A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor

by Darci Hannah, Charlie Albers (Read by)

Overview

It isn't how chef Bridget "Bunny" MacBride imagined her own cooking show unfolding. But, if preparing historic meals with a modern flair is what it takes to get her cooking on the air, she can deliver, even if her dinner guest is a ghost. For their first episode, the Food & Spirits team sets off to investigate Bramsford Manor, a historic house turned famously haunted hotel, in picturesque Hampshire, England. The sprawling estate is said to be home to the Mistletoe Bride, a young woman who died in the eighteenth century, the victim of a tragic accident on her Christmas wedding night.

Disliking spooks but loving food, Bunny leaves the spectral search to the pros and focuses on the feast, creating a traditional English holiday wedding dinner. It's a sumptuous meal she hopes will entice the ghostly Mistletoe Bride to take a seat and join them while the cameras roll. But Bunny's task is made more difficult when someone steals a boning knife from her custom kit. Alas, when the blade finally turns up again—in the chest of an all-too-human dinner guest—Bunny's woes only grow as she is named a lead suspect in the case! Now, with a haunted house full of living residents, staff, and crew, Bunny will need the help of Brett, Giff, and her clairvoyant Grandma Mac, to solve this murder before the manor gains another ghost!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228307674
Publisher:	Tantor
Publication date:	09/24/2024
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 5.70(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Darci Hannah grew up in the northwest suburbs of a Chicago, is a graduate of Indiana University, and currently lives in a small town in Michigan with her husband, three sons, and two dogs. She has lived around the Great Lakes all her life and considers them a source of inspiration. When she's not engaged in a rollicking family adventure, walking her dogs, or working at the historic Howell Carnegie District Library, she's either baking up a storm or hard at work on her next Beacon Bakeshop Mystery.

Originally from a small village near Bath, with Welsh and Scottish heritage, award-winning actor Charlie Albers is now based in the USA. She voice for clients globally from her professionally built, pro-standard home studio on the East Coast, where she lives with her three kids, two dogs, and one Dutch husband who she met while studying in Holland.

Charlie narrates a wide spectrum of genres, from cozy mystery, romantic comedy, fantasy, and Regency romance to psychological thriller and horror. Her degree in psychology and science and her textured voice lend themselves to the darker genres, which she narrates as Allie Rose.

Charlie has a voice acting background, including recording award-winning commercials for Christian Dior and Max Mara and award-winning video games and TV promos for Warner Bros. and Disney.

Editorial Reviews

07/15/2024

Clairvoyant chef Bunny MacBride stumbles into two murder investigations after launching a cooking show with a ghost hunter and a pseudo-psychic in this winsome series launch from Darci (the Beacon Bakeshop mysteries). As production for Food & Spirits begins at Bramsford Manor in Bunny’s ancestral home of Scotland, she ignores the spiritual unrest she senses throughout the property. Her job, after all, is to prepare a meal for the young bride who died in the manor 300 years earlier. As she begins cooking, however, Bunny is drawn to the spirit of the property’s manor historian—who, it turns out, has just been murdered with Bunny’s boning knife. Bunny is arrested for the crime, and uses her phone call to contact her Granny MacBride, from whom she inherited the gift of “second sight.” After being released from jail for lack of evidence, Bunny teams up with Granny MacBride and her supernaturally inclined cohosts to figure out who framed her. In the process, she gets wrapped up in the mystery of Bramsford’s dead bride. Darci delivers memorable characters, a pair of rollicking mysteries, and plenty of humor. This series has legs. Agent: Sandy Harding, Spencerhill Assoc. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Darci Hannah
 
"Spooke-meets-kooky adventure ensues." - Woman's World on Murder at the Pumpkin Pageant

“You’ll never see the end coming in this delightfully zany tale.” —Kirkus Reviews on Murder at the Blueberry Festival
 
“From the sweet moments to the sleuthing, this whodunit was a fun, festive ride!” —FIRST for Women on Murder At The Christmas Cookie Bake-Off
 
“Red herrings, romance, and yummy recipes combine in this charming new series.” —Kirkus Reviews on Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop
 
“Wellington—or Wellie, for short—exceeded expectations as a delightful canine companion. Most importantly, the mystery was intriguingly layered. I also really enjoyed the food and baking descriptions and thought the inclusion of both the romance and the paranormal element tidily done.” —Criminal Element on Murder at the Beacon Bakeshop
 
“This is a great start to a new series with plenty of sweets, a charming setting, and a mystery to keep readers guessing.” —Parkersburg News and Sentinel
 
“Darci Hannah mixes spicy characters, a sweet bakeshop, and a possibly haunted lighthouse into a charming beachfront Michigan village and serves up a mystery as delectable as the bakeshop’s treats and as twisty as the lighthouse stairs." —Ginger Bolton, author of Boston Scream Murder

From the Publisher

2024-06-15
A chef and her grandmother attempt to solve a spooky ancient mystery, leading to a very modern murder.

Bridget “Bunny” MacBride, raised on a Scottish farm, works for grumpy celebrity chef Mary Stobart in Connecticut. She’s thrilled to be offered a job as chef onFood and Spirits, Mealtime Network’s new show. What she doesn’t know is that the show’s spirits aren’t potent potables but things that go bump in the night. Bunny, who knows all about ghosts, is appalled but can’t turn down her crack at stardom. So she joins cameramen Cody Jenkins, Ed Franco, and Mike Miller; producer Trig Gunderson; show creator and ghost hunter Brett Bloom; and fake psychic medium Gifford McGrady in heading for Bramsford Manor, a stately English home run as a hotel. Bramsford is one of several places that has a story about the Mistletoe Bride, who vanished while playing hide-and-seek on Christmas Day in 1700, only to be found by her husband 50 years later trapped in a chest in the attic. Bunny heads right to the kitchen, where head chef Lilly Plum shows her the ropes and orders what Bunny will need to make a feast that will lure the bride, spotted by many over the years, into camera range. As it turns out, only Bunny and the grandmother she calls in to help have any real psychic ability. After a white rabbit leads Bunny to find manor historian Marcus Bean’s corpse stuffed into the mistletoe chest with Bunny’s missing knife in his chest, she must uncover the truth to stay out of jail.

The intrepid heroine battles ghosts, her past, and a clever killer while serving great meals through it all.

Kirkus Reviews