Deadly to the Core

January 16, 2024

Deadly to the Core

Deadly to the Core (A Cider House Mystery)
by Joyce Tremel

About Deadly to the Core

Deadly to the Core (A Cider House Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Pennsylvania
Crooked Lane Books (January 16, 2024)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 250 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1639105433
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1639105434
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0C2P4QB9T

Perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Julie Anne Lindsey, when Kate Mulligan inherits her great uncle’s fruit orchard, she quickly realizes that apples aren’t the only thing that can have rotten cores.

After losing her husband in a terrible car crash, thirty-five-year-old Kate is left to pick up the pieces of her life alone. Although she has physically recovered, she worries her spirit never will. But when she learns that she has inherited a fruit orchard in a small town just outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from her great uncle Stan, she takes this as an opportunity ripe for the picking. Kate knew immediately what to do with it: open a cider house. Her hopeful plans fall far from the tree when she finds the body of the orchard manager, Carl Randolph, leaving her to figure out who is at the core of this murder.

She had been in correspondence with Carl, who had agreed with her brilliant idea of opening a cider house. But not everyone is so quick to buy what she was selling—Uncle Stan’s lawyer, Robert Larabee, paints a less rosy financial outlook of the orchard’s past, present, and future.

Kate discovers that Carl had large, unexplained deposits to his bank account and it becomes clear that either he was blackmailing someone, or someone was paying him to keep quiet. Meanwhile, Kate and her neighbors receive offers to buy their property from a mysterious buyer. And there’s more than meets the eye with the neighboring orchard owner, Daniel Martinez, although Kate can’t quite put her finger on if it’s sweet or sour.

Will she be able to pick out the bad apple among the bunch before it’s too late?

About Joyce Tremel

Joyce Tremel was a police secretary for ten years and more than once envisioned the demise of certain co-workers, but settled on writing as a way to keep herself out of jail. In addition to the Cider House Mysteries, she wrote the Brewing Trouble Mysteries. As Joyce St. Anthony, she writes the Homefront News historical mysteries. She lives in the beautiful Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania with her husband and two cats named Hops and Lager.

Q&A With the Author:

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
I mostly enjoyed the characters and their friendships. Kate and Marguerite were childhood friends and they reconnected like no time had passed. It’s fun exploring Kate’s new relationships, too—especially the one with Daniel, the neighboring orchard owner.

Do you have any other books you are working on that you can tell us about?
I’m not contracted for anything at the moment, so I’m just playing around with some ideas. I have outlines written for another Cider House book and another Homefront News book, but I’m waiting for the publisher to decide if they want more. I also have an outline and a couple of chapters written for a book set in a bed and breakfast. The B&B owner is the main character. Her mother is a former TV actress from the 1980s and she owns a store with Hollywood memorabilia. Mom’s prize photo from a Miami Vice gig is stolen and a B&B guest is murdered and there may be a connection between the two crimes.

Can you tell us about what you have planned for the future?
I pretty much answered that in the previous question, lol. I’m just in a holding pattern at the moment.

How long have you been writing?
As long as I can remember. I’ve been writing for publication for about twenty years or so. I think I wrote four terrible books before my first one was published.

Anything more you would like to say to your readers and fans?
Just thank you for buying the books and reading them. The more you buy, or borrow from your library, the better the chances of publishers wanting more. Everything comes down to sales these days.