Ellen Byron Books

USA Today–bestselling author Southern charm meets the dark mystery of the bayou as a hundred-year flood, a malicious murder, and a most unusual Mardi Gras converge at the Crozat Plantation B&B It’s Mardi Gras season on the bayou, which means parades, pageantry, and gumbo galore. But when a flood upends life in the tiny town of Pelican, Louisiana—and deposits a body of a stranger behind the Crozat Plantation B&B—the celebration takes a decidedly dark turn. The citizens of Pelican are ready to, “Laissez les bon temps rouler”—but there’s beaucoup bad blood on hand this Mardi Gras. Maggie Crozat is determined to give the stranger a name and find out why he was murdered. The post-flood recovery has delayed the opening of a controversial exhibit about the little-known Louisiana Orphan Train. And when a judge for the Miss Pelican Mardi Gras Gumbo Queen pageant is shot, Maggie’s convinced the murder is connected to the body on the bayou. Does someone covet the pageant queen crown enough to kill for it? Could the deaths be related to the Orphan Train, which delivered its last charges to Louisiana in 1929? The leads are thin on this Fat Tuesday—and until the killer is unmasked, no one in Pelican is safe. A simmering gumbo of a humorous whodunit, Mardi Gras Murder is the fourth piquant installment in USA Today–bestselling author Ellen Byron’s award-winning Cajun Country mysteries.

The third in the fabulous cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron. Welcome to the Bon Veeevil Festival of Fear! Prepare for the spookiest night of your life . . . It's Halloween in New Orleans, and the staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum is setting up a fantastic haunted house tour for their visitors. But when flashy movie star Blaine Taggart and his entourage move into the mansion next door, gift shop proprietor Ricki James-Diaz gets a fright of her own. While Ricki is excited about the potential business the tours will bring to her vintage cookbook shop, she's less thrilled by former friend Blaine's arrival in town. Then Bon Vee's prop tomb becomes a real tomb for Blaine's nasty assistant, and suddenly everyone at Bon Vee is a murder suspect. There isn't a ghost of a chance one of them committed the crime, but with NOPD busy tackling the mischief and mayhem generated by the spooky holiday, it falls on Ricki and her friends to catch the killer. As the Big Easy gears up for the Big Scary, it seems everyone has skeletons in their closets. Can Ricki reveal the shadowy killer before someone else becomes part of the Halloween horror show?

Valentine's Day, Pelican, Louisiana. The air at Crozat Plantation B&B turns decidedly frigid when celebrity chef Phillippe Chanson checks in. And when the arrogant Phillippe-- in town to open his newest Cajun-themed restaurant-- perishes in a fiery boat crash, Maggie Crozat's friend JJ lands in very cold water. Did JJ murder Phillippe because he feared the competition? When Maggie receives a series of anonymous gifts that begin as charming but grow increasingly disturbing, does she have an admirer... or a stalker? And are these mysterious gifts somehow related to Phillippe's murder? -- adapted from jacket

USA Today bestselling author The fifth Cajun Country mystery is “a delightful romp . . . flavored with lovable characters and Southern charm that readers . . . will devour along with the scrumptious recipes” (New York Journal of Books) Louisiana B&B owner Maggie Crozat kicks up her heels at a country music festival—but she’ll have one foot in the grave if she can’t bring the killer of a diva’s hanger-on to heel. Grab your tickets for Cajun Country Live!, the pickers’ and crooners’ answer to the legendary New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of the Crozat Plantation B&B, plans to be in the cheering section when her friend Gaynell Bourgeois takes the stage with her band, Gaynell and the Gator Girls. The festival’s headliner, native daughter Tammy Barker, rocketed to stardom on a TV singing competition. She has the voice of an angel—and the personality of a devilish diva. But Maggie learns that this tiny terror carries a grudge against Gaynell. She’s already sabotaged the Gator Girls’ JazzFest audition. When a member of Tammy’s entourage is murdered at the festival, Tammy makes sure Gaynell is number one on the suspect list. Gaynell has plenty of company on that list—including every one of Tammy’s musicians. Posing as a groupie, Maggie infiltrates Tammy’s band and will have to hit all the right notes to clear her friend’s name.

Maggie Crozat has the Halloween heebie-jeebies in USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron's howlingly funny sixth Cajun Country mystery. Maggie Crozat, proprietor of a historic Cajun Country B&B, prefers to let the good times roll. But hard times rock her hostelry when a new cell phone app makes it easy for locals to rent their spare rooms to tourists. With October--and Halloween--approaching, she conjures up a witch-crafty marketing scheme to draw visitors to Pelican, Louisiana. Five local plantation B&Bs host "Pelican's Spooky Past" packages, featuring regional crafts, unique menus, and a pet costume parade. Topping it off, the derelict Dupois cemetery is the suitably sepulchral setting for the spine-chilling play Resurrection of a Spirit. But all the witchcraft has inevitably conjured something: her B&B guests are being terrified out of town by sightings of the legendary rougarou, a cross between a werewolf and vampire. When, in the Dupois cemetery, someone costumed as a rougarou stumbles onstage during the play--and promptly gives up the ghost, the rougarou mask having been poisoned with strychnine, Maggie is on the case. But as more murders stack up, Maggie fears that Pelican's spooky past has nothing on its bloodcurdling present.

Maggie Crozat must pair up with unlikely ally and longtime family enemy to catch the killer before Christmas on the bayou is ruined.

"It's hurricane season in New Orleans and vintage cookbook fan Ricki James-Diaz is trying to shelve her weather-related fears and focus on her business, Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbook and Kitchenware Shop, housed in the magnificent Bon Vee Culinary House Museum. Repairs on the property unearth crates of very old, very valuable French wine, buried by the home's builder, Jean-Louis Charbonnet. Ricki, who's been struggling to attract more customers to Miss Vee's, is thrilled when her post about the discovery of this long-buried treasure goes viral. She's less thrilled when the post brings distant Charbonnet family members out of the woodwork, all clamoring for a cut of the wine's sale. When a dead body turns up in Bon Vee's cheery fall decorations, the NOPD zeroes in on Eugenia Charbonnet Felice as the prime suspect, figuring that as head of the Charbonnet family, she has the most to gain. Ricki is determined to uncover the real culprit, but she can't help noticing that Eugenia is acting strangely. Ricki wonders what kind of secret her mentor has bottled up, and fears what might happen if she uncorks it."-- From publisher's description

A fantastic new cozy mystery series with a vintage flair from USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author Ellen Byron. Twenty-eight-year-old widow Ricki James leaves Los Angeles to start a new life in New Orleans after her showboating actor husband perishes doing a stupid internet stunt. The Big Easy is where she was born and adopted by the NICU nurse who cared for her after Ricki's teen mother disappeared from the hospital.Ricki's dream comes true when she joins the quirky staff of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the spectacular former Garden District home of late bon vivant Genevieve "Vee" Charbonnet, the city's legendary restauranteur. Ricki is excited about turning her avocation - collecting vintage cookbooks - into a vocation by launching the museum's gift shop, Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware. Then she discovers that a box of donated vintage cookbooks contains the body of a cantankerous Bon Vee employee who was fired after being exposed as a book thief.The skills Ricky has developed ferreting out hidden vintage treasures come in handy for investigations. But both her business and Bon Vee could wind up as deadstock when Ricki's past as curator of a billionaire's first edition collection comes back to haunt her.Will Miss Vee's Vintage Cookbooks and Kitchenware be a success ... or a recipe for disaster?

Prodigal daughter Maggie Crozat has returned home to her family's plantation- turned-bed-and-breakfast in Louisiana. When one of their guests dies from unnatural causes, Maggie and her family suddenly become suspects in a murder.