Isabella in the Kitchen (Mistletoe Inn Mysteries Novella # 3) by Margaret Evans, Julie Hatton (illustrator)

When Laura Keene and her husband Connor are invited to spend Christmas with the sixty-five-year-old Kovacs triplets at Mistletoe Inn, mystery abounds. Laura's mostly invisible cat, Empress Isabella, tags along, so you can't guess what will happen! Join the mysteries and the wacky fun as Charlie, Harry, and Will Kovacs each search for something in their family history, but what they find may not be what they expect. In this final Volume 3, Will searches fruitlessly for his favorite quiche and other family recipes in the Mistletoe Inn kitchen. Laura helps out and locates a secret cache of information that changes the direction of all their plans, including Will’s…in Isabella in the Kitchen.  (Summary via Goodreads)

Margaret Evans has a new mystery series called Mistletoe Inn Mysteries and Isabella in the Kichen is the third novella in this series following Isabella in the Attic and Isabella in the Cellar.

I feel that in order for you to understand this series you need a brief summary of the Second Treasures Mystery series Evans has written. In that series you are introduced to Laura Rage Keene who owns a second hand thrift shop and lives above it. Her family, the Rage's, were one of the founding families of Raging Ford, Minnesota. The Second Treasures Mystery follows Laura as she falls in love with the Lieutenant of the Police force as she helps solve murders that she gets involved in. In this series you are also introduced to her friends and other business owners. There is also a gray cat that lives there, however, only Laura and Connor can see her .... until.....

In this new series, Mistletoe Inn Mysteries Laura and her new husband Connor are invited to spend Christmas and New's Year with the Kovacs triplets at the Inn. The Kovacs triples are very important to the town of Raging Ford and they know all about the town, the people and what goes on.  The Inn has been in the Kovacs family for a long time and it holds lots of history.  In the first novella in this series, Isabella in the Attic, Charlie, one of the triples is continuing his family's history.  With the help of Laura he finds the answers he is seeking and they are to his favor.  In the second novella, Isabella in the Cellar, Harry is looking for his grandfather's cravat in the boxes in the cellar.  In addition to finding the cravat, Harry and Laura find some documents that will change the dynamics of the triplets lives.

Now in Isabella in the Kitchen, Will is searching high and low for his quiche recipe.  He really wants to make it for New Year's.  Everyone rallies in the kitchen to find the Kovacs' grandmother's recipe.  Instead Laura and Connor discover some secret  holes  with paperwork, books, and money that their parents must have hidden years ago !!!  

There are also a lot of other life changing things happening within these three novellas but I feel that if I share them, they will ruin the way readers experience them when they are reading.  I can tell you that you will be shocked and surprised and happy and excited.  I cannot even begin to imagine where Evans will take us next ... and I cannot wait !!!

Evans knows how to weave a captivating story and hook readers immediately ... and who wouldn't love a "magical" cat that is getting bold with letting more people see and love her ? And  Evans really makes readers love this series with this third installment of the Mistletoe Inn Mysteries. 

You can read about Isabella, Laura and Raging Ford with all it's amazing characters in the Second Treasures Mystery series as well as A Trilogy of Holiday Mysteries Starring Empress Isabella. I high encourage you to read the first novella, Isabella in the Attic and  be on the look out for Isabella in the Kitchen.