Alternate Cover Edition can be found here A northerner by birth, Willow moves south when she inherits her grandfather’s ice cream shop. From the slow southern dialect to the crazy drivers, Willow finds herself at odds with what most call “southern charm.” She becomes obsessed with cook-offs and bake-offs, wanting those trophies for her mantle. With the chili cook-off just around the corner, Willow manages to provoke one of the judges to a fit of road rage. When that judge ends up face down, dead, in a bowl of Willow’s chili, police chief Grice looks to the newest town resident as his number one suspect. Willow must find out who wanted Ms. Delonda Posey dead before the good citizens of Turtle, OK run her Yankee bottom out of town.

Willow Crier is at it again! As chairwoman for Turtle’s annual Ice Cream Festival, she is unable to enter the town’s sponsored ice cream making contest. So, she does what any good cook-off addict does, she talks her daughter into entering. As the festival is just getting heated up, the town's local writer in residence turns up frozen, sitting on a bucket of Pistachio Goodness in the walk-in freezer.

Somebody smoked the wrong pig! Willow, Steve, and Embry team up to win the city’s annual Barbecue Competition. Camping out isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As Willow is coercing her 40 something year old body to make the trek to the bathroom for her morning rituals, she finds herself a witness to the local bad boy twirling on a rotisserie. She vows she won’t get involved. Yeah, like that happens. Her gut tells her the young man arrested is not the right guy. It’s not long before she’s being serenaded by an opera wannabe, mistaken for a homeless person, and being chased by Mexicans toting guns, all in the name of justice.

Willow’s Packin’ Heat! Willow Crier’s got a gun and the whole town will hear her bang. During a monthly potluck at the gun club, a local war hero, Clancy, ends up fried to a crisp. Armed with binoculars and cast Iron, Willow uncovers hidden secrets long ago buried. While searching for the murderer, Willow is also searching for the perfect fried chicken recipe. A painful surgery earns her sympathy, and maybe a few kisses, from Steve, but it doesn’t keep her off her feet for long. Instead she dives right into the case, pulling a fellow gun club member into an impromptu mud wrestling contest. Embry’s engagement and Steve’s investigative nature is delving up a past Willow isn’t eager to remember. She manages to slip away from the memories to solve the case, and a romantic evening on the ferris wheel certainly helps to keep her distracted.

When a New York power couple visits Willow’s coffee shop and orders low-fat milk lattes, 2 shots of espresso, no foam, extra hot, with three packets of Splenda stirred well she decides she’s not that desperate to lose weight! As far as she’s concerned, they can take their New York accent, their New York cawhfee, their superior attitude, and go back to the Big Apple. Until, that is, Mr. New York’s found dead bobbin’ for an apple in the middle of Molly’s café. In-between chasing would be bad guys…or gals, Willow tries every trick in the book to lose weight. From wraps to jogging to no carbs, she ends up confused and ornery, snapping at everyone who crosses her path—nothing that a dish of Molly’s peach cobbler won’t cure. If only murders could be solved so easily!