Check out the cover reveal for the next book in the “Rita Calabrese” culinary mystery, coming in February 2026 and now up for preorder.
Publication Date: February 14, 2026
Name of Series: A Rita Calabrese Culinary Cozy Mystery, Book 7
Genre: Culinary Cozy Mystery
Format: Print, Digital
Book Synopsis
In Acorn Hollow this Valentine’s Day, love is in the air, snow is on the ground, and chocolate—and murder—are on the menu….
When Acorn Hollow’s fiercest Italian matriarch and most famous crime reporter, Rita Calabrese, is asked to serve as chair of the chocolate festival, she fires up the ovens, cranks up the chocolate fountains—and even begrudgingly agrees to a date auction hosted by her newspaper’s cranky male advice columnist.
But Rita’s sweet February soon takes a bitter turn when her daughter Gina ditches her high-powered finance job and perfect Italian boyfriend to restore a crumbling Gilded Age mansion—sending Rita’s dreams of ever becoming a nonna up in smoke.
To make matters worse, the construction crew is headed by none other than Gina’s razor-tongued nemesis, Beau. As Gina and Beau polish the woodwork in the library and tame the thicket of poisonous plants in the conservatory, their sparring reaches a fever pitch. Then they unearth a body in a bricked-up secret passage—and hand Rita a front-page story that gets the whole town buzzing.
But when a séance intended to summon the truth ends in yet another murder, Rita finds herself with two murders to solve and a trail of clues that stretch from Stockholm to a Brooklyn voodoo temple. Can she solve the murders in time for the chocolate festival…and finally manage to find her daughter a nice Italian boy?
Includes mouth-watering recipes for Italian-inspired chocolate desserts!
About the author
Maureen Klovers is the creator of the Rita Calabrese culinary cozy series, as well as a traditional mystery series featuring lawyer-turned-bellydancer Jeanne Pelletier. A former spy and middle school teacher, she has a keen sense of adventure: she’s hiked through the jungle to Machu Picchu, toured a notorious Bolivian prison with a German narco-trafficker, and fished for piranhas in Venezuela. She lives with her husband, daughter, and black Lab in Arlington, Virginia, and enjoys testing recipes and speaking Italian.
What a clever title. Just when you think all the good ones are taken. 😉
Thanks, Gina! I actually started with 16 possible titles and the readers whittled it down to that one!