Take chocolate candy, add a family business at war with itself, and stir with an outsider’s perspective. This is the recipe for True Confections, the irresistible new novel by Katharine Weber, a writer whose work has won accolades from Iris Murdoch, Madeleine L’Engle, Wally Lamb, and Kate Atkinson, to name a few. Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky’s marriage into the Ziplinsky family has not been unanimously celebrated. Her greatest ambition is to belong, to feel truly entitled to the heritage she has tried so hard to earn. Which is why Zip’s Candies is much more to her than just a candy factory, where she has worked for most of her life. In True Confections, Alice has her reasons for telling the multigenerational saga of the family-owned-and-operated candy company, now in crisis. Nobody is more devoted than Alice to delving into the truth of Zip’s history, starting with the rags-to-riches story of how Hungarian immigrant Eli Czaplinsky developed his famous candy lines, and how each of his candies, from Little Sammies to Mumbo Jumbos, was inspired by an element in a stolen library copy of Little Black Sambo, from which he taught himself English. Within Alice’s vivid and persuasive account (is her unreliability a tactic or a condition?) are the stories of a runaway slave from the cacao plantations of Côte d’Ivoire and the Third Reich’s failed plan to establish a colony on Madagascar for European Jews. Richly informed, deeply moving, and spiked with Weber’s trademark wit, True Confections is, at its heart, a timeless and universal story of love, betrayal, and chocolate.

The first book in this USA Today Bestselling series. When her husband of thirty years runs off with a college student named Cherri, Jane Delight returns to Pennsylvania to work in her Amish sister's cupcake store. Having lost everything in the divorce, Jane now finds herself sharing an apartment with two feisty octogenarians and their quirky cat. Mr. Crumbles. But there is no time to despair. A man is murdered in the cupcake store, and now Jane is the prime suspect. Enter brooding detective Damon McCloud, a Scot with a tragic past and a desire for justice. Can Jane solve the murder, wrangle her new roommates, and stop herself from falling for the detective? Or will she never get her new life on track? Book 1 in a delightful cozy mystery series from USA Today Bestselling author, Ruth Hartzler.

"She's beautiful," writes Irish-American art historian Patricia Dolan in the first of the journal entries that form The Music Lesson. "I look at my face in the mirror and it seems far away, less real than hers." The woman she describes is the subject of the stolen Vermeer of the novel's title. Patricia is alone with this exquisite painting in a remote Irish cottage by the sea. How she arrived in such an unlikely circumstance is one part of the story Patricia tells us: about her father, a policeman who raised her to believe deeply in the cause of a united Ireland; the art history career that has sustained her since the numbing loss of her daughter; and the arrival of Mickey O'Driscoll, her dangerously charming, young Irish cousin, which has led to her involvement in this high-stakes crime. How her sublime vigil becomes a tale of loss, regret, and transformation is the rest of her story. The silent woman in the priceless painting becomes, for Patricia, a tabula rasa, a presence that at different moments seems to judge, to approve, or to offer wisdom. As Patricia immerses herself in the turbulent passions of her Irish heritage and ponders her aesthetic fidelity to the serene and understated pleasures of Dutch art, she discovers, in her silent communion, a growing awareness of all that has been hidden beneath the surface of her own life. And she discovers that she possesses the knowledge of what she must do to preserve the things she values most.

In a cute new culinary cozy from USA Today bestselling author Sarah Fox, budding chocolatier Becca Ransom must solve a murder before she meets a sticky end. Former actress Becca Ransom lived her dream in Hollywood for seven years before returning to her hometown of Larch Haven, known as the Venice of North America. The Vermont town has canals instead of roads, gondolas instead of cars, and charming cottages plucked from the pages of a fairy tale. It’s also where Becca is pursuing her newest passion as a chocolatier at True Confections, the chocolate shop owned by her grandparents, Lolly and Pops. While Becca’s testing new flavors and reconnecting with old friends, the town is gearing up for the annual Gondola Races, popular with both residents and tourists, with one exception. Local curmudgeon Archie Smith wants nothing more than to keep tourists away from Larch Haven. He’s determined to derail this year’s event and does his best to stir up trouble for the organizers, including Becca’s grandfather. Following a heated argument with Pops, Archie is found floating face-down in the canal, and Pops finds himself in hot water as one of the top suspects. Becca’s determined to clear her grandfather’s name, but when the case heats up, she could be facing a sticky end.

With her mousy hair and plain, humble clothes, Jane is a woman not many people notice. Not many people besides the dashing Detective Damon McCloud, that is. But when Damon's visit to Scotland takes a dramatic turn and he disappears, Jane is on the next flight to Edinburgh. And she's not alone. She finds herself in accommodation with surprising guests. Jane isn't going to desert Damon in his hour of need. Her new friends might have seen batter days in the eyes of the world, but that's not going to stop them from craving the sweet taste of success. They will navigate the Scottish highlands, creep through a castle's secret passages, investigate Damon's disappearance, and do their best to stay safe while the body count rises. Will Jane and her unlikely allies uncover the truth behind Damon's vanishing act, or will they become the next victims? As danger lurks throughout the misty Scottish landscape, Jane must tap into her hidden strengths and prove that even the most unassuming heroine can rise to the challenge. In this thrilling tale of mystery, friendship, and unexpected courage, Jane discovers that true bravery comes in all shapes and sizes – and that sometimes, the most extraordinary adventures begin with what others see as the most ordinary of people.A Scottish Confection is Book 7 in the USA Today Best-selling series, Amish Cupcake Cozy Mystery.

unLikely Enemies is a tale of parental trials endured when grown children resist the inevitable and the necessary to leave the nest. Robb and Lorraine Mellenn were reaching retirement age. They had worked hard and planned well. So had their good friends, Clark and Merrill Justyne and the Harris’, Adele and Neil. But they had all overlooked something in their planning. None would be able to begin retirement until each of their adult children moved out from their homes. The Mellenn's son, Tennenbaum, led the pack in finding the most inventive ways to keep the status quo. As a result, the parents take action. The men ban together as do the women. Each gender executes their own scheme to teach their adult kids to be financially alert and independent. And the various outlandish plots against their offspring always ends askew, and their adultlings unwilling to budge. And, why should they? They're perfectly comfortable where they are, well cared for, under their parents' roofs. It is only with the unexpected death of Tennenbaum's beloved grandparent that Tennenbaum and the other grown children, at long last, find their way into adulthood. In a final twist, the parents' plans to begin their Golden Years are further delayed this time of their own making.

Features over one hundred color photographs, techniques, and recipes of chocolates and confections that can be made at home.

Edible Ideologies argues that representations of food—in literature and popular fiction, cookbooks and travel guides, war propaganda, women's magazines, television and print advertisements—are not just about nourishment or pleasure. Contributors explore how these various modes of representation, reflecting prevailing attitudes and assumptions about food and food practices, function instead to circulate and transgress dominant cultural ideologies. Addressing questions concerning whose interests are served by a particular food practice or habit and what political ends are fulfilled by the historical changes that lead from one practice to another in Western culture, the essays offer a rich historical narrative that moves from the construction of the nineteenth-century English gentleman to the creation of two of today's iconic figures in food culture, Julia Child and Martha Stewart. Along the way, readers will encounter World War I propaganda, holocaust and Sephardic cookbooks, the Rosenbergs, German tour guides, fast food advertising, food packaging, and chocolate, and will find food for thought on the meanings of everything from camembert to Velveeta, from salads to burgers, and from tikka masala to Campbell's soup.

Harriet Rose, 26, is an American photographer just winning recognition for her work. A travel fellowship brings her to visit her best friend and former roommate, Anne Gordon, in Switzerland. In an ongoing letter to her boyfriend, Harriet reports on strange developments in Anne's life, most notably her affair with a much older married man, which seems to be leading to a disastrous conclusion. Before she can rescue Anne, events take a series of unexpected turns, and Harriet must reexamine her own life and past, and come to terms with the difficulties and possibilities of human relationships. Katharine Weber's witty first novel of attraction and deception, a tale with the sensibility of a Margaret Atwood, pulses with cultural references and word games that echo Nabokov.