Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery Books In Order

Publication Order of Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mysteries Books

Lee Hollis is a pseudonym for a siblings’ writing group comprising a brother Rick Copp and a sister Holly Simason. Rick Copp, born on 8th August, 1964, is a veteran film and television producer and writer. He is also an occasional actor. He is an author of other mystery novels, including The Actor’s Guide to Greed, The Actor’s Guide to Murder, The Actor’s Guide to Adultery, Facelifts and Fingerprints. He resides in Palm Springs in California.

Holly Simason on the other hand is a former cooking columnist and an award winner for the Mount Desert Islander Newspaper. She is a resident of Bar Harbor, Maine, where the newspaper house is located. In the year 2010, when Simason won her award as a cooking columnist on her hometown, newspaper, Rick saw a great opportunity in both of them teaming up. Rick is famous for his mystery works, while Simason is famous for her cooking columns. Combining the two would form a cooking mystery series and that is how their famous series was born. The siblings are working in collaboration for their Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mystery book series under the pen name Lee Hollis.

The Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mystery series of books were produced from the year 2012 to 2015, in the order of Death of a Kitchen Diva in 2012, Death of a Country Fried Redneck, Death of a Coupon Clipper in 2013, Death of Chocoholics and Death of Christmas Carter in 2014 and lastly Death of Cupcake Queen in 2015.

The book Death of a Kitchen Diva is about the character Hayley Powell, a divorced mother who is given a task by her boss at Island Times to write on a column that is meant to take over the paper. Powell is an office manager rather than a writer and therefore does not know what next should follow. But earning an extra income is tempting hence she takes the assignment after food columnist for the Island Times resigns. When Karen Appelbaum, a rival food writer is found dead in a bowl of creamy clam chowder prepared with the help of Powell’s recipe, Hayley Powell is pointed out as a suspect. In order to get her name cleaned, she decides to enlist some help. In the process of whipping some suspects, she unwraps a juicy secret about her victim.

This comic mystery composes of skillfully and neatly drawn characters which include a landscaper, a survivalist living on the far side of the island, a mother with her uncontrollable children and a Brazilian chief officer whose problems with English creates a hilarious malapropisms.

The story is wittily structured with the characters of the comic not deterring from the structure of the story. This keeps the reader turning on more and more pages as they stir their lobster bisque recipe. The book consists of a number of recipes spread throughout the novel, which are taken directly from Hayley’s recipe columns. Included in the end of the novel is a whole dinner menu with cocktails plus desserts and appetizers. Death of a Kitchen Diva actually portrays the full potentials of both Rick and Simason, making it a recipe mystery.

Hayley Powell food and Cocktail Mystery novel featuring the book Death of a Cupcake Queen which is a wholesome story which talks about leaving a metropolitan kind of city to start a new life in the country side. The topics in this story revolves around many items including grief, communication, divorce, friendship and bullying. The mean girls of the new town are cruel and violent to Penny, the newcomer. They make her life miserable through humiliation in school and in public. A revenge is then plotted, but the main them is that it is better to ignore the meanness and instead make fun out of it. The language used in the story is simple and includes use of some slang words the story is a good appeal for girls in the teenage bracket.

Death of a Country Fried Redneck features Hayley Powell with thoughts of having solved issues of murder in Bar Harbor, Maine. As a single mother, she finds herself with a tight schedule, attending to her teenage daughter, Penny who is aspiring to be a singer plus other things to attend to. When a country music star pops in Bar Harbor, Hayley tries her best to become his personal chef. The superstar Wades finally hires her for the job after he was impressed by her home cooking. The way the story narrows down makes readers to read even more. Included in the book are seven recipes from Hayley’s Kitchen.

Death of a Coupon Clipper narrows down to Hayley Powell being broke and she is selected for the coupon clipping game show that is coming to Bar Harbor. Hayley is thrilled especially when competition becomes nasty due to her rival nurse Candace Culpepper. Hayley finally realizes that Candace scissors is shining on her shoulders and the next thing she will be lining up for would be a police line as a murder suspect when she sees Candace lying face down on snow. Hayley is determined to find the killer and the story goes on unwrapping slowly to the reader.

Death of a Christmas Caterer is an irresistibly delicious mystery that stars the same nosey character, Hayley Powell. The book has its setting in the same town of Bar Harbor where both danger and laughter are mixed up in a witty manner to rejuvenate reader’s quest. The irresistible recipes provided in the book make it a good entertainment during the holiday as it includes so many funny interconnected scenes such that it is difficult to single one without the other. Hayley Powell is not disconcerted by the two local men who are fighting over her. She is busy trying to find murderer that is concerned with the romance. Her search for justice makes her a compelling heroine. Reading the Death of a Christmas Caterer is like taking a vacation as one is immersed in a deep sea of mind refreshment.

Hayley Powell Food and Cocktail Mystery is a truly delicious mystery story that unwraps beautifully around the character Hayley Powell. This comic mystery series by Rick and his sister Simason truly reveals that two different genres can be combined wittily to come up with an enticing story.