I was so happy when this series got a new publishing home since I was definitely not done being caught up in NOLA with these amazing characters. I hope there’s more to come since there’s one continuing mystery that got solved, but I can see tons more stories for these folks.

This book was especially cool taking place during October leading up to Halloween in NOLA. It was a great armchair vacation as well as a twisty, fun mystery. I hadn’t seen the whodunit coming until it was there, and the showdown was short but effective. I love how Ricki had taken intern Olivia under her wing like a younger sister, but I was never sure Liv appreciated it until toward the end. A cute side story about a kitten had a good ending and while I’ve only known this author to use an epilogue when she’s ending a series, I really, really hope this one isn’t ending! It nicely wrapped up the three books, but I guess it’s just hard to let go of characters we’ve come to like so much as readers. Hoping for more but pretty happy with the ending if this was it.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book provided by Severn House via NetGalley, and my opinions are my own.

I just love this Cozy-Mystery Series! This installment is set at Halloween and if you are looking for a holiday themed book, this is a great choice. The series is about Ricki's ongoing search for her birth family, her business located at the Bon Vee Culinary House Museum and getting her life back together. This time Ricki must come to terms with the man who watched her husband die while filming his last crazy stunt. No warm fuzzies or letting bygones be bygones. Ricki is in no mood to forgive and forget, but she will help him find the murderer of his personal assistant, but that is only to prevent the police from pinning the murder on her or her friends at Bon Vee.

In the city that needs no excuse to celebrate, New Orleans goes all out for Halloween. The staff at Bon Vee Culinary House Museum have decided to host a Haunted House Tour, Bon Veeevil, and are excited about the special tours. It will be fun to annoy the new next-door neighbor who has done nothing but harass then since they moved in. Having had enough, Ricki confronts the personal assistant of the new owner and demands the complaints stop. Little did Ricki James-Diaz know that this just might become a motive for murder.

On a dark and stormy night, the nasty assistant meets her end in the Bon-Vee prop tomb. But the most shocking thing is that the new owner next door turns out to be Hollywood heartthrob, Blaine Taggert, who was the best friend of Nicki's husband and the person who filmed his last fatal stunt.

Because Niki and friends have been helpful in the past, the NOPD detective in charge gives her unofficial permission for Ricki to snoop around. But Ricki would prefer to stay as far away from Blaine as possible, but that isn't going to be easy when he turns up everywhere she goes. No shortage of suspect here, including Blaine, so Ricki has her work cut out for her.

My thanks to the Publisher and Author for providing a complimentary digital Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of this novel via NetGalley. This is my fair, honest and personal review. All opinions are mine alone and were not biased in any way.

Halloween time in New Orleans turns Bon Vee into Bon Veeevil. As the staff decorates for the event, they start running into complaints from the new next-door neighbor. There’s a lot going on – Ricki is still searching for her birth family, Olivia is crushing on one of the new neighbors, and the new owner turns out to be the infamous Blaine Taggart, Hollywood star. As Bon Veeevil turns to the house next door to also run tours hoping to avoid the complaints, the obnoxious woman next door shows up dead in Bon Veeevil’s crypt. Halloween has just gone creepier. You don’t want to miss this book. Spooky story, great characters.

5 stars
This was such a fun, spooky romp! I always enjoy a cozy mystery, and one set in New Orleans at Hallowe'en? Yes please. The author paints such lovely, vivid descriptions of Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, the Garden District, and New Orleans as a whole. There's a great array of kooky characters at both Bon Vee and their frustrating, new, Hollywood neighbours at Duncan-Sejour. Plus, all the spooky holiday activities leading up to Hallowe'en in a storied, multi-cultural town such as New Orleans just sound like so much fun.

This is the third book released in the Vintage Cookbook mystery series but I've found that most cozy mysteries can stand alone pretty easily and this was no exception. I haven't read the first couple books, but since I enjoyed this story so much I'm going to go back and read them both. There was definitely a good amount of protagonist Ricki's backstory included in this story so that I didn't feel like I was missing anything. If you enjoy Hallowe'en excitement and the coziest of cozy murder mysteries then you'll probably love this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, author Ellen Byron, and Severn House publishers for giving me an advanced digital readers' copy of this book to review. All opinions are my own.

Ricki James-Diaz is leading the efforts of the Bon Vee staff to put on the best haunted house New Orleans has seen this Halloween. Those efforts are being hampered by their new next-door neighbor, who is constantly making complaints about them. Ricki is shocked when she learns who has bought the house – mega movie star Blaine Taggart, the best friend of her late husband. Ricki had hoped to never see Blaine again, but things get complicated when another dead body turns up on Bon Vee property. Can Ricki once again figure out what happened?

I’m so glad that a new publisher picked up this series. It was wonderful to visit Ricki and her friends again. I enjoyed getting to see some of the relationships grow in this book, even if Ricki’s relationship with the detective isn’t really realistic. I also enjoyed seeing Hollywood pop up here. The mystery itself is strong with some nice surprises before we reach the logical ending. It was fun to visit the city during Halloween. As always, I laughed several times while reading. We also get some recipes inspired by vintage cookbooks at the end of the book, including several appropriate for the season. Fans will be just as happy as I was that Ricki and her friends are back.

French Quarter Fright Night is the 3rd book in Ellen Byron's Vintage Cookbook Mystery series and it was really enjoyable! The characters are very likable and the mystery kept me guessing! It is October and Ricki James-Diaz and friends are getting Bon Vee Culinary House Museum ready for Halloween. They decide to have a haunted house tour at the mansion. Before long, they get complaints from the new neighbors. They eventually find out the new owner is Blaine Taggert, a movie star and Ricki knows him. One of Blaine's employees is not well liked and ends up dead at Bon Vee. Cookie, Zellah, Theo, and Olivia all help Ricki figure out who wanted the neighbor dead. They uncover many secrets which add to the story. Ricki's sort of boyfriend Virgil is traveling as a judge for a tv show but he returns towards the end. Ricki is adopted and is searching for her birth family. There is a lot going on and the story was hard to put down! There is friendship, family, romance, humor, and Halloween in New Orleans! You won't want to miss this cozy mystery! #FrenchQuarterFrightNight #VintageCookbookMystery. #NetGalley #SevernHouse

I was THRILLED when the Vintage Cookbook series was announced that it would be continuing, and this story was a fantastic addition to the series. Ricky and the Bon Vee crew made me laugh uproariously so many times, and this book was just a thoroughly enjoyable read. I really enjoyed getting to know Ricky even better as she faced her past through the mystery surrounding Blaine and his assistant. The shenanigans Ricky got herself into in the name of investigation were my favorite, and I don't ever think I'll forget her witchy faux pas at Blaine's assistant's funeral! If you need a good laugh, look no further than an Ellen Byron cozy mystery, and this is a particularly good one!

French Quarter Fright Night is another enjoyable entry in Ellen Byron's Vintage Cookbook cozy series. I really enjoy the New Orleans setting as well as all the merchandise Ricki finds for her gift shop. I also liked seeing how folks in New Orleans get ready for Halloween.

There's a good mix of characters in this third book in the series. Ricki is likable and smart, and she certainly has an interesting mix of friends. Movie star Blaine Taggart is an interesting addition, often showing how celebrities seem to be from a different planet. Ricki's friend, Cookie the "recovering children's librarian" rapidly became tiresome with all her attempts to flaunt her charms right in Taggart's face, but there are others-- like Mordant "the human Eeyore" and college intern Olivia Felice-- who took my mind right off Cookie.

The mystery is a strong one that kept me guessing, and I liked the continuing search into Ricki's family history. If you like cozy mysteries with a strong sense of place and a good cast of characters, try Ellen Byron's Vintage Cookbook series. The first book is Bayou Book Thief.

One of my favorite cozy mystery writers has a new book coming out in early September. French Quarter Fright Night by Ellen Bryon is a charming and engaging cozy mystery that highlights New Orleans’s culture, food, and history. It’s the third book in the Vintage Cookbook Cozy Mystery series featuring Ricki James-Diaz and a wonderful assortment of supporting characters.

Ricki is a California transplant who has moved back to her birth city. She’s turned her avocation of collecting vintage cookbooks into a job by establishing a gift shop in the late home turned museum of Genevieve (Vee) Charbonnet, who ran one of the city’s finest restaurants before she died. Ricki’s gift shop features vintage cookbooks and kitchenware.

With Halloween approaching, the staff of the museum are gearing up for their haunted house tours for their visitors. When movie star and Ricki’s former friend Blaine Taggart and his support staff move into the mansion next door, things start to go wrong. When a body is found in the museum yard’s prop tomb, everyone in both mansions becomes a suspect, along with a few other characters.

Ricki is a likeable person that makes friends easily, but she has trust issues due to her backstory. She is a softy at heart, organized, honest, and adept at telling when people are lying. There are many characters, but there is a character list at the front of the book for reference. For those who have read the prior books in the series, there are several repeat characters among the museum employees and the New Orleans detectives. This also makes it easy to keep track of the characters.

The author is a great storyteller. As always, the world-building and characterization are great. The story is well-plotted and contains a few twists and several red herrings. I enjoyed the humor that the author intersperses throughout the novel along with visits with the various animals. Thor and Princess are the canines Ricki co-parents with her neighbor and Gumbo and Jambalaya are the peacocks at the museum. The introduction of a kitten at the museum added additional humor and warmth to the story. Threads of found family, friendship, connections, communication, genealogy, and intimidation add depth to the novel. At the end of the book are some recipes from a variety of vintage cookbooks as well as some information about the cookbooks themselves.

Overall, this was an entertaining novel with some tense moments that kept me engaged throughout. This series is best read in order. The earlier books fill in Ricki’s background and readers can see her character grow over time. Those who enjoy cozy mysteries with an amateur sleuth will likely enjoy this series. I can’t wait to see where the author takes the next book in the series.

Severn House and Ellen Byron provided a complimentary digital ARC of this novel via NetGalley. All opinions expressed in this review are my own. The publication date is currently set for September 3, 2024. This review was originally posted at Mystery and Suspense Magazine.

In the third Vintage Cookbook mystery, Ricki is still coming to grips with finding her long-lost family and the loss of her husband when her husband's former bestie shows up. After a murder at the property next door, the Bon Vee staff are once again suspects and must clear their names.

Okay, I love a good pun, and naming the haunted house tour the "Bon Veeevil Festival of Fear" was pretty cute. I'll pass on the other puns, though.

While I like Byron's stories, a lot of her characters act like middle schoolers, especially when it comes to romantic relationships, and it gets tedious at times.

Ricki finds out more about her long-lost relatives, and makes strides in building her business. It's kind of a cliche that everyone in the South is related to each other, but it's kind of proving true for Ricki. I would love to see her adoptive parents come to visit and help her solve a case in a future book.

Why you should read this book: It's a cute cozy, and a good addition to the series.

Why you might not want to: There are a lot of characters, which lead to some of them not being as well-developed as others and it makes them feel like placeholders sometimes. Oh, we need someone kinda skeevy who we keep around just because he's related? Got that. Backstory? Eh, he doesn't need a backstory. He just serves to show how much better the other people in the group are.

I received an advance copy from Severn House via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 out of 5 stars, rounded up.

#FrenchQuarterFrightNight #NetGalley is the third book in the series and I liked it a lot. I did read the first book, but I struggled a bit. I wanted to give #FrenchQuarterFrightNight a try and I'm so glad I did. Ricki is a fun character and I enjoyed the storyline. I found the supporting characters to be colorful and quirky, which added to the story.
I'm going to read the first book again as well as the second.
I'd definitely suggest other readers give this series a try, it's definitely worth it.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for selecting me to read an advanced copy of this book.
Solid 5 star review

Once again, another interesting read from this author. I like the characters. I enjoy the New Orleans setting as well. The mystery kept me guessing.

Thank you to author, publisher, and NetGalley for my eARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF at 11%. This is the first book I read in the series so I could have missed something . The characters and dialogue just didn’t feel very realistic to me.

Full disclosure, this is book 3 in a series and I haven’t read the first two books. That said, I enjoyed this cozy Halloween themed murder mystery and LOVED that it takes place in NOLA. There were a few things I felt out of the loop on not having read the other books, but enough context clues were provided that I was able to understand the storyline and characters. I definitely think this could be enjoyed as a standalone book! I really enjoyed Ricki and her amateur sleuthing.

This was like if a long-running daytime TV show geared toward older women had a Halloween Special.

While it had a strong sense of place and an autumnal theme, that was about where my enjoyment ended. The characters all behaved like vapid teenagers with dialogue that felt about 20 years out of date. The writing style was perfunctory with some odd work choices, childish self-censored cursing, weak characterization, and lack of hook. Some events and things had distracting, embarrassingly bad names (Bon Veeevil, Chriz-azy, OhNo!La, etc.). I also didn’t vibe with all the film and Hollywood stuff. I also thought Ricki’s involvement in solving the murder was implausible and unbelievable.

I haven’t read the other books in the series and, while this does a reasonable job at brining us up to speed, there’s a lot of duplication, over-explaining, and a general lack of pull into the characters’ worlds. I didn’t really <I>care</I> that Miranda was sabotaging the shop, Ricki’s ancestry thread was just plain boring, the incestuous way that everyone was related was exhausting, and I’m sorry but could the author have picked a more bizarre way to kill Ricki’s husband? It’s so ridiculous, it’s almost funny… like something out of a comedy sketch.

I think this has its audience, particularly in perhaps older readers or those who enjoy low stakes mysteries, but it really wasn’t my thing. 🤷‍♀️

Thanks to Severn House for making this title available to try on NetGalley.

I am such a fan of Ellen Byron's cozy mysteries. They are well-written, humorous, puzzling whodunnits populated by wonderful characters. They have unique settings, and this one is a New Orleans Culinary Museum inside a historic home. Her books are always enjoyable and entertaining. And this one, with all the Fall/Halloween vibes and New Orleans charm, was atmospheric and so much fun to read!

The story revolves around Ricki James-Diaz and her crew at the Bon Vee Culinary House Museum, who are setting up a haunted house on-site. However, a suspicious death staged for dramatic effect disrupts the Halloween festivities. The well-paced mystery, with its good-sized suspect pool, twists, and red herrings, kept me engaged and guessing.

Ricki finds out she has a surprising connection with the victim, which sets off both an investigation and a personal discovery for Ricki. So, we get a bit more of Ricki's backstory in this one. Ricki is likable, intelligent, and surrounded by supporting characters who are as well-developed and witty as she is. There is a warm, found family dynamic between everyone. While the characters feel like old friends, these books also work as stand-alones, so anyone can jump in here and not feel lost. Bryon rounds out the book with recipes from vintage cookbooks, which are interesting to read, too. Cozy mystery lovers and anyone looking for a Halloween-themed book that is pure fun with a dash of deadly shenanigans will want to pick this up!

Thank you to Severn House Publishing and Netgalley for the gifted ARC

It's Halloween in New Orleans and Ricki finds herself working to solve the murder of a man who used her name to get a job with the man she blames for the death of her ex-husband. And she's exploring her own background even as she keeps her cookbook shop, her romantic relationship, and her friendships going. I'd not read the earlier books but that wasn't a problem because it's a cozy in a good setting and the storytelling is fine. Thanks to the publisher for the arc. A good read.

French Quarter Fright Night is the third book in Ellen Byron's Vintage Cookbook Mystery series.

This installment marks the series' transition from Berkley to Severn House and is set during the Halloween season. The main cast remains delightfully over the top, and Ricki continues her quest to uncover the identities of her grandparents and parents—a family mystery that intrigues me just as much as the murder mystery. The murder itself is compelling, with enough twists and turns to keep you guessing until the big reveal. We also meet Blaine, the Hollywood actor Ricki holds responsible for her husband’s death. Additionally, there are at least two new characters likely to join the recurring cast, as well as a kitten Ricki adopts.

I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher and/or author via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Vintage cookbooks, Halloween, a murder, and all happening in NOLA. I just knew from the title and description that I needed to read this book. I love the New Orleans vibe of this book and a murder is perfect for the backdrop of this third edition to the series. I am coming in blind as I haven’t read he first two but I really didn’t need to there was enough backstory for most of the characters that I learned all I needed to to enjoy the story.

Ricki and her Bon Vee friends and coworkers are just so great and fit right into that cozy mystery vibe. I wanted to travel to the culinary gift shop and stay there indefinitely. The mystery wasn’t too predictable with enough twists and reveals to keep the pages turning. I loved getting an insight into how those old mansions in NOLA run, at least somewhat. The characters were well developed and very thought out in my opinion. I can’t wait for more of these stories to come and will be going back and reading the first two in this series. Bonus to this great mystery were the recipes that I will be trying out this coming fall.

The staff at Bon Vee Culinary House Museum is planning on celebrating Halloween by running a haunted house tour for their visitors. But the new owner of the adjoining house is filing a bunch of frivolous complaints. Much to her dismay, Ricki James-Diaz learns that movie star Blaine Taggart is the absentee owner. Ricki has a bitter past with Blaine: she blames him for encouraging & filming the stunt that led to the death of her husband Chris. Ricki also has an unpleasant first encounter with Miranda, Blaine's nasty personal assistant.

But no one expects the haunted house tour to end on a deadly note when a real body is found at Bon Vee's prop tomb. Who wanted Miranda dead? The Bon Vee staff must work together to clear their names.

This was another enjoyable book in the Vintage Cookbook mystery series.

I received a digital ARC from Netgalley and Severn House. All opinions are my own.