Guest: Nancy Coco & #Giveaway

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Edith here, happy to welcome my friend Nancy Coco (aka Nancy J. Parra) to the blog with the first book in a new mystery series!

Death Bee Comes Her blurb: Meet Wren Johnson, owner of Let It Bee – a shop that sells all things honey, from candy to lip balm to candles – in the small town of Oceanview along the Oregon coast. One day when Wren is walking her cat, Everett, on the beach, the kitty points Wren to the prone body of Agnes Snow among the dunes. Agnes is the arch-rival of Wren’s Aunt Eloise, and she is definitely dead. The only clue is a label from one of Wren’s handmade lip balms clutched in Agnes’s right hand. Wren calls 9-1-1 and meets Office Jim Hampton, a Paul Newman lookalike who is suspicious of Wren from the start. Wren is suspect number one in his eyes – and her Aunt Eloise is suspect number two. Wren, along with Everett, must follow the clues to catch the real killer and clear their names.

I read that a German proverb says “if you eat honey on New Year’s Day you will be sweet all year.”  A Jewish saying is “a piece of apple dipped in honey guarantees a sweet new year”. I love researching and researching about bees has been a lot of fun.

I love bees and if I didn’t live in the city I might even have a hive of my own. When I was a child, we lived beside a blueberry farm and each spring the farmer would bring in rented hives to ensure the bees would pollinate the blueberries. I found it all incredibly interesting. Then when my children were little we would visit the Natural History Museum on the campus of the University of Kansas. They had a live hive built into one wall with glass between visitors and the hive so that you could sit and watch the bees. That became my inspiration for the hive inside, Wren Johnson’s store, Let It Bee. Wren makes and sells all things bee and I enjoyed looking up bee lore and adding it to the story.

It’s amazing to know how many ways people use bee hive products. I read that honey used to be made with figs and then bee honey became the norm. When people use smoke to “calm” the bees, what really happens is bees get agitated and eat honey until they are so full they are calm. I think I’d love to have that much honey.

Honey in Baklava is my favorite way to use honey. Also, honey with peanut butter in a sandwich makes it crunchy and sweet.

Readers: Do you love honey? What is your favorite way to use honey? I’m offering a book to one lucky commenter (US only). So feel free to join in the conversation, and good luck!

Nancy Coco is the national best-selling author of the Candy-coated mystery series set on Mackinac Island, Michigan and the new Oregon Honeycomb series. She also writes cozy mysteries under Nancy J Parra and Nell Hampton.

Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Dot and Amelia Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries series, the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, and the Cece Barton Mysteries (all from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau and cat Martin, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

80 Thoughts

  1. I like honey on biscuits, with peanut butter in a sandwich and hot honey and lemon when I have a cold.

  2. I hardly ever eat honey. I don’t really like it in tea, just when I’m sick. I remember having honey and biscuits at Bill Knapp’s restaurant. You can make a lip scrub with honey and sugar. 🍯 🍯

  3. I enjoy apples dipped in honey for Jewish New Year and anytime. When I feel a cold coming on, adding honey to tea soothes my throat along with the tea, of course.

  4. I live honey on biscuits, in tea and honey and peanut and butter sandwiches.

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