A Vintage Lie: Loire Valley Cozy Mystery

Six generations, one family, the same soil. At least one of those is a lie. Travel writer Nora Blake has twelve hundred words to write about Château Vallerand - one hundred and fifty years of the same family making the same wine in the Loire Valley, now opening its doors as a boutique hotel. Easy assignment. Gorgeous valley. And Dimitri Alexiou - the consultant who keeps having excellent timing - has finally stopped pretending it's a coincidence. Then Odette Vallerand, the aunt who came back after thirty years with something overdue to say, is found dead at the bottom of the cellar stairs the week of the anniversary gala. The local police call it an accident. Case closed before the investors' champagne goes flat. But the founding bottle in the tasting room - vintage 1876, the château's crown jewel - names a grape that didn't grow in the valley until 1897. Between a négociant with a decades-old heartbreak, a cousin in work boots with a land grudge older than the vines, a nine-figure deal waiting on a signature, and a label that can't explain itself - Nora is definitely, absolutely just here for the article. The killer knows better. And so do the vines - the only witnesses at Château Vallerand that never lie. A Vintage Lie is a twisty, witty cozy mystery set among the vineyards and châteaux of France's most beautiful valley - zero gore, clever clues, charming suspects, and one detail everyone else missed. Book 3 in the Nora Blake Mysteries. Can be read as a standalone - no cliffhanger, no homework.