Livia J. Washburn | A Fresh Baked, Gluten-Free Mystery

One of the challenges I've faced in writing the Fresh Baked Mystery series is coming up with the recipes for each book. Luckily I've had willing guinea pigs in the persons of my husband and two daughters, who have sampled all the results of those recipes, even the ones that, shall we say, didn't work out that well. I've had a lot of fun being creative with them and have discovered some treats I might never have otherwise.

Not long before beginning work on THE CANDY CANE CUPCAKE KILLER, I found out something new. For years I've been plagued with pain in my joints, caused by rheumatoid arthritis. My knees and back had gotten so bad I figured that sooner or later—probably sooner—I was going to have to use a wheelchair to get around. Then a friend mentioned that gluten, a protein found in many grains, can cause flare-ups of rheumatoid arthritis and generally make the condition worse. Some people have reported great improvement in their pain after they eliminated gluten from their diet. It was worth a try, I decided.

It was not easy to give up gluten, but within two weeks, I was so much better, hurting so much less, that I knew there was some truth to the claim. And I knew that somehow I had to incorporate that into the Fresh Baked Mystery books.

Going gluten-free certainly didn't make it easier to create recipes for the books. Before, I had been trying the cakes and cupcakes and pies and brownies and all the other goodies that Phyllis and Caroline bake in the books. Now I needed to avoid them and had to rely on my family to taste all the samples and evaluate them. While I trust their opinions, there's nothing like being able to bite into something yourself to find out whether it's really as delicious as it needs to be.

At the same time, I wanted to include the information about the possible connection between gluten and joint pain in the books, thinking that it might help some people who were suffering like I was, so I decided to have Caroline go gluten-free. I knew that she would be happy to explain the reasons behind it to the other characters. Caroline has never been shy about expressing any of her opinions!

Phyllis, of course, is willing to try new things (otherwise she never would have started solving murders at her age), and Sam, being Sam, is always the gentleman and would never hurt Caroline's feelings even if the gluten-free muffins she made turned out to be terrible.

Luckily, the muffins are quite good in real life. No, they don't taste exactly the same as regular muffins. Anything baked with gluten-free flour is going to have a somewhat different consistency. But that doesn't mean it can't be tasty. Growing older, as the characters in these books are doing, means adaptation and compromise and learning how to make the best of a situation. But then, that's true of life at any age, isn't it?

One thing that doesn't change, however, is the friendship between Phyllis, Sam, Caroline, and Eve, and it never will as long as they're living in that big old house on a tree-lined street in Weatherford, Texas.

About Livia J. Washburn

Under the names Livia J. Washburn and L.J. Washburn, Livia Washburn Reasoner has been writing award-winning, critically acclaimed mystery, western, romance, and historical novels for over thirty years.

She is married to author James Reasoner. Livia and James have had a long career working together, tweaking and editing each other’s stories. In recent years she's become involved in publishing, and cover designing, producing books for Western Fictioneers, and now for Prairie Rose Publications.

Livia lives in the Texas countryside with her husband, and a gang of rescue dogs.

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About THE CANDY CANE CUPCAKE KILLER

In the latest from the national bestselling author of Trick or Deadly Treat, Phyllis Newsom returns with a festive Christmas recipe that’s to die for…

‘Tis the season in Weatherford, Texas, and everyone in town is gearing up for the annual holiday parade and tree-lighting ceremony in the town square, where Phyllis Newsom will be serving her much-anticipated candy cane cupcakes. Local rancher Barney McCrory manages to charm one away from her before the ceremony begins. But unfortunately, when the minty confection is finished, so is he.

This isn’t the first time someone has dropped dead after eating one of Phyllis’s treats. But when the paramedics determine the rancher was shot, suspicion swiftly falls on McCrory’s daughter and her husband—who both stand to reap some sweet rewards from his death. Though Phyllis doesn’t want to get mixed up in another murder investigation, something about this case doesn’t sit right with her. With a little help from a tabloid TV news crew, Phyllis must unwrap the truth and restore good cheer to Weatherford before it’s too late…