Sneak Peek!
Black Forrest Cake & Bigfoot
Book Description:
A laugh out loud standalone cozy mystery by New York Times, USA TODAY, & Wall Street Journalbestseller Addison Moore.
Cosmopolitan Magazine calls Addison’s books, “…easy, frothy fun!” Humor with a side of homicide. All books in the series can be read individually, so dive on in! Includes RECIPES!
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so I rarely see dead people, mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety, who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom.
When the Bigfoot Believers Bonanza descends on Honey Hollow for a week-long convention at my mother’s bed and breakfast, I’m ready to serve sasquatch-shaped cookies and stay far away from the chaos. With twin babies who refuse to sleep, a bossy two-year-old who thinks she runs the world, and the ghost of a creature who’s about eight feet tall and extremely furry, what could possibly go wrong at a wholesome Bigfoot convention?
Living in Honey Hollow can be deadly.
Includes RECIPE!
Lottie
My name is Lottie Lemon, and I see dead people. Okay, so rarely do I see dead people. Mostly I see furry creatures of the dearly departed variety who have come back from the other side to warn me of their previous owner’s impending doom. But right now, the only thing I see is Carlotta looking like she mugged a Western-themed gift shop and wore all the evidence at once. And honestly? She looks proud of it.
We’re talking an alarming amount of turquoise, lots of fringe, and a belt buckle the size of a dinner plate—all of it topped with her wild gray curls as if the outfit came with its very own tumbleweed. If a rodeo and a yard sale had a baby, that would essentially be Carlotta.
“You know what they say about hairy guys with big feet,” Carlotta purrs, eyeing the crowd of flannel-clad men milling around the woods behind my mother’s bed and breakfast.
I don’t even look at her. I’m too busy trying to keep my tray of Sasquatch sugar cookies from sliding into oblivion and becoming snacks for the local squirrels—or the local Bigfoot population as it were. I cater to both demographics now, it seems. “That they shop in the specialty shoe section?”
“That they’re well-equipped for all outdoor activities.” She waggles her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
“I don’t. I refuse to. And I’m begging you to stop.”
“Hairy men with big feet also have lots of stamina, Lot Lot. Survival skills. The ability to handle rough terrain…” She leans in. “In every capacity.”
I close my eyes. “Dear Lord, take me now.” Or at least revoke Carlotta’s speaking privileges.
It’s a warm June evening, almost dark because summer nights in Vermont arrive late and refuse to leave, much like Carlotta when there’s free food and an audience.
The woods behind the Honey Hollow Bed and Breakfast have transformed into what I can only describe as a cryptid hunter’s fever dream, and I’m standing in the middle of it with a tray of cookies shaped like Sasquatch feet, which feels like a perfect metaphor for my entire existence. Strange, slightly unhinged, and covered in frosting.
The air smells like woodsmoke, pine sap, and the sweet cherry-chocolate whiff of my Black Forest cake over at the dessert table. I picked it specifically because I thought it went well with the whole woodland creature theme.
A full moon hangs fat and low in the sky, casting silver light through the branches. Glowing pale blue fog rolls through the trees in slow waves. String lights and lanterns glow from a dozen or more vendor booths scattered through the clearing, and everywhere I look, there are people. So many people.
By the looks of it, all of Honey Hollow showed up. Scratch that—all of Vermont showed up, and they brought cameras. And opinions. So many opinions.
The First Annual Honey Hollow Bigfoot Believers Bonanza is officially underway, which means my mother is somewhere in this crowd having the time of her life and I’m approximately fifteen minutes away from a breakdown fueled by sleep deprivation and coffee fumes. Give or take five minutes.
Tents dot the clearing. Registration tables groan under the weight of clipboards and name tags. Excited cryptid enthusiasts—that’s a fancy word for people who believe in creatures science says don’t exist, like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and my ability to get through a week without stumbling over a corpse—mill around in flannel and hiking boots, clutching expensive cameras at enthusiasm levels that suggest they’ve been planning this for months.
My Bigfoot-themed dessert platters are set up on a long folding table, and they’re disappearing faster than Carlotta’s good sense at a singles mixer. Which is saying something.
The Sasquatch Sugar Cookies are down to three. The Cryptid Cupcakes look like they’ve been attacked by wolves. The Bigfoot Brownies have been decimated. The Yeti Yum-Yums are holding on by a thread.
And the “I Believe” Lemon Bars are completely gone. It turns out, belief runs on lemon curd and carbs.
Two of my best employees are helping with the dessert table. Suze, Noah’s mother, is handing out sweet treats while simultaneously keeping mental inventory of who’s double-dipping. And Lily is chatting up ganache versus buttercream with a handsome Bigfoot hunter. Judging by the look on his face, he’s ready to take a bite out of both, and maybe Lily, too.
Carlotta elbows me. “Well, thank Bigfoot’s hairy backside, you finally ditched the little yippers for the night,” she says, adjusting her offensively fringed vest.
I shoot her a look. “They’re not yippers. They’re children. My children to be exact.” Her grandchildren, but there’s no way I’m advertising the fact. Some family trees are better left unlabeled.
“Semantics, Lot. Either way, they yip and they yap. And they do both far too much if you ask me.”
“Nobody is asking you. But for your information, Lyla Nell doesn’t yip or yap. She shrieks. There’s a difference.” True as gospel, and I’m not proud. And neither are my eardrums.
We’re about to thread through the crowd when Effie Canelli—one of my bakery employees and possibly the sassiest woman in Vermont—appears beside me with a tray of s’mores supplies. Her dark hair is pulled back into a sleek ponytail, and she’s wearing her usual expression that suggests she could intimidate a serial killer with her cash-register skills alone. Which makes sense, considering her uncle runs one of the most feared mob families on the entire Eastern Seaboard.
“Hey, Effie,” Carlotta and I sing in unison.
“Hey, yourselves, girls.” She laughs. “Where are your kids tonight, Lottie? I haven’t seen the tiny terrors yet,” she teases. Or not.
“My sister Lainey is watching them,” I say, grateful for the opening to explain before Carlotta calls them feral again. “All three of them. The twins and Lyla Nell.”
Effie’s eyes widen. “All three? Lainey really is a saint.”
I shrug. “Lainey thinks this entire convention is ridiculous and possibly dangerous, so she refused to bring her kids or mine anywhere near the woods. She’s convinced Bigfoot is either folklore or a lawsuit waiting to happen.” Honestly? Solid argument.
“Smart woman.” Effie grabs my dessert platter. “Here, let me take this to the table for you. You look like you need both hands free to deal with whatever chaos is about to unfold.” She nods to Carlotta. “After all, you are with her.” And with that, she’s gone, weaving through the crowd like a woman on a cookie-fueled mission.
“Hey, I’m a good time,” Carlotta calls after her before turning my way. “Meanwhile, your other sisters Charlie and Meg are probably somewhere in this crowd buying Sasquatch T-shirts and arguing over which Bigfoot has the better caboose.”
She’s not wrong.
“This convention is a gold mine,” Carlotta continues, scoping out the crowd. “Now, this—” she sweeps her arm toward the flannel parade of men, “—this is heaven. Look at them. Beards. Boots. Rugged good looks. It’s like a lumberjack calendar exploded. And I intend to inspect the debris. Mr. July alone could keep me warm all winter.”
“You’re exclusive with Mayor Nash.” I’m quick to remind her. Not that there’s any point in it. It’s a fact she seems determined to forget.
“Window shopping isn’t a crime, Lot. Besides, Harry knows I have eyes.”
“Unfortunately, they’re connected to your mouth.” I’m about to add on to the zinger when two familiar figures cut through the crowd, and my heart does that annoying thing where it forgets how to function. So not nice.
Detective Noah Fox and Judge Essex Everett Baxter are heading my way, and I’ve never felt luckier.
They would be my accidental ex-husband and my very-much-current husband.
Noah is still wearing his detective badge on his lapel from the precinct, and Everett looks like a sharp-shooting legal eagle who just stepped out of the courthouse—because he did. They let me know they’d be here as soon as they got off work.
Noah’s dark hair is mussed, his lawn-green eyes scanning the crowd with a heightened level of suspicion. Everett is in slacks, a button-down with the sleeves rolled up, and even in the woods his dark hair is immaculate—because even at a Bigfoot convention, my husband can’t commit to casual, and somehow looks like he belongs on the cover of Men Who Will Absolutely Ruin Your Life in the Best Way Possible. Both are handsome to a fault, and both own a part of my heart.
Carlotta straightens. “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Foxy and Sexy. Come to protect Lot Lot from the big, bad, hairy wolf?”
Noah gives her a look that could stop a charging moose mid-stride. “We’re here to make sure she doesn’t trip over a body in the first twenty minutes.”
“Give me some credit,” I tease. “It’s been at least thirty minutes since we arrived.” Although, knowing my track record with the aforementioned bodies, we all know that means absolutely nothing. Which should probably concern all of us.
Everett’s hand finds my waist as the crowd continues to swarm around us. “Lemon. You look beautiful.” He lands a kiss to my lips and lets it linger. “I know you’ve been baking all day. How are you holding up?”
Everett only ever calls me by my surname, and I wish it didn’t make my stomach flip the way it does.
“Barely. But the desserts are moving fast.” I nod over to the dessert table where a mob of people is making quick work of my sweet treats. Who knew the cryptid crowd was so eager for carbs?
Then again, nobody hunts an eight-foot woodland mammal on an empty stomach.
“The desserts aren’t what I’m worried about.” Noah’s gaze shifts toward the woods strung with string lights. “This whole setup feels off.”
Everett nods. “Noah, we’re standing in the woods with three hundred adults hoping to make eye contact with an eight-foot mythological creature. I’d be more concerned if any of this felt normal.”
Hard to argue with that.
Carlotta cackles to herself. “You boys feeling a little insecure tonight? What if Lot Lot finds Bigfoot and realizes she prefers a man who can forage for berries and doesn’t need Wi-Fi? And scarier than that—what if Bigfoot doesn’t share well?”
Everett’s jaw tightens while Noah’s expression goes flat.
Two grown men threatened by a hypothetical ball of hair. I’d be flattered if I weren’t so tired.
“I’m not getting dragged into a love triangle with a cryptid,” I say.
Carlotta waggles her brows. “Then you better hope Bigfoot keeps his big hairy mitts off you.”
“Carlotta.”
Before she can stop talking, my mother, Miranda Lemon, hostess extraordinaire and the saint who raised me—after Carlotta abandoned me at the fire department—comes rushing over with Noah’s father Wiley Fox in tow. She’s glowing with hostess energy, her blonde hair bouncing, her smile wide enough to be illegal in some states.
Wiley is Noah’s twin plus twenty or thirty years. And considerably more criminal history.
I can see why my mother has the hots for him despite the fact he’s lived up to his wily name.
“Hello everyone!” Mom trills. “Isn’t this incredible?” She gestures at the chaos percolating around us. “We’re completely booked! Every single room! I’ve already had three requests for breakfast in bed, which means I can charge the premium rate!”
Wiley nods. “And you know how much we like some cold, hard cash.”
“Some of us more literally than others,” Noah says.
I scowl without meaning to. After Wiley trashed his marriage to Suze, he married Everett’s mother, stole millions from her, and faked his death only to resurface years later broke, shameless, and somehow dating my mother. The man hit rock bottom, and now he’s risen to the penthouse. My mother’s penthouse at the B&B to be exact.
The fact that my mother is dating Noah’s father still feels surreal, but I’ve stopped questioning it. In Honey Hollow, weirder things happen daily. Like homicide, but I try not to think about that right now.
“See that man by the bonfire?” Mom points at a tall, barrel-chested man with sandy blond hair and a smile that could get him pardoned before the handcuffs clicked. He’s surrounded by people, laughing, gesturing, and clearly loving the attention. “That’s Chesterfield Puddingstone—we call him Chet. He organized this entire convention! He’s also the founder of NEBRA. That’s the Northeast Bigfoot Research Alliance. Isn’t he amazing?”
Amazing is debatable. The man has everyone around him hanging on his every word like he’s about to reveal Bigfoot’s home address. Or at least where he gets his back waxed.
Everett and Noah lean in and crane their necks as if they have reason to be extra suspicious of the man. They probably do, and that goes back to that whole homicide thing Honey Hollow likes to get tangled up in.
“And that’s Buck Rawlins,” Mom continues, pointing to a wiry figure near the trees. “He’s an expert local guide when it comes to expeditions. I guess he’s very knowledgeable about the terrain!”
Buck Rawlins is near the trail markers, talking animatedly to a group of enthusiasts about the best routes for night hikes. Sharp blue eyes, baseball cap with the NEBRA logo, and he’s gesturing toward the woods like he can’t wait to get out there. Or like he knows something the rest of us don’t.
“Well, we’re off to mingle!” Mom loops her arm through Wiley’s. “Try to find Bigfoot before you find a body this time, Lottie. Mix it up a little!”
“That’s the plan, Mom. One cryptid, zero corpses. I’m dreaming big.”
She belts out a cackle to rival Carlotta’s. “Oh, I’m just teasing, Lottie. Enjoy the festivities, everyone!”
And they’re gone.
“Every time my father looks happy, someone loses money,” Noah says dryly.
“That sounds about right.” Everett nods. “He looked extremely happy when he was married to my mother and she lost millions.”
Carlotta bucks as she laughs. “Lucky for Randy Mirandy, she’s got something else he wants more than cold, hard cash and it concerns bedsheets more than it does balance sheets.”
I shudder because when she’s right, she’s somehow even worse.
But before I can say a single thing, a voice booms across the clearing.
“All right, folks!” Chet Puddingstone’s voice cuts through the chatter, amplified and confident. “Feel free to explore the woods before we officially kick things off! Get a feel for the terrain! But don’t wander too far—we’ll be starting the welcome ceremony in just a few minutes!”
Nothing ominous about that invitation whatsoever.
The crowd buzzes and multiplies. It seems as if the entire state of Vermont is drifting toward the trails, pulling out flashlights and cameras.
Carlotta’s eyes gleam. “I’m not missing this. Come on, Lot. Let’s find ourselves a good-looking, hairy, scary Sasquatch with big, giant feet!”
“Carlotta, wandering into dark woods seems like a terrible—”
But she’s already moving, heading left where the trees are denser and the crowd thinner. Into the darker, quieter part of the forest.
I glance at Noah and Everett, and within seconds we’re all following our fearless, man-hungry leader.
This is how documentaries about poor decisions begin.
“Great,” I mutter, hurrying after her. “Nothing says fun like creepy fog-filled woods at night.”
The pale blue fog thickens as we move deeper. Moonlight filters through branches, casting shadows that shift and stretch. The crowd fades behind us, replaced by rustling leaves and cracking twigs.
Carlotta is well ahead, weaving between trees as if she knows where she’s going, which is concerning because Carlotta has never known where she’s going. Geographically, morally, or otherwise. But one thing is for sure—she’s always heading into trouble. Some might say I get that from her.
I’m trying not to trip over roots while Noah and Everett flank me like a couple of woodland bodyguards.
“Maybe Bigfoot has a cousin,” Carlotta says.
I make the mistake of looking at her. “A cousin.”
“Big Toe.”
Of course.
“Big Toe,” I say. “Bigfoot’s lesser-known cousin. Rarely photographed. Frequently stubbed.”
Carlotta nods sagely. “I always knew there was something funny about those feet, Lot.”
“Please don’t encourage her,” I say to absolutely no one in particular.
“And don’t expect pictures,” Carlotta adds. “Big Toe knows you don’t give the feet pics away for free.”
I close my eyes.
There are some conversations you can survive only by pretending they never happened.
“Carlotta, maybe we should—” I catch up to her and we both walk straight into something and back up for a second.
It’s not a tree.
It’s a—wall of hair?
We both look up at once and our eyes grow wide with terror.
Towering above us—easily eight feet tall—is a massive creature covered in shaggy dark fur. It’s glowing in the moonlight with its chocolate-colored eyes locked onto mine.
“IT’S BIGFOOT!” I holler so loud the evergreens above us give a mean shiver.
Carlotta and I scream our heads off as if our hair were on fire.
Noah and Everett pull us back in haste.
“What the heck is happening?” Noah demands.
“Lemon?” Everett’s voice is low and urgent. “Talk to me.”
We’re pointing and stammering, and yet not a coherent word comes out.
The creature belts out a roar. Deep and guttural, so thunderously loud that it rattles my bones.
And then it throws its head back and vanishes in a shower of turquoise stars.
Both Carlotta and I gasp in horror.
The entire forest seems to go silent.
Carlotta catches her breath first. “Well. I guess he skedaddled off to the Sasquatch convention in the sky. I bet they’ve got better snacks. No offense, Lot. Your cookies are dry.”
I smack her arm for the cookie remark. The ghost I can process. The slander, not so much.
“It was a ghost,” I pant in disbelief—not disbelief at the ghost part, that’s practically an everyday event. It’s the fact this creature belonged to a phylum my brain can’t classify, and apparently science has thrown in the towel, too.
I’m staring at the empty space where the disembodied creature was as my heart pounds a mile a minute.
“You know what that means,” I say with a sigh.
Everett growls.
Noah nods grimly, looking back toward the B&B where lights glow and laughter echoes and hundreds of people mill around completely oblivious. “That means murder.”
***I hope you enjoyed this preview! Thank you for reading!****