I’d like to be able to tell you I wake up and roll out of bed, but if that’s how I started my day, I’d have no more days to start, considering I spend my non-waking hours in a sleeping loft. I’m Eve Angelotta, the head chef at our family-owned Italian Restaurant in Quaker Hills Pennsylvania, just forty minutes north of Philly. I work six days a week, ten hours a day, with my Nonna (Italian for grandmother) and my cousins, who are pretty excitable Italians even when murder isn’t on the menu.
So for the few remaining hours in my typical day, I opt for simple, which is why I own a Tumbleweed Tiny Home that sports 130 square feet of living space. This choice of habitation is probably the single smartest thing I’ve done in the three years I’ve been working for Nonna – it’s too small for hysterical relatives to get any idea about bunking in with me. And if they just go ahead and wring their garlic-scented hands at me anyway, I can make a quick getaway – my tin-roofed, cedar-sided house sits on a utility trailer. I check the tires regularly.
My cooking cousin, Landon, who’s my sous chef, says I’m kidding myself, and he may be right. Nonna thrust the job at me when my Broadway dance career came to a tumbling halt one night. Working at the three-generation, five-star Miracolo Italian Restaurant is like a hereditary obligation. If I’m not dancing, Nonna argued, I should be rolling gnocchi in Quaker Hills, like the rest of them. It suits me, I have to admit. Aside from the elegant Landon, who specializes in Italian desserts, we’ve got my bald and monumental cousin Choo Choo Bacigalupo, who serves as maitre d’.
And then there’s Nonna herself. At 76, she’s still beautiful, what with her tangle of dark hair and smile as wide as Piazza San Marco. She dresses retro without knowing it’s retro. She weeps nightly when our amateur musicians launch into her signature song, “Three Coins in a Fountain.” She is fiercely proud our family is Genovese, and she will tolerate no dishes from (here she waves her hand dismissively) “the South.” We’re not talking grits. We’re talking the south of Italy. She is passionate about her grandchildren, her restaurant, and the osso buco recipe she keeps locked in a bank vault. And when the two of us walk arm in arm down the street, on our way to open up the restaurant for the day, it’s hard to say which one of us turns more heads. I’d like to think it’s me, but Choo Choo tells me I’m kidding myself.
Sometimes Nonna’s love life manages to find its troubling way into the daily operations of Miracolo. Which accounts for why I find a corpse in the kitchen one morning that turns out to be her boyfriend, and he’s been bashed in the bean with the black marble mortar I use for grinding spices. Although Landon helpfully adds a shrieking sound track to this discovery, I get some assistance from Joe Beck, a Quaker Hills newcomer with a law practice. He’s got some attractions, no denying, what with his short blond hair, blue eyes, and dimples my friend Dana Cahill says a girl could fall into like a sinkhole – which, of course, he overhears.
I might even find this Beck person rather appealing if it weren’t for the fact that I met him in a very weird way coming off his three-day fling with my flaky, farming cousin Kayla Angelotta, who supplies the restaurant with its organic produce. And Joe with more. So I’m happy to concentrate on a sexy day trader in town and leave Joe Beck to things like criminal defense. . .of Nonna, as it turns out, who’s arrested for the murder.
There’s much for us to work out in You Cannoli Die Once, what with trying to solve the murder (personally, I’m hoping Kayla did it; I can always get our produce at Kroger’s), and figure out what the entire wait staff is up to behind my back. And then there’s the matter of the old 78 recording of Enrico Caruso singing in English – a rarity! – that the corpse is lying on, snatched from my collection of opera memorabilia that I keep displayed on the walls. Why that? Why then? Does it have something to do with the string of thefts in Quaker Hills? I’m convinced the thefts, the murder, the Caruso, the skulking wait staff, all have something to do with Angelotta’s Law of Italodynamics: namely, intrigue increases in proportion to the number of Italians on hand.
But in our family we get past the theatrics, the tempers, the panna cottas that – like dreams – don’t always set, the veal alla Milanese that, no matter how many times I make it, sometimes reveals some new flavor I can’t account for. As surprising as love. These are the days when, late at night, I let myself back into my tiny home, seeing my way to the ladder by the slanting moonlight, and climb up to my sleeping loft with a smile on my face. These are the days when I don’t even check the air in the tires.
Shelley is giving away one (1) copy of YOU CANNOLI DIE ONCE. Leave a comment to be included in the giveaway. Contest ends June 1; US entries only.
Meet the author
Shelley Costa is an Edgar® Award-nominated, internationally published author of short fiction; her stories have appeared in anthologies and journals including Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, The World’s Finest Mystery and Crime Stories, Blood on Their Hands, and Crimewave from the U.K. She holds a PhD in English and is the author of The Everything Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. Her first novel, You Cannoli Die Once, kicks off her “Miracolo Italian Restaurant” mystery series.
You can visit Shelly at www.shelleycosta.com
Books are available at retail and online booksellers.
Yum….count me in. Dee
Can’t wait to read this!
I love the name of this book!!! I can’t wait to read it.
What a fun name for a book, thank you for the chance to win it.
I want to read this ASAP, It sounds Delicious !!!! lol
Sounds like a fun and delicious read, put my name in the hat please!
you got me at CANNOLI!!!!
thank you for the giveaway!!!
Love the title! Thanks for the chance to win.
Cannolis! Who couldn’t resist trying this new series. Thanks.
Love the title, story sounds great. Thanks for including me in the giveaway.
i really want to read the book title sounds interesting I love starting new series
I’d love to read this! It sounds really good!
A great new cozy series which sounds wonderful. Love the title and the story line so definitely would love to win this book and start off right away with this talented author. Thank you, Shelley, for the chance to win this book.
I don’t know how you keep up with all the books, Dru!!!
Enjoy the day!!!
This book really sounds good, would love to win it!
The title is an absolute hoot! That alone makes me want to read this book! Thanks for the review, Dru.
Another new series to add to my ever-growing list of must reads! This book sounds delightful, and like the others, I love the title! I can’t wait to read this one!
Would love a copy of YOU CANNOLI DIE ONCE – looks like the start of another fun mystery series.
This sounds like a real fun book. Would love to win.
I grew up in the East New York part of Brooklyn in the 50’s. It was like living in Italy, and most of my friends then were Italian. It’s no wonder I can talk with my hands. I think this is a book my whole family would enjoy reading.
I love food cozies but have never read one with Italian food before. This one so exciting. Will add it to my wish list.
Thank you for this giveaway!
Sounds like a great read. I like discovering new authors.
Now I crave cannoli! This will be a wonderful series, I can tell!
Win or not…I’m taking this book to the lake house for a summer indulgence!
Being half-Italian, I’m in. Will have to check out that Guide to Poe as well. Love culinary mysteries. I never had a Nonna (she passed on the year before I was born), so I’m looking forward to getting to know Eve’s. Thanks. judydee22002@yahoo dot com
Clever title!
Ah, family. The amore!
Just heading for an Italian restaurant for dinner—wish I had this book to read when I get home.
suefarrell.farrell@gmail.com
I love these type of books. this sounds fun.
Sounds like a great book can’t wait to read it
Another new food cozy series! Yea! My “I want to read this!” list just had a new addition.
What a great title and cover! Sounds like the big Italian family is alive and well in this mystery! Thanks for the info and chance to win!
I finished “Cannoli” two nights ago and I’ll tell you what, readers, you are in for a treat! Shelley Costa does a great job with the plot, the characters, the snappy dialogue. A great book!
Hi, Everybody! I thoroughly enjoyed reading all your comments. Did Eve forget to mention that her recipe for cannoli is included in the book? Now she’s just hoping her Nonna doesn’t find out. . .
May your day be filled with good food, good company, and good books.
~Shelley
So excited for the release Shelley!
With a glowing review from Casey, I’m very eager to read this book.
Thanks Shelley for bringing Eve into our world.
I would love to read this.. sounds great!
I like the title of the book. Please include me in the giveaway. Thanks.
Sounds like a fun read. Count me in please.
Sounds like a fun read. Thank you for the giveaway!!!
Contest is closed, but comments are always welcome