Cozy Mystery Blog Tour: Author Guest Post, Review & Giveaway: Feta Attraction (Greek to Me #1) by Susannah Hardy

The first mystery in a new series overflowing with Greek flavor... 

Georgie Nikolopatos manages the Bonaparte House, a Greek restaurant and historic landmark in beautiful upstate New York rumored to possess ghosts and hidden treasure. But when her husband disappears and her main competitor is found dead, it’s up to Georgie to solve a big fat Greek murder.

With her husband, Spiro, inexplicably gone for days, Georgie has her hands full running the restaurant and dealing with the crew of the TV show Ghost Squad, called in by Spiro to inspect the house for haunting. So when she has a chance to take a boating excursion on the St. Lawrence River with her friend Keith Morgan, she jumps on it. But their idyll is quickly ruined when they discover the body of rival restaurant owner Domenic “Big Dom” DiTomasso floating in the water.

When the police start asking questions, it doesn’t help that Spiro can’t be found—and with Georgie on their suspect list, it’s up to her to find her missing husband and find out who killed Big Dom before someone else’s order is up.

Includes delicious Greek recipes!

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If you’d told me five years ago that I’d be making up stories and cooking, writing and testing recipes to go along with them—and getting paid to do it—I might have said you were nuts. Yet, fast forward to today, and I’m doing just that. Life is good.

Life’s even better when your debut novel releases!

But FETA ATTRACTION looked very different in its embryonic stage, back when it was just a gleam in this girl’s eye. Before I could get out of my own way long enough to sit down to put fingers to keyboard, this was a tale of deceit and revenge, a dark thriller with a particularly heinous villain and crime. Imagine my surprise when I started writing and realized that my protagonist was anything but a victim and that the story was decidedly … cozy. Turns out my heroine/sleuth, Georgie, is caring, quirky, and quite a cook. A woman who just wants to keep her family safe, even though it might be breaking apart. A woman who can navigate around the oddball characters who live in her little town as easily as the local tour boat operators navigate the St. Lawrence River.

Of course, you can have a heroine you love, but you’ve got to hang her on the framework of a mystery plot and see how she spins. Enter my lifelong obsession with local New York State history, especially the Bonapartes. Fact: there were Bonapartes in the United States in the nineteenth century. Napoleon’s older brother, Joseph, once King of Spain, lived lavishly for seventeen years on a huge estate in New Jersey, complete with mistresses and illegitimate children. He also owned land in New York State, near the Canadian border. It’s the legends associated with his residency, along with my personal experiences as a non-Greek working in a Greek restaurant, that melded and morphed into FETA ATTRACTION.

Once I wrote down the story that wanted to be told, rather than the story I thought I wanted to tell, the village of Bonaparte Bay took on a life of its own, and suddenly I had a full novel. Which I really, truly hope you like!

Wishing each and every one of you peace and prosperity in the New Year,

Susannah

Susannah Hardy is the author of the Greek to Me Mysteries, coming January 6, 2015 from Berkley Prime Crime. If you like your mysteries cozy, culinary, and a little bit crazy, you're going to love Georgie and the gang at Bonaparte Bay.

Suze is a member of the New England chapter of Sisters in Crime, the Romance Writers of America and the Connecticut Chapter of RWA. Susannah is originally from Northern New York State (Way north! Only a few miles from the Canadian border), graduated from St. Lawrence University, and now lives in Connecticut with her husband, teenaged son, and Elvira the Wonder Cat. 

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Things I Liked About This Book: 
*The Greek theme! What is there NOT to love about the Greeks?  The culture, the attitude, the names, the FOOD... oh the food *sigh*  I LOVE Greek food.  And call it a major bonus that this book has recipes included! (Lucky me!)

*The characters.  All of them. I adored Georgie. I enjoyed Keith. I loved the secondary players.  All wonderfully developed, well rounded characters that could be my friends.  

*The shout out to Napoleon!  I'm a huge fan of anything Napoleon. I've read biographies and watched documentaries and TV shows on him... as nerdy as that may be.  So when I found out the name of the town was Bonaparte Bay and Georgie ran the Bonaparte House... I was SOLD! I love it when authors throw in little shout outs to historical people and places.  Makes my nerdiness happy :) 

*The setting.  It's beautiful. It has a life of it's own. Just superb. 

What I Didn't Like: 
*There really wasn't anything! Seriously, it was an awesome book. 

Overall: 
Read this. It's fantastic. I'm in love and I can't wait for the next books in this series!  

Rating: 5 stars

I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.  All conclusions reached are my own. 

Thanks the awesome ladies at Penguin, I have 1 copy of Feta Attraction by Susannah Hardy to give away to one of my lucky readers! Just enter the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win, and be sure to keep checking back for more awesome giveaways! 

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