Book Review/Giveaway: The Big Chili by Julia Buckley

From the publisher: Lilah Drake’s Covered Dish business discreetly provides the residents of Pine Haven, Illinois, with delicious, fresh-cooked meals they can claim they cooked themselves. But when one of her clandestine concoctions is used to poison a local woman, Lilah finds herself in a pot-load of trouble…

After dreaming for years of owning her own catering company, Lilah has made a start into the food world through her Covered Dish business, covertly cooking for her neighbors who don’t have the time or skill to do so themselves, and allowing them to claim her culinary creations as their own. While her clientele is strong, their continued happiness depends on no one finding out who’s really behind the apron.

So when someone drops dead at a church Bingo night moments after eating chili that Lilah made for a client, the anonymous chef finds herself getting stirred into a cauldron of secrets, lies, and murder—and going toe to toe with a very determined and very attractive detective. To keep her clients coming back and her business under wraps, Lilah will have to chop down the list of suspects fast, because this spicy killer has acquired a taste for homicide…

This is one fun, fresh, and fabulous debut!!!

Lilah Drake's day job is at her parents' real estate office, but her real passion is her covered dish business, where she makes delicious meals for friends and neighbors that are unable to cook themselves, and allows them to pass the dishes off as their own. At $50 a pop she is stashing away a nice little nest egg, until Alice Dixon, a bossy church lady, drops dead after eating the chili that Lilah secretly provided for bingo night. The lady that hired Lilah to make the chili, Pet Grandy, wants to keep her little secret (and reputation) and Lilah agrees to keep her mouth shut about who really made the chili. This ends up putting Lilah in a very uncomfortable position as she's forced to lie to the detective that she finds herself having feelings for while at the same time trying to protect her flourishing business.

The characters in this book are top notch, from Lilah and her beloved chocolate lab Mick, her new love interest Detective Jay Parker, the eccentric Grandy sisters, and Lilah's various friends, family members, and clients. I was completely surprised by the killer and enjoyed sifting through the clues with Lilah as she arrived at her conclusions.

The end of the book is left very open-ended, and I anxiously await discovering what's next in both Lilah's professional and personal lives.

Giveaway: Leave a comment by noon eastern on Wednesday, October 14th for your chance to win a copy of The Big Chili. (US entries only, please.)