My name is Keaton Rutledge and I am a twin.

I didn’t always know I was a twin. I know that may sound strange. Especially since I am trained as a reference librarian. Those people usually know how to access information. But my twin, Koby, and I were abandoned by our birth mother when we were two years old and then I was adopted out. Koby wasn’t. Unknown to one another, we didn’t live far apart, raised in the Pacific Northwest. He grew up in group homes and in foster care in Seattle. I lived in the suburbs. That made us two different kinds of people, but we still, even after a couple of decades apart, still have that twin connection.

So a lot of day is spent getting to know my brother. And all the things I know about him so far, I love. Except for one thing, he loves solving murders. Yes. It’s true. It has only happened once. But once is enough. I almost got killed! And even though my brother is very good at it, I’d rather we got to know each other over a cup of coffee at a Starbucks like most people do. Another quest he’s on is finding our birth mother. We have a name, but that’s about it. I love my adopted parents, and even though my dad has passed away, he left me with his legacy, a love of books. But I don’t mind helping Koby find her—our biological parent because he seems to need it.

Koby found me, and when he did, he had all kinds of ideas how we could make up for lost time. One idea was to open a business together, so we did. Books & Biscuits.

Books & Biscuits is a two-sided shop. Yep, you guessed it, one side sells books, one side sells biscuits. That’s Koby’s side. The food side. And we don’t just serve biscuits in the restaurant, we make them into sandwiches, smother them in cheese or gravy, serving them up hot and buttery and flaky. Mmmm . . . Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. And my brother is the best cook ever. His specialty? Soul Food. You might have guessed that from the homemade biscuits on the menu. But that isn’t all that’s there, we’ve got soul rolls (don’t know what that is? Well, you’ll have to stop by and check them out), collard greens, chicken and waffles and peach cobbler, just to name a few.

My side, Books, is just as enticing. At least to a girl like me. One who has read everything I could get my hands on, and still love having my nose in a book. True, I don’t get to read as much now that I own a business, but I’d prefer that to just about anything. Except spending time with my twin brother. The walls of the Books side are filled to the brim with books and just the sight of them when I walk in in the morning to come to work, makes me happy.

We’re learning how to run this business together. It isn’t easy. You have to do back office stuff, deal with employees and customers and always remember to smile, no matter what else is going on in my day.

Body and Soul Food, A Books & Biscuits Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: November 2021
Purchase Link

In this page-turning new mystery series, fraternal twins Keaton and Koby will pull double duty when they take down a killer while preparing to open their new bookstore and soul-food café, Books & Biscuits.

When Koby Hill and Keaton Rutledge were orphaned at age two, they were separated, but their unbreakable connection lingered. Years later, they reunite and decide to make up for lost time and capitalize on their shared interests by opening up a well-stocked bookstore and cozy soul-food café in the quaint Pacific Northwest town of Timber Lake. But this new chapter of their lives could end on a cliffhanger after Koby’s foster brother is found murdered.

The murder, which occurred in public between light-rail stops, seems impossible for the police to solve. But as Keaton and Koby know, two heads are always better than one, especially when it comes to mysteries. With just a week to go before the grand opening of their new café, the twins will use their revitalized connection with each other to make sure this is the killer’s final page.

About the author
Wall Street Journal bestselling author Abby Collette loves a good mystery. She was born and raised in Cleveland, and it’s a mystery even to her why she hasn’t yet moved to a warmer place. As Abby Collette, she is the author of the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series, about a millennial MBA-holding granddaughter running a family-owned ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and the upcoming Books & Biscuits mystery series, starring a set of fraternal twins who reunite and open a bookstore and soul food café. Writing as Abby L. Vandiver, she is the author of the Logan Dickerson Mysteries, featuring a second-generation archaeologist and a nonagenarian, as well as the Romaine Wilder Mysteries, pairing an East Texas medical examiner and her feisty, funeral-home-owning auntie as sleuths. Abby spends her time writing, facilitating writing workshops at local libraries and hanging out with her grandchildren, each of whom are her favorite.

All comments are welcomed.