A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor: Welcome Darci Hannah

By Liz/Cate, excited to help Darci Hannah celebrate the release of her latest book – the first in a new series! I love ghosts and anything paranormal – so I can’t wait to read this one. Take it away, Darci!

Thank you, Cate, for inviting me to be a guest on the fabulous Wicked Authors Blog. I’m so happy to be a guest today, and to get to share a little bit about my new cozy mystery, A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor, the first book in my new Food & Spirits Mystery Series. 

I’m going to be honest. When I got the bug to write novels many years ago, I never considered that one day I’d be writing a paranormal mystery series (with food and travel too!). While I’ve always been fascinated with paranormal mysteries like, does Sasquatch really exist? Are ghosts real? And what exactly is an UAP (unidentified aerial phenomenon)? I had never considered writing about them. That was until my younger brother Ron, who for some odd reason decided to hunt ghosts for a hobby, started telling me all about his wild paranormal adventures. Now tell me, who doesn’t love a good ghost story?

I started my writing career writing romantic historical fiction. I really thought that’s what I would do forever. That now makes me laugh. After two published books, I lost my contract. Around the same time my brother had joined a paranormal investigative team. He’d tell me to watch those crazy ghost hunting reality shows on TV. There were so many of them on cable at that time that I made the comment that the Food Network was the only network that I could tell without a ghost show on it. We then thought of the perfect ghost show for that network and called it Food & Sprits. It would be a food baiting ghost hunting show based on the ancient Celtic tradition of the Dumb Supper. As a spoof, I wrote a reality TV pitch for it, because I had some time on my hands, then ended up selling my very first cozy mystery series, The Very Cherry Mysteries, instead. I stuffed that pitch away in a drawer where it was nearly forgotten. 

Two years ago, my publisher asked me to pitch another cozy mystery series. That’s when I found my old pitch for Food & Spirits, my spoofy ghost hunting foodie show. I dusted it off, rewrote it as a cozy mystery pitch, and here I am today. 

Now, I said that I’ve never considered myself to be a paranormal writer. But looking back at the very first novel I got published in 2010, The Exile of Sara Stevenson, the very first line goes like this: Someone once told me that every tower has a ghost, and every ghost has a story. And I think right there is the heart of the matter. A touch of the paranormal tends to seep into my writing. I can’t help it. I’m intrigued by ghost stories, and lucky me, in A FATAL FEAST AT BRAMSFORD MANOR, I get to tell you one. I get to tell you all about the tragic, ghostly legend of the Mistletoe Bride. 

But don’t worry. There’s a lot of humor peppered throughout the book, along with some really good food. I hope you enjoy reading A FATAL FEAST AT BRAMSFORD MANOR as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Readers: Do you believe in ghosts?

About A Fatal Feast at Bramsford Manor:

While filming at a haunted English manor, chef Bunny MacBride’s big break on her first reality TV show may be cut short by an unscripted murder in Darci Hannah’s new Food & Spirits cozy mystery series . . .

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. That’s the premise of the new reality TV show Food & Spirits, where Chef Bunny teams up with ghost hunter Brett Bloom and psychic medium Giff McGrady to visit haunted locales around the world and tempt lingering spirits back to the table with a beloved meal. 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 18th 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, complete with a gorgeous prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, and rustic apple tarts. 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!

About Darci Hannah

Darci Hannah is the bestselling author of the Beacon Bakeshop Mystery Series, the Food & Spirits Mystery Series, the Very Cherry Mystery Series, and two works of historical fiction, The Exile of Sara Stevenson, and The Angel of Blythe Hall. Darci grew up in the Midwest and currently lives in a small town in Michigan with her husband and two dogs. Darci is a lifelong lover of the Great Lakes, a natural wonder that inspires many of her stories. Passionate about family, dogs, food, baking, history, books, lighthouses, laughter, good conversations, coffee, and the paranormal, Darci feels especially blessed to have found a way to combine her interests in the stories she writes. It brings her great joy to be able to share them with you. 

Connect with Darci at www.darcihannah.com. Instagram: @authordarcihannah. Twitter: @darci_hannah. YouTube: @darcihannah. You can even listen to Darci and her sons on the Nearly Literate Podcast @ https://rss.com/podcasts/motherboy/  Or  watch on YouTube @NearlyLiteratePodcast.