Where comfort food meets cold cases, and the family you choose shows up hungry.
Jessica Vasquez was the forgotten kid. Her father went to prison for murder. Her mother remarried and poured her love into the new family. Jess and her friends Sawyer and Vee found trouble faster than anyone could clean it up, until somebody finally gave her a choice: get a skill, or follow your father down the same road.
Then she walked into Duncan Jones’s culinary arts class at the alternative high school, and everything changed.
Her senior year, Jess entered a cooking competition with her grandmother’s chicken noodle soup, made her own way, and called it Alphabet Soup. She won. She put the prize money toward a dream, and she spent years grinding through kitchens and competitions to make it real.
Now The Crock Pot is open in Dashwood, Texas. Jess has a restaurant to run, a staff to feed, and a dining room full of regulars. She also keeps tripping over dead bodies.
Jess reads people the way a good chef reads a kitchen. She’s backed by Vee, her housemate who can’t boil water but never misses a detail, and Sawyer, her best friend since they were twelve. Granny Ines will feed you whether you’re hungry or not, and Detective Kyle Rafferty wishes Jess would leave the sleuthing to him. Then there are twins Ivy and Dove, who keep everyone honest. Together they prove that family isn’t only who you’re born to. It’s who shows up.
Perfect for readers who love:
- A chef who earned every inch of her kitchen
- Found family that grows deeper with every book
- A small Texas town full of gossip, grudges, and secrets
- Mysteries with real stakes, plus a long game playing out in the background
- Recipes worth stealing and food you can almost taste
From Appetizers to Zest, Jess has twenty-six letters to get through. Pull up a chair. The soup’s on.
Perfect for fans of Joanne Fluke and Tonya Kappes.
Eleven books available now, with more on the way.
Appetizers and Alibis
Opening night was supposed to be the start of her dream.
Chef Jessica Vasquez has finally opened The Crock Pot in Dashwood, Texas, and her award-winning alphabet soup is a hit. Then, after the last customers leave, her sous chef and friend Earl is found shot behind the restaurant. The police have questions for Jess, and the killer isn’t finished. With her best friends Sawyer and Vee and her general manager Noah beside her, Jess starts digging into Earl’s secrets. She has to catch a killer while keeping her brand-new business afloat and staying alive.
Can this rookie restaurateur catch a killer?
Book 1 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Biscuits and Bodies
Her first date in years never showed up. Now he never will.
Chef Jessica Vasquez is still adjusting to her new sous chef June after Earl’s death when murder strikes Dashwood again. Her blind date is shot outside his apartment before they ever meet. Colt was more than a setup. He was Noah’s best friend, practically his brother. Then the coded letters start arriving, addressed to Jess and Noah, and it becomes clear Colt knew something worth killing for. As the body count rises and a warning lands on her windshield, Jess follows Colt’s trail toward people powerful enough to bury the truth, and anyone who digs it up.
Can Jess crack Colt’s code before she becomes the next body?
Book 2 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Cornbread and Coffins
She catered one funeral as a favor. Finding a body wasn’t on the menu.
Chef Jessica Vasquez agrees to cater one funeral, just one, because Granny asked. The service goes off without a hitch. Then Jess walks into the funeral home office and finds secretary Donna Overton slumped over her desk, poisoned with oleander. That’s the calling card of Dashwood’s Morality Killer, a murderer who was never caught. With whispers that the poison was in her food, Jess can’t let it go. Donna had a knack for wrecking marriages and a long list of enemies. The worst part is that one of them is the sweet lady who used to babysit Jess.
Has the Morality Killer come back, or has someone found the perfect cover?
Book 3 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Dumplings and Disaster
When one of her own is arrested for murder, Jess won’t stand by.
A fire guts an abandoned building in Dashwood, and inside, police find the body of a homeless veteran. Days later, they march into The Crock Pot and handcuff Marco, Jess’s big-hearted busser and a retired Marine who called the victim a friend. Jess knows Marco didn’t do it. Then the trail leads straight to the controversial redevelopment project, the protesters fighting it, and the charming city councilman Jess just started dating. When Shayla, her teenage apprentice, turns up with nowhere to go, Jess takes her in. Now she has even more to protect.
Can Jess clear Marco’s name before the next fire?
Book 4 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Eclairs and Executions
Shayla was found holding the gun. Jess knows she didn’t pull the trigger.
Shayla is finally safe under Jess’s roof and working on the éclairs that could win her the biggest high school culinary competition in the nation. Then she walks into her mother’s house and finds her mother and stepfather shot dead. When police arrive, Shayla is holding the gun, and she can’t remember picking it up. Now Jess is chasing a killer who may be pulling strings from behind prison walls. She’s also watching Shayla fight for her two little sisters, eight-year-old twins Ivy and Dove, who have just lost everything.
Can Jess prove Shayla’s innocence before she loses her future, and her sisters?
Book 5 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Falafel and Fatalities
Organized crime has come to Dashwood, and it starts with a professional hit.
Samir Saad, owner of the Spicy Fig Bistro and Jess’s friend, is gunned down in his own restaurant by a hitman who vanishes without a trace. His widow Fatima brings Jess the security footage and a message: Samir always said that if anything happened to him, Jess would know what to do. The trail leads to a predatory lending ring that traps Dashwood’s restaurant owners in loans they can never pay off, stocks their kitchens with stolen equipment, and plants spies on their staffs. The owners who talk end up like Samir. And now the hitman knows Jess’s name.
Can Jess expose the ring before the hitman crosses her name off his list?
Book 6 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Gumbo and Grudges
She won the cook-off. An hour later, she was in handcuffs.
When celebrity chef Garrett Majors challenges Jess to a gumbo showdown at the Dashwood Art Festival, her grandfather’s recipe takes the win in a double-blind judging. Garrett doesn’t take it well. He throws a tantrum on stage, accuses her of cheating, and warns her this isn’t over. Hours later, he’s dead, stabbed with Jess’s one-of-a-kind Damascus chef’s knife, and she’s arrested in front of the whole town. Security footage shows a figure in black stealing the knife from her booth. Now Jess has to find out who wanted Garrett dead badly enough to frame her for it. The list includes his ex-wife, his assistant, and a former partner he ruined.
Can Jess prove she was framed before the verdict comes in?
Book 7 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Honey and Homicide
Someone unleashed murder hornets on Dashwood. The bees were only the beginning.
Honey, owner of Honey’s Sweet Treats and Shayla’s boss, walks out to her hives and finds all 150,000 of her bees slaughtered. The killers were Asian giant hornets, deliberately released. If Honey had been tending her hives that morning, she’d be dead too. Jess knows this was no prank. Somebody wants Honey’s farm, her bakery, or both, and the list of people who’d profit is longer than it should be. When the attacks escalate and a barn goes up in flames, Jess has to find out who’s trafficking in deadly insects before Honey becomes the next casualty.
Can Jess catch a killer who uses nature as a weapon?
Book 8 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Iced Tea and Intrigue
The car came through The Crock Pot’s front doors at lunch rush. The driver was already dead.
In the middle of the Tuesday lunch crowd, a car plows through the front of The Crock Pot. Behind the wheel is Penny Galindo, a Klein Leasing agent Jess barely knew, and someone shot her before the car ever moved. Within the hour, the texts start: This is just the beginning. With her restaurant closed and thirty employees out of work, Jess has no choice but to dig. Every clue points back to the organization she’s crossed before, but Penny’s own family is hiding secrets too. When the threats reach Ivy, Dove, and Auntie Rita, Jess has to find the killer before the next message isn’t a text.
Can Jess reopen her doors before someone closes them for good?
Book 9 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Jams and Jailbirds
Her father just came home after thirty years. Now he might be going back.
Tito Vasquez is finally out of prison, and Jess is learning what it means to have her dad at Sunday dinner. Then Zammy is shot dead in the alley behind Vasquez Furniture. He was Tito’s friend from inside and his coworker at the store, and Tito was the last person seen with him. Now Tito’s parole officer has a two-week clock running, a witness swears he saw Tito’s car, and old family wounds are splitting wide open. Jess knows her father didn’t do it. Proving it means digging into an old prison debt that someone believes is still unpaid.
Can Jess clear her father’s name before he’s sent back for good?
Book 10 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Kolaches and Killers
Her best friend’s wedding. A dead best man. And the killer was wearing her chef coat.
Jess has baked four hundred kolaches, zipped into her bridesmaid dress, and has one job: get Sawyer and Riley married. In the gap between the ceremony and the reception, she finds best man Dean Tibbets shot behind the event hall. Then she discovers her chef coat is gone, the one with Vasquez stitched over the pocket. A security camera shows someone wearing it, arguing with Dean right before he died. Now Jess is the prime suspect on her best friend’s happiest day. When a bullet comes through her kitchen window while the twins are home, she knows this goes deeper than a wedding gone wrong.
Can Jess catch the killer wearing her name before they come back to finish the job?
Book 11 of the Alphabet Soup Mysteries.
Coming Soon
Jess has eleven cases behind her and fifteen letters to go. Here’s what’s still simmering:
- L: Lemon Pies and Lies
- M: Migas and Murder
- N: Noodles and Nemesis
- O: Omelet and Obituaries
- P: Pancakes and Peril
- Q: Quiche and Quarrels
- R: Ragu and Rigor Mortis
- S: Spaghetti and Sin
- T: Tofu and Terror
- U: Udon and Upheaval
- V: Vanilla and Villainy
- W: Waffles and Wickedness
- X: Xocolatl and Xenophobia
- Y: Yogurt and Yearning
- Z: Ziti and Zilch
Covers and release dates will be revealed as each book gets closer. Want to be the first to know? Sign up for my newsletter for cover reveals, release news, and a free copy of Chef Jessica’s Alphabet Soup recipe.