Book Talk: Dessert is a recipe for disaster in 'Peanut Butter Panic'

Dessert is once again a recipe for disaster in “Peanut Butter Panic,” seventh in a series by Tallmadge author Amanda Flower (there also are two e-novellas).

Bailey King, who co-owns a candy shop in the fictional Holmes County village of Harvest, has once again been conscripted by self-appointed community social director Margot to do grunt work on her biggest project yet, a Thanksgiving dinner on the town square. With Amish diners as well as “English,” Margot expects as many as 800 people.

Though there will be indoor seating for 400 in the church hall, the rest will be at tables on the square, a dicey proposition in late November in Ohio. Margot, who might be called pushy if her ideas weren’t so beneficial to the village’s economy, hands her clipboard to Bailey and deputizes her to run the show while she, Margot, goes to the airport to pick up her mother.

Bailey, who has a shop to run and candy to make in preparation for the upcoming holiday weekend, has a problem saying no. She also gets stuck with taking care of the minister’s wife’s miniature pig. Bailey is simultaneously amazed that Margot would turn over authority to anyone and astounded that Margot even has a mother.

When Margot’s mother, Zara, arrives, no one is pleased to see her. Zara had been a judge in Holmes County for many years; one of Bailey’s friends says that Zara “unjustly sentenced dozens of Amish men and even a few women to prison.” It’s clear that Zara holds nothing but contempt for Margot and for Harvest; she’s there to show off her much-younger boyfriend, Blaze.

The Thanksgiving meal will include “church spread,” a tooth-rotting mixture of peanut butter and marshmallow fluff that the Amish use on everything from bread to ice cream. When Bailey offers Blaze a bag of homemade buckeyes as a welcoming gift, he recoils in horror, citing a peanut butter allergy. Guess what’s in his dinner.

Though the potential suspect pool could number in the hundreds, Zara narrows it down to three and hands Bailey a list. Everybody’s always handing Bailey lists. She needs to be selling chocolate and working on her relationship with her boyfriend, who’s been assigned to the Ohio Bureau of Investigation in Columbus and who doesn’t seem inclined to propose anytime soon.

“Peanut Butter Panic” (304 pages, softcover) costs $8.99 from Kensington.

‘Hotel California’ mystery anthology

Amanda Flower’s next book, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death,” is a historical mystery that finds Emily Dickinson’s housemaid solving a murder.

Amanda Flower is one of eight contributors to “Hotel California,” an anthology of mystery short stories. Her “Try and Love Again” finds Jay-Jay, a young South Bass Island private investigator, approached by a man who wants her to find his long-ago summer love; the problem is, Jay-Jay knows the woman was murdered 20 years before, a crime still unsolved.

The book’s editor is Don Bruns, a longtime Lima resident who has three popular detective series. His contribution here, the dark-humored “Life in the Fast Lane,” is about a hit man contracted to kill a small-town Georgia gambling addict but who violates every rule in his mental assassin’s handbook one by one.

The book also includes a new Jack Reacher story by Andrew Child. Only the last of the eight stories, the book’s namesake, takes place in California. “Hotel California” (267 pages, hardcover) costs $26.99 from Blackstone Publishing.

Events

Loganberry Books (13015 Larchmere Blvd., Shaker Heights): Kevette Kane signs “TYM2THRIVE: Transform Your Mind & Transform Your Money to Thrive,” 2 p.m. Sunday.

Fireside Book Shop (29 N. Franklin St., Chagrin Falls): Gabe Goldman signs “The Loving Wind,” a children’s book that deals with death and the natural world, 1-3 p.m. Sunday.

Hudson Library & Historical Society: Eric Jay Dolin talks about “Rebels at Sea: Privateering in the American Revolution” in a Zoom appearance at 7 p.m. Monday. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver talks about “Escaping Gravity: My Quest to Transform NASA and Launch a New Space Age.” Register at hudsonlibrary.org.

Cuyahoga County Public Library (South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch, 1876 S. Green Road, South Euclid): South Euclid author Cade Bentley, who also writes as Abby L. Vandiver (“A Deadly Inside Scoop”), launches “Where the Wild Peaches Grow,” 7-8 p.m. Tuesday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Cuyahoga County Public Library: Ellen Meister talks about her comic mystery “Take My Husband” in a Zoom event from 7-8 p.m. Thursday. Register at cuyahogalibrary.org.

Cleveland Heights-University Heights Public Library (Coventry Village branch, 1925 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights): Dennis Keating talks about “Cleveland and the Civil War,” 7-8 p.m. Thursday.

Learned Owl Book Shop (204 N. Main St., Hudson): Jason Lady signs his children’s fantasy “Time Problems: A Magic Pen Adventure #3,” 1-3 p.m. Saturday.

Appletree Books (12419 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights): J. Ryan Stradal signs his novels “Kitchens of the Great Midwest” “The Lager Queen of Minnesota,” 1-3 p.m. Saturday.

Email information about books of local interest, and event notices at least two weeks in advance to BeaconBookTalk@gmail.com and bjnews@thebeaconjournal.com. On Twitter: @BarbaraMcI.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Book Talk: Dessert is a recipe for disaster in 'Peanut Butter Panic'