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Kill or Bee Killed (A Bee Keeping Mystery) by Jennie Marts

About Kill or Bee Killed

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I want to welcome Jennie Marts to fundinmental today. I hope you enjoy the post.

KILL OR BEE KILLED: A Bee Keeping Mystery Book 2 by Jennie Marts

Guest Post: 5 Fun Facts You Might Not Know About Bees

Thanks so much for having me! I’m so excited to be here to talk about my new book, KILL OR BEE KILLED. It’s the second book in my fun Bee Keeping Cozy Mystery series.

The series follows Bailey Briggs, a single mom and mystery writer, as she and her daughter return to her hometown of Humble Hills, Colorado and to Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch where she was raised by her bee-keeping grandmother, Granny Bee, her great aunts, Marigold and Aster, and her grandmother’s book club and posse, lovingly referred to as The Hive. In Take the Honey and Run, the first book, the mayor of the town is murdered, and the murder weapon turns out to be Granny Bee’s infamous ‘Honey, I’m Home Hot Spiced Honey’, making Bailey’s grandmother the prime suspect. So, of course, Bailey, her best friend, and the members of The Hive set out to find the true culprit. Except the town sheriff turns out to be Bailey’s first love, and even though they haven’t seen each other since high school, their romance is still buzzing. And the sheriff isn’t too excited about Bailey snooping around his case. Bailey has no choice but to use her fictional detective skills to help solve the murder and “smoke out” the real culprit before her beloved grandmother ends up bee-hind bars.

In Kill or Bee Killed, Humble Hills is abuzz with excitement over the upcoming annual Bee Festival, sponsored by Granny Bee and the Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch. The long weekend of festivities includes a beauty pageant, beekeeping demonstrations, a local restaurant bake-off, and a 3K Bear Run where all the participants are dressed as bears. The bake-off brings in a television crew from California to film, so it’s the most drama-filled part of the weekend, especially when the famous celebrity host winds up dead.

Because the celebrity was holding her bracelet and had been witnessed having an altercation with Bailey’s best friend Evie shortly before his death, everyone suspects Evie of the murder—and Bailey is quickly on the hunt for clues to clear Evie’s name, alongside Granny Bee and her bunch of geriatric misfit friends. Bailey’s potential new honey, Sheriff Sawyer Dunn, is none too pleased to have Bailey buzzing around the investigation, but Bailey’s determined to uncover the truth, rescue her grannie’s beloved Bee Festival, and save her bestie.

They say you get more flies with honey, but in this case, more honey may mean you end up dead. And a little competition never hurt anyone—unless it ends up killing you.

I really wanted to set this mystery during a local bee festival and bring in more of the community of Humble Hills. I thought it would be so fun to incorporate in a beauty competition and thought it would be a hoot to have the great aunts (who are in their seventies) be forced to enter. I’m a huge fan of the Great British Bake-off, and Bailey’s best friend, Evie and her grandmother, Rosa, run a bakery/coffeehouse called Spill the Beans, so I came up with the idea to add a cooking competition into the festival and have the celebrity host be the one who gets ‘offed’.

Even though the celebrity host gets murdered, it’s still a really fun story, and Bailey and Evie get up to even more crazy shenanigans than they did in the first book.

I had so much fun writing this one. My husband is a certified beekeeper, and he has always told such fascinating stories about the life and habits of bees, that I knew I had to incorporate them into a story somehow. Granny Bee is the beekeeper in this series, and her book club, affectionately known as The Hive, consists of her two spinster sisters (who live in an old purple Victorian called Lavender Manor), Rosa Delgado, and town librarian, Dottie Duffield.

Bailey and her sidekick bestie, Evie Delgado Espinoza (Rosa’s granddaughter), have been described as a mashup of Lucy & Ethel and Thelma & Louise trying to solve a murder.

Because the book features a bee keeping granny, I thought I would share five fun facts you might not know about bees.

Bees beat their wings 11,400 times in one minute.
Only female bees can sting. Males don’t have stingers.
An average hive has 50,000 to 60,000 worker bees.
Bees communicate through a series of dance moves.
A hive of bees can create 100 lbs of honey in a year.

And a final thing you may not know about bees is how they get to school…in a school buzz, of course.

Okay, that one was a little too honey…I mean, punny.

I hope you love meeting the characters and the community of Humble Hills. I want readers to feel like visiting Bailey and Granny Bee and the Hive is like visiting old friends and want them to feel part of the love and friendship these women have for each other. I hope readers fall in love with the handsome sheriff, Sawyer Dunn, who was Bailey’s first love, but I also want them to love Leon, the kooky coroner, and swoon over Mateo, Evie’s hunky brother, and Spike, the burly biker bar owner who has a heart of gold and makes cupcakes with his grandma.

I hope this book makes them laugh a lot, cry a little, and salivate over the delicious honey-inspired recipes in Kill or Bee Killed.

Thanks for hosting me today! I so enjoy the blog and was thrilled to be part of it today!

You can find KILL OR BEE KILLED here: https://books2read.com/KillorBeeKilled

It is my pleasure to have you here today, Jennie, and I loved the guest post.

Kill or Bee Killed (A Bee Keeping Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
2nd in Series
Setting – Colorado
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crooked Lane Books (June 4, 2024)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1639106588
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1639106585
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CH9HTM1S
Audiobook ASIN B0CVSGYG58
Audio CD ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8874751142

BookShop https://bookshop.org/widgets/book/book_button/91071/9781639106585

Perfect for fans of Laura Childs and Amanda Flower, this second Bee Keeping mystery takes Bailey Briggs to the brink as murders threaten the future of her granny’s Bee Festival.

The small town of Humble Hills, Colorado, is abuzz with excitement over the upcoming annual Bee Festival, sponsored by Bailey’s Granny Bee and the Honeybuzz Mountain Ranch. The long weekend of festivities includes a beauty pageant, beekeeping demonstrations, a local restaurant bake-off, and a 3K Bear Run where all the participants are dressed as bears. The bake-off brings in a television crew from California to film, so it’s the most drama-filled part of the weekend, especially when the famous celebrity host winds up dead.

Because the celebrity was holding her bracelet and had been witnessed having an altercation with Bailey’s best friend Evie shortly before his death, everyone suspects Evie of the murder—and Bailey is quickly on the hunt for clues to clear Evie’s name, alongside Granny Bee and her bunch of geriatric misfit friends. Bailey’s potential new honey, Sheriff Sawyer Dunn, is none too pleased to have Bailey buzzing around the investigation, but Bailey’s determined to uncover the truth, rescue her grannie’s beloved Bee Festival, and save her bestie.

They say you get more flies with honey, but in this case, more honey may mean you end up dead. And a little competition never hurt anyone—unless it ends up killing you.

About Jennie Marts

Jennie Marts is the USA TODAY Best-selling author of award-winning books filled with love, laughter, and always a happily ever after. Readers call her books “laugh out loud” funny and the “perfect mix of romance, humor, and steam.” Fic Central claimed one of her books was “the most fun I’ve had reading in years.”

She is living her own happily ever after in the mountains of Colorado with her husband, two dogs, and a parakeet who loves to tweet to the oldies. She’s addicted to Diet Coke, adores Cheetos, has never missed an episode of Survivor, and believes you can’t have too many books, shoes, or friends.

Her books include the following small town romance series: Cowboys of Creedence, Creedence Horse Rescue Series, Lassiter Ranch, Hearts of Montana, the Bannister Brothers (hockey romcom), Cotton Creek , and two hilarious cozy mysteries series, The Page Turners and The Bee Keeping Mysteries.

Jennie loves to hear from readers. Follow her on Facebook at Jennie Marts Books, or Twitter at @JennieMarts. Visit her at www.jenniemarts.com and sign up for her newsletter to keep up with the latest news and releases.

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