her first themed event is based on Pride and Prejudice (Allie’s cat, Darcy, approves), and it’s so popular that soon she has grand ideas for future parties based on Rebecca, The Great Gatsby, Babette’s Feast and more. 

Business is booming, and a rival catering company is fuming. But there’s a sting in the tale when the aunt of one of Allie’s clients and best friends, Tegan, is murdered. Tegan is the victim’s sole heir, and quickly becomes the main suspect. Allie has no doubts about her friend’s innocence, but how to prove it?  

Once again, her love of literature comes to the rescue, and with some guidance from her favorite fictional detectives, including Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes, Allie sifts through the clues.  
With a little luck—and the kind of pluck that would make Elizabeth Bennett proud—she may be able to stop a killer from serving up a second course of murder . . .

Release date: October 22, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

August 6, 2016

CHECK YOUR NOTES!

No. The most fucked-up word in the English language.

Am I spoiled? Drowning in #firstworldproblems? Privileged little suburban Black girl whose father is a Methodist pastor?

Probably.

But those “super-woke” thoughts never entered my head while wallowing in my self-made pit of despair—its walls constructed of loss of control, rejection, and unmitigated bags of Funyuns.

It can be a small “no.” For example, my favorite taco truck running out of carnitas. Agony. Blood in the streets. It’s 28 Days Later meets The Purge.

Or it can be unquantifiable horror, like the lit agent I knew was going to sign me deciding my manuscript was just a little “undercooked” for her. It was kind. Supportive. Encouraging, even. Still, a rejection. A large “NO.”

Burn. The city. To the fucking ground.

I knew what I was in for when I decided to be a writer. I knew rejection had to happen and that it would be a normal part of my process, of any writer’s process. Rejection. Improvement. Rejection. Incremental improvement. Rejection. Rejection. Full-on edit and rewrite. Better rejections. They address you by name this time. But it is still a rejection. A slap in the face. Bamboo sticks thrust deftly in the nail bed of your dreams.

Labor takes place for hours, weeks, months, years. Pushing. Sweating. Breathing. Screaming. Just when you think you cannot do it, this gorgeous thing comes out of you. Small. New. Beautiful.

Right when you are getting used to her, someone walks in and tells you unceremoniously that your baby is ugly. And stupid. Derivative. A little undercooked.

I feel like what’s worse is there has never been an outright shutdown. No one has sat me down and told me I’m a bad writer. Editors, lit agents, friends, and everyone in between have openly advised me that I was good. I was talented. My work needed a little tweaking here and there. Just one more thing. One more edit. One more tiny little thing. Just change everything and it will be great.

I was over “one more thing.” Over edits. Over changes. Over “just one more.”

No more.

This rejection email didn’t come on its own. That would’ve been too kind. It was compounded by another rejection that I received earlier this week. This one said directly to my face: I mean, why would anyone publish you? Who the hell are you?

This was practically spat at me by a mean little man in PR at one of those ultrahip, overly self-important networking-and-marketing events. I don’t know why I always ended up in places like that, thinking I’ll meet interesting or cool people, learn something, “lean in,” or whatever the latest “everyone is reading it” book is telling us to do, or at a minimum, find a new brunch buddy.

Eventually, I finally came to the conclusion that scoring a new brunch buddy was never going to happen. Instead, I encounter people like this. The living, breathing reincarnated cast of Heathers and Mean Girls who had all grown up and gone into the only industry where their petty, small, inauthentic lives can be put to good use: PR. It didn’t matter that this particular person had a dick. The Mean Girls gene is gender neutral.

A less aggressive person would have sunk in her chair and slunk away. But that’s not me. Not ever. Not even if it was the end of the world and the worst day of my period.

So instead, I sat up straight and angrily retorted: “I’m Liv. I’m talented. Brilliant. And the next New York Times bestselling author.” I followed my outburst with perfunctory pursed lips and a so there! stare.

“Of course you are!” The mean Little PR Guy gave me a smile that was just begging me to Jackie-Chan-kick his front teeth out. “Listen, it’s almost impossible to get a lit agent without a decent platform,” he continued to tell the audience. “Talent is no longer enough. Not even sheer brilliance can get you published. What an agent really wants to know is: How many followers do you have? How are you marketable, and to which demo? Are you commercially viable? And why you, above a thousand other people doing your exact same thing? Everyone who wants to be someone in this room needs to ask themselves”—I’m pretty sure he addressed this last comment just to me—“who the hell are you?”

For a week I was rolling this question around on my tongue like a cough drop. That’s when I got the rejection email and got the answer to my question.

I am nothing.

I am literal shit.

I am an author of an ugly, useless unpublished manuscript.

An “undercooked” writer, with a measly five hundred IG followers and delusions of grandeur.

I was nothing.

The front door opened and closed. I didn’t move.

“Situations have improved, I see,” Reese, my roommate and bestie said, dropping the mail on the coffee table.

It was a standard Washington Heights apartment; its vibe consistently incipient, despite the fact we’d lived there for six years now. Maybe all New York apartments felt inherently unfinished to its tenants—dreamers always wanting more. A long, narrow hallway we had painted deep green sort of referred to each space, instead of opening up to it, like a lazy flight attendant. It was a Frankensteined construction where one could tangibly feel two apartments should have been one, but corporate greed and overpopulation had jaggedly split them apart.

Reese had to walk down the narrow hall to get to the living room, where I was. A devout introvert, she used to walk directly to her room, but I made a stink about it. “You can’t even come and say hi?” I would wail. Now she makes a point to stop by the living room. When you enter the apartment, Reese’s small, dark, dungeonlike room was immediately to the left, the bathroom directly adjacent. She chose eggplant purple for her room. My larger neon-green room—with better light, a street view, and the fire escape, which, let’s face it, is a balcony—was on the other side of the apartment.

Before I’m labeled the consummate bitch for taking the better room, let me just say: She wanted it that way. Reese would cut off her right leg rather than pay more in rent for the bigger room. A spacious but narrow kitchen sat in the middle of the apartment and was painted sapphire blue; it led directly to the boxy living room, with one accent wall painted bright red. It was probably bigger than it felt; we’d stuffed it with art, plants, a cheap oversized Amazon bookcase that was hemorrhaging novels and DVDs. There was room for little else, not even a tree during Christmas. Against the wall with the bright big windows with no decent view sat my favorite purchase: an oversized, overpriced, overly comfy bright red couch, which had housed every artist, musician, actor, I-just-moved-to-New-York dreamer who had ever lived. We called it The Home for Wayward Girls, but quite a few boys had occupied it as well.

Currently it housed me. I hadn’t moved from where she’d left me this morning. I hadn’t gone to work. I’d just added a few annexes to my pit of despair: Chinese, Thai, and Indian takeout. Three empty cherry Coke bottles. Used tissue. And a moat of Flamin’ Hot Funyuns. And me in the middle, sprawled on the couch. Ass naked.

“I ate some of your Funyuns,” I confessed.

Reese disagreed with me on the spot. “No. You didn’t. You spread them out on the floor. Is this performance art or something?”

“They really are too hot. I don’t see how you eat them.”

“I don’t eat them, do I?” She started grabbing handfuls of Funyuns and throwing them into the wastebasket. “I shovel them off the ground.”

“I’ll buy you more,” I offered.

“How? With unemployment money?”

“I have a job.”

“That you haven’t shown up to in three days.” She plopped down next to me on the couch, throwing my legs out of the way. “They’re going to fire you. I would fire you.”

I shifted listlessly. “They aren’t going to fire me. They love me.”

“People loving you is only going to get you so far, Ferris Bueller. Pretty soon, people are going to get tired of your shit.”

“I’m in my pit of despair!” I wailed.

“Get over it!” Reese used an empty foil-lined bag that used to hold egg rolls as a bullhorn. “Get. Over. It. Rejection happens to people—”

“Ugh.” I turned over and shoved my face in a pillow.

“‘No’ happens to people!”

“Meh!”

“All the time. So stop being a princess—”

More garbled angry outbursts from the pillow.

“Get your shit together,” she continued proclaiming.

I kicked my feet like a child having a tantrum.

“Let’s plan your next move.”

“That’s it, Reese.” I flipped back over and kicked my legs in the air, giving her far too much access to my vadge. She got up and cautiously threw a blanket at it, like it was a New York City rat. “I don’t have a next move. This is my next move. Write the book. Become a sought-after New York Times bestselling author. Quit my graphic design job. Sleep with hot guys for the rest of my life. Make it rain. Maybe save the Siberian tigers.” I paused. “Maybe buy a Siberian tiger.”

“Who said you weren’t on schedule? Life has twists, turns, subplots. Must you take the time to completely fall apart every single time something doesn’t go your way?”

I looked out the window with my best Jean Valjean stare. “Yes.”

“All right. Enough of this.” Reese walked into my room, then came back with clothes, which she chucked at me. “Get dressed,” she ordered.

“Where are we going?”

“The only place that will get you out of this funk.”

I gasped. “Chipotle?”

“Not Chipotle.”

“Oh, my GAAAAWWWWD, Reese! I love you!”

Reese was one of those friends, those besties, those perfectly discerning human beings, who not only fits with you perfectly, but understood you to that degree as well. All of my mood swings had a correlating kryptonite. Reese knew them all: where to find them, how much kryptonite to use, and when to use it. Period mood swings: chocolate, Chipotle, and/or puppy videos. Work mood swings: tequila, ID Network, and/or puppy videos. Soul-crushing, dream-killing rejection? That required the big guns. Church, sex, an actual puppy, or dance class.

It wasn’t Sunday, there was no time to borrow or steal a puppy, and my current relationship status was too-busy-building-my-empire single. Short of calling an escort, that left us with one option: dance class.

You gotta love the energy of a New York City dance studio. Even the lobby smells like sweat, exuberance, and a whole lotta “judging you.” Mere acquaintances are touchy-feely-sexual to the point a nondancer may wonder if they are all fucking. Quite possibly, they are. Mirrored rooms of various sizes snaked its way down a labyrinth of halls, and lithe, sweat-soaked bodies poured in and out of the doors as if this itself were a ballet—a cacophonous, frenetic symphony of noise, chaos, color, self-importance, and busy antics. Bulletin boards burst with the latest communication: A Chorus Line auditions, nonunion only; The Lion King needs a swing; the Capezio Hip Hop Dance Con; an undisclosed artist looking for backup dancers for a music video. I check out the board like I’m interested. Perhaps I would be, in another lifetime. This energy. This vibe. This was as much a part of my feel-better ceremony as the actual class. I took a deep breath of the must, the lust, and the thick air the overworked air conditioners never could quite cool sufficiently, even in the brick of winter.

I found my dance class and pulled the door open, giving my bestie a longing look before I walked inside. She just glared at me with the bitch, please stare that needed no words. She pulled out her Kindle, prepared to wait for me, but not willing to participate.

Reese was an undiscovered knockout—“undiscovered” because she herself refused to discover it. She was of indeterminate race, as she was adopted, but could certainly pass for a Puerto Rican–y, mixed-race, Black-ish Inuit. She only stood about five-three, had light tan colored skin and inky black curly hair, considered “that good hair” in Black communities where it was still acceptable to say such things. (In the “super-woke” world of #blackgirlmagic, all hair, regardless of its kink, is considered good hair.) Reese wore thin glasses and had almond-shaped eyes that disappeared on the rare occasion her perpetual dubiety allowed her to smile. I once called her Nerdy Snow White. She rolled her eyes and, in no uncertain terms, told me—and I quote—that she could only be a “Fat Nerdy Snow White, except with darker skin.”

Yes, Reese was plus size, hotfooting between a size 16 and 18. What really burned my vadge was she didn’t seem to notice anything else but that. She didn’t notice that she was fat in all the right ways: small waist, rolly-but-reasonably-flat tummy, great tits, and an even better ass. Perfectly round and proportionate, it could easily start a riot when “Back That Thang Up” came on. She didn’t notice her flawless, blemish-free, ageless skin, which made her look like a hot but smart sixteen-year-old summer intern, and she didn’t notice how amazing her hair was if she ever took it out of her perpetual ponytail. Her entire look was the script to a poorly acted-out ’90s She’s All That–ish teenybopper rom-com. There’s a Freddie Prinze Jr. lurking somewhere just waiting for her to take off her glasses.

It was for all of these reasons that my warm-yet-cynical, endlessly generous but Dariaesque, angsty-rock-music-loving cinephile best friend did not, and would not ever, join me in dance class. Drawing any attention to herself—let alone facing a wall of mirrors for ninety minutes—was something I would never catch her doing. Though by all conventional standards, she was the hotter of the two of us.

I was just louder.

In every way possible.

I am darker, blacker, fatter, and possibly more clinically insane than Reese. I rock a huge, twisted-out ’fro, or braided extensions in the summer for the sole purpose of swinging them obnoxiously in people’s faces. I am not fat in the “good” way; my tummy protrudes with unapologetic, Hitchcockian audacity, conquered only by my valiant tits that have shoved themselves to the front of every conversation, meal, or corner I’ve turned since the fifth grade. Thank God for these tits, because unlike every other woman in my family, I was neglected in the ass department. I am left with a pathetic flat square back there, and a lifetime of asking why God hath forsaken me.

One might also notice I’m a bit dramatic. My jewelry, makeup, clothes, and waistline are huge. Since I am a lifetime theater nerd, my personality can only be described as what drag queens pray for when they pray to the drag goddesses. Subsequently, feather boas and glitter are my fucking life.

So, yes, I get more attention from men than Reese. Probably more attention from everyone. But only because I demand it.

So even though I wasn’t particularly asking for it, I was not surprised by the stares I got when I walked into dance class. I hadn’t taken this particular class before and didn’t recognize anyone. I waved to members of the class anyway, most of them friendly, some of them not. Dance class—specifically in New York City—is often a Diva Fest. I was more than used to it. However, a West African dance class usually had a good vibe of friendlies. Maybe it was the drums or the soulful routines. But just like in any dance class, I didn’t care.

My I don’t give a shit bravado did not stem from talent. That was obvious to everyone in the room as I began my wobbly attempts at the choreo. As a trained thespian, I’d studied acting, singing, and dance, but the latter two were not my strong suits. Yes, I proudly marched to the front of the class, but that was only so I could feel the drumbeats pulsating in my chest. Unlike most everything I do in life, I did not dance for applause and recognition. Dancing was all about how it made me feel: free, limitless, awake, reborn, alive. The exhilaration of it went straight to my bones, to my very soul. However dark my world got, dancing sent bright, bold, Baz Luhrmannesque saturated color swirling through my veins. It was a powerful drug, and I always came back for more, no matter what the style. My fat flat ass could be found in swing classes, salsa, ballet, tap, hip-hop, modern, Jamaican Dutty Wining, or literally anything that was offered. Dance was a private conversation between Liv and Inner Liv that said, Hey. You’re dope as FUUUUUUUUUCK. Remember who the fuck you are, bitch.

I guess that’s why I was surprised when, toward the final portion of class, the choreographer teamed me up with a far superior dancer and made us dance the choreo side by side. I had seen her around the city before in dance classes. She was certainly hard to miss. Tall, possibly five-ten or five-eleven. Tan skin. Gorgeous. She was definitely Tongan or Samoan. You might call her fat, but her height evened it out to a flattering “curvy,” instead. Long, poofy hair tied in a tight bun. Her outfit slayed: all black with stylish sheer cutouts all over, across her thighs, calves, and ample cleavage. She certainly seemed like a grade-A G-Flitch (as in, “Get your Fucking Life, Bitch,” a term made up by Reese and me). Roughly translated, this is a NYC-based, brows-on-fleek, blog-dropping, weave-popping, podcast-cohosting, best-party-networking, green-juice-making, daily-yoga-slaying, Coachella-attending, 25K-follower-having boss bitch who didn’t tolerate persons, places, or ideas that weren’t on her perceived “level.” Ergo, her mere presence made you want to “get your fucking life” together. Yes, I was totally judging her ebook by its cover, but when she unsuccessfully tried to obfuscate an eye roll, I knew I was right. Pure, unfiltered, organic, cold-brewed G-Flitch.

The drums began to pound, the phones came out, and G-Flitch and I nailed the choreo, me somewhat surprised by my success, and G-Flitch not really at all. The room erupted in applause, woots, and the absolutely necessary “yaaaaaaaaaassssssssses” from the gay guys. The choreographer ended the class on that note, and we all walked to the corners of the room to gather our things. Exuberant appreciation and pats on the back continued.

I accepted the accolades graciously. I mean, come on. I never shy away from adoration. My morning alarm is still—and always will be—the sound of applause. It’s the only way a queen like myself should be awoken from sleep. Today this amount of adoration for my feeble attempts at West African dance seemed a little unearned.

G-Flitch gathered her things next to me. I smiled. “I’m Liv.”

“Faith.” She returned a tight smile of her own, still apparently not wanting to talk to me, regardless of our shared success.

I tried again with a fake laugh and a Kanye shrug. “They certainly seemed excited,” I whispered.

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s not because you were any good,” Faith said, pulling her bag on her shoulder.

I couldn’t help but notice her obvious disassociation from me. As if she were saying: Yes, Basic Girl. I slayed. You were just lucky enough to be in my atmosphere.

She may be a G-Flitch, and she may even be right, but I wasn’t going to sit there and take it.

“Hey, look,” I said, bumping her enough to knock her bag off her shoulder. “I may not be on your level, but you don’t have to act like a total bi—”

“They were cheering because we’re both fat.” Faith’s face was at first hurt, then defiant. She gave a sigh, like she wanted to apologize, but was too exhausted to do so. “Have a good night,” she said.

With that, she walked out of the dance room.

At that moment a small seed of an idea started to birth, emerge, and grow. The longer I stood there staring in the mirror, I could feel that idea begin to shoot rainbows, glitter, and Care Bear Stares out of my very flat ass.

August 6, 2016

“FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT!”

I was nailing it. I knew it. The director, choreographer, and music director all knew it, too. Their intermittent nods of approval behind the formidable long table covered with headshots, pens, Post-its, laptops, and bottled water were almost distracting. Almost. Not completely, though, because I was too busy fucking nailing it.

Triple pirouette, fan kick, pirouette, attitude, and pose on the seven-and-eight. Boom! The part that was impossibly fast. The one we’d all been screwing up, which was the intention all along. Only the ones who could catch it even stood a chance. Two girls next to me didn’t. I did. I more than caught it. There’s a point in learning choreography where you surpass just the sequence of movements in your head. It’s in your bones. In the pocket. At that point you can move on to making it your own. That’s the subtle graduation from learning it, to doing it, to catching it and all its complexities. And then there’s killing it.

And I’d just killed it dead. The choreography lay in a bloody, triumphant puddle on . . .