Meringues and Lies: Mysteries & Macarons in Provence, Book 2

A century-old Provençal estate finally finds a buyer. A prestigious inauguration buffet. A body face-down in the meringue vacherin. And a pharmacist from Apt who has forgotten nothing. Three months after the Valette affair, Éloïse Poncet has nearly won back her clientele. So when Victor Aubrais - a Parisian architect convalescing from a divorce - hires her to cater the inauguration of the Bastide des Mûriers, an abandoned property no one wanted to buy, she takes the contract as a sign that life is resuming. But on inauguration day, antiquarian Édouard Monclar collapses face-first into the meringue vacherin Éloïse has just assembled before her guests. Digitalin poisoning. And this time, the buffet isn't to blame - it's the personal wine glass the victim carried everywhere. To understand who wanted Monclar dead, Éloïse will have to trace a hidden cellar, fifty years of stolen patience, six weeks of silent calculation, and an inheritance no court ever knew how to name. The worst motive, she soon learns, is not fear. It is fidelity to a dead man. Between the harvest at the Domaine des Rouvrèdes, the autumn lanes of Apt, the back room of an unsettlingly tidy pharmacy, and the Sunday market emptying as October wears on, Éloïse leads her own quiet investigation - armed with her whisk, her meringues, Mistral the cat (who has already found a new treasure beneath the pétrin), and a Lieutenant Langlois who is starting to leave his uniform jacket behind. MERINGUES AND LIES is the second book in "Mysteries & Macarons in Provence," a cozy culinary mystery series where desserts hide what words won't say and where Provençal villages keep their secrets longer than their dead. - A cozy culinary mystery with zero violence, full of dry wit and slow-burning suspense- The second book in a series - each volume reads as a standalone- A fair-play investigation, six suspects, and a real ticking-clock complication- A Provençal autumn setting - harvest, chestnuts, mistral wind, October mist- The return of Mistral the kleptomaniac Chartreux, gendarme Baptiste Langlois, and vigneronne Diane Castain- Five bonus recipes at the back of the book: autumn-fruit vacherin, French and Italian meringue, beef estouffade, fig tart with hazelnut cream, and Mamé's rum chestnut cream- A glossary of French culinary and Provençal terms - read it for pleasure, or skip it for spoilers For readers of Agatha Christie, Louise Penny, Joanne Fluke, and Peter Mayle - a novel that will make you hungry, make you long for Provence in October, and whose last sentence lingers on the tongue like a meringue that, for once, hasn't lied.