Kristen Gardiner sits down for a Q&A with dru’s book musings responding to twenty or more questions so we can learn more about her. Are you ready? Let’s get to know Kristen.

What is your full name?
Kristen Hoffman Gardiner

How old are you?
44 this past May and I can’t believe it either.

What is your profession?
I love working retail, so when my BFF, Pepper, bought the Spice Shop, I started working for her a few days a week. My first real job was in a long-closed bookstore on Broadway in Seattle, and she counts on me to run our book department—cookbooks, chef lit, foodie memoirs, and foodie fiction. I know what they say about working with someone you’re close to, but honestly, it works, most of the time, because neither of us knows what she’d do without me.

Do you have a significant other?
I’ve been married to Eric for 18 years this June.

What is their name and profession?
He’s a lawyer, and a more solid guy you’ve never met.

Do you have any children?
Two girls, Savannah, who’s 16 and just learning to drive. And Mariah, who’s 13 and jealous as heck.

Do you have any siblings?
Two younger sisters, Aja and Raine.

Are your parents nearby?
Sorry to tell you my mother, Ellen, died a few years ago, from breast cancer. It gutted my dad, Greg. My parents and Pepper’s founded Grace House, the peace and justice community Pepper and I were raised in, before we were born. He is a man of action. He drove the van they used to pick up day-old produce for the family meals program; if it broke down, he fixed it. If the sink backed up at the Montessori school they ran, he took care of it. He struggled for a while after Mom’s death, but he bought a sailboat and the water helped him heal. So did hiking trips with his good friend, Chuck Reece, Pepper’s dad. He’s back in Seattle now, teaching kids to sail, delivering Meals on Wheels, and if you can imagine, fostering orphaned kittens, bottle-feeding and all. The girls love helping with that, and naming them.

Who is your best friend?
Pepper and I have been best friends since before we were born.

Do you have cats, dogs, or other pets?
No, but my girls love my dad’s foster kittens and Pepper’s Arf.

What town do you live in? What type of dwelling do you own or rent?
My family came to Seattle in the 1880s and we’ve been here ever since. My great-great whatevers built our family home on Capitol Hill in 1895. It was the center of Grace House for ages, but honestly, my parents were more interested in causes than caulk and it got pretty run down. After my mom died, Eric and I bought it from my dad and remodeled it, top to bottom. In the process, we found lots of surprises – including a piece of jewelry that led to one of the darkest times in my life. You can read more about that in Killing Thyme. Honestly, for a while there, I wasn’t sure my friendship with Pepper would survive the tensions. But it all worked out in the end.

What is your favorite spot in your home?
I love every inch, but my favorite is the kitchen, when my friends or family are gathered around the island or in the little breakfast nook. Pepper and I have had some of our best conversations there.

What is your favorite meal and dessert?
For my birthday, the girls made Pepper’s Indian Butter Chicken (find the recipe in Lavender Lies Bleeding) and Cayenne’s Five Spice French Apple Custard Cake (Between a Wok and a Dead Place). Delish!

Do you have any hobbies?
Does getting Pepper out of trouble count?

What music do you listen to?
Are you kidding? I have teenage girls. It’s pretty much Taylor Swift, 24/7, with an occasional Billie Eilish interlude.

What is your favorite color?
Listen, when you wear black and white every work day, any splash of color is a ray of sunshine! Pepper razzes me about my red and orange raincoat, but I think she secretly wants one.

What is your favorite vacation spot?
Anywhere with Eric and the girls.

Are you a morning or night person?
I love staying up too late talking or reading, but years of getting children off to school has forced me to change my ways!

What is your idea of a really fun time?
Anything that involves the people I love and good food!

If you were to write a memoir, what would you call it?
She Has It All, But She Can’t Remember Where She Put It.

Amateur or professional sleuth and whom do you work with?
None of the above, thank goodness! I am content to be support staff for Pepper, one of the most capable amateur sleuths around. Amateurs are often dismissed as untrained and therefore unqualified, but I knew better. Amateur cooks and amateur homicide investigators are both driven by the same irresistible force: Love.

What is a typical day in your life like?
Typical? Are you kidding? I have two teenage girls and a husband with a demanding job. I work retail, where every customer is a fresh opportunity for things to go wonderfully right or terribly wrong. And in Pike Place Market, where anything can happen, and often does. Add Pepper Reece to the mix as both boss and best friend, and well, they do say variety is the spice of life, right?

Lavender Lies Bleeding – A Spice Shop Mystery, Book 9
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: July 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

At Seattle Spice Shop, owner Pepper Reece has whipped up the perfect blend of food, friends, and flavor. But the sweet smell of success can be hazardous . . .

Spring is in full bloom in Pike Place Market, where Pepper is celebrating lavender’s culinary uses and planning a festival she hopes will become an annual event. When her friend Lavender Liz offers to share tips for promoting the much-loved—and occasionally maligned—herb, Pepper makes a trek to the charming town of Salmon Falls. But someone has badly damaged Liz’s greenhouse, throwing a wrench in the feisty grower’s plans for expansion. Suspicions quickly focus on an employee who’s taken to the hills, though Liz herself is not convinced.

Then Liz is found dead among her precious plants, stabbed by a pruning knife. In Salmon Falls, there’s one in every pocket.

Pepper digs in, untangling the tensions between Liz and a local restaurateur with eyes on a picturesque but neglected farm, a jealous ex-boyfriend determined to profit from Liz’s success, and a local growers’ cooperative. She’s also hot on the scent of a trail of her own, sniffing out the history of her sweet dog, Arf.

As Pepper’s questions threaten to unearth secrets others desperately want to keep buried, danger creeps closer to her and those she loves. Can Pepper root out the killer, before someone nips her in the bud?

Includes delicious recipes!

About the author
Leslie Budewitz tells stories about women’s lives, seasoned with friendship, food, a dash of history, and a heaping spoonful of mystery. She writes the Spice Shop mysteries set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, as well as the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries and historical short fiction set in her native Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense. A three-time Agatha Award winner and past president of Sisters in Crime, she lives in NW Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine. Find her online at Leslie Budewitz (www.LeslieBudewitz.com) and Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen (www.MysteryLoversKitchen.com).