I wake up in a strange bed. A house that’s not mine. An empty place next to me where my husband used to lie.

Ex-husband, I remind myself.

I’m back in my hometown, my two teenagers sleeping down the hall.

When I glance at my phone I see four missed calls, all from my mother. We may not live in the same home anymore, but she’s doing her best to make up for lost time.

It takes a good hour for me to pull myself out of bed and get going for the day. But I’m opening a therapist office with my best friend—our own business—and those walls won’t paint themselves.

I worry about the kids. The move has been hardest on Lilly, my sixteen-year-old. Leaving friends and changing schools isn’t an easy thing. Her thirteen-year-old brother is a different story. As long as Flash has his computer, he’s fine anywhere. I haven’t been able to get a straight answer from him about whether he’s a hacker or not. But he says he prefers the term ‘coder’ and assures me that he’s not doing anything illegal.

So, that’s something.

My hometown of Amor, New Mexico doesn’t look very different on the outside. Sleepy. Uninteresting. Everybody in everyone else’s business.

But then I attend a New Year’s Eve dinner party. One that I didn’t particularly want to attend in the first place—I am tired of the judgmental looks. The whispers that accuse me of failure. Of abandoning them for the tenured position I’d held as a psychology professor.

The kids leave to spend the evening with their father, though, which leaves me with no excuses.

Dinner party it is.

It’s clear from the beginning of the party that my town has changed. That there is an undercurrent that hadn’t been there before. Corruption. Blackmail. In-fighting.

I hadn’t realized how bad it had been though. Not until just before dinner when a town councilman’s wife is giving me the low-down.

Oh, yeah, then there was the dead body.

Mrs. Bailey. The councilwoman who’d kept everyone under her thumb. The one whom everyone despised.

Dead next to the dinner table.

Green chiles, it turns out. My favorite food in the world.

Accident? Probably. But the new sheriff doesn’t think so. She’s convinced it’s murder. That someone purposely planted the chile in the puff pastries.

Which means that everyone at that party is suspect.

Me included.

Dead Before Dinner, A Maddie Swallow Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: July 2022
Purchase Link

Green chile has never been more dangerous.

Maddie Swallows had always intended to be a psychologist. But becoming a wife, mother, and tenured professor—that was more than she’d ever dreamed. Until it all implodes and she finds herself without a job, divorced, and a single mom to two teenagers.

Despite needing a therapist of her own, Maddie returns to her New Mexican hometown to open her own therapy office.
Except, she’d forgotten how difficult it had been growing up in a small town, and returning as a forty-year-old woman doesn’t make it any easier.

When Maddie is invited to a New Year’s Eve dinner party, she’s reluctant to go, but determines it would be better than staying home–she can’t hide from town gossip forever.

Until a member of the town council winds up dead before they’ve even had appetizers and everyone at the party is suspect.

Dead Before Dinner is the first book of the Maddie Swallows series. If you love small towns, quirky characters, and an intriguing whodunit, you’ll love this cozy mystery.

Meet the author
Kat Bellemore is the author of the Borrowing Amor romance series and the Maddie Swallows cozy mystery series, both of which take place in the small town of Amor, New Mexico. Deciding to have New Mexico as the setting was an easy choice, considering its amazing sunsets, blue skies and tasty green chile. That, and she currently lives there with her husband and two cute kids. They hope to one day add a dog to the family, but for now, the native animals of the desert will have to do. Though, Kat wouldn’t mind ridding the world of scorpions and centipedes. They’re just mean. You can visit Kat at kat-bellemore.com.

GIVEAWAY: Kat is giving away the prequel, Ashes To Ashes, to this series for free. Click on the link here to get your copy.

All comments are welcomed.