Bøger af Maureen Klovers

The locals insist that Acorn Hollow was the real inspiration for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." But is that a blessing...or a curse? As the Hudson Valley's best garden-to-table home cook, fiercest Italian matriarch, and most dogged reporter, Rita Calabrese has many reasons to look forward to fall. Her garden is bursting with the ingredients for chicken cacciatore, apple crisp, and pumpkin cheesecake. Her son is starring in the local community theater production. And Acorn Hollow is at its most festive as it celebrates "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which the townspeople insist was inspired by their own bucolic hamlet. But as the fall foliage peaks, so does the drama. First, a series of mysterious accidents befall the actor portraying Ichabod Crane. While most of the townspeople are willing to chalk it up to the supernatural antics of the headless horseman, the police have a far more mortal suspect in mind: Rita's son, Vinnie. Then the notorious "black widow" of Acorn Hollow offers Rita tantalizing new clues about a pair of cold-case Halloween disappearances bearing the hallmarks of the original legend, right down to the smashed pumpkin by the old stone bridge. In exchange, the widow asks Rita to cater her funeral-and she's already set an exact date. As the clock ticks down to the appointed date, Rita cooks up a fabulous funeral feast. But she begins to suspect that the widow is cooking up something of her own, and it just might be an elaborate trap to catch a killer... Featuring drool-worthy fall and Italian recipes!

In a memoir that is at once heart-breaking and hilarious, former U.S. intelligence analyst Maureen Klovers embarks on a year-long quest to understand why so many Latin Americans are willing to risk their lives to come to America. She moves into a convent with a rogue American priest, two nuns, and dormitory full of volunteers, and begins teaching children from the poorest and most dangerous slums of Quito, Ecuador. Soon, she is fending off marriage proposals from thirteen-year-old Darwin, locked in a battle of wills with his classmate Oscar, and struggling to decode the intricacies of the junior high pecking order. As she visits slums and leper colonies, interviews inmates at the Quito Women's Prison, and tussles with corrupt government officials, she paints a vivid portrait of a nation in transition. Everywhere, she asks the tough questions most travel writers breeze over: What separates the developed world from the developing world? Is the third world destined to be poor forever? And if so, why? But perhaps the most important question is one she never set out to answer at all: Is America headed for the same fate? In the midst of a spirited public debate about income inequality, government regulation, and political dysfunction, "In the Shadow of the Volcano" serves as a fascinating and disturbing chronicle of how ordinary citizens can be affected by a crony capitalism that concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few.

Rita Calabrese is the guardian angel of the bucolic Hudson Valley hamlet of Acorn Hollow-and of her lovable but exasperating "famiglia." She's always fortifying her down-on-their-luck neighbors with secret deliveries of home-grown vegetables and ravioli alla zucca, sneaking cannoli into her gruff husband's lunch, and meddling in (or, as she would say, "improving") the lives of her three grown children. But now, on the eve of her sixty-sixth birthday, Rita's looking for a meaningful second act-and finds as a reporter for the local paper. Her profiles of Acorn Hollow's eccentric citizens, including the soft-spoken biology teacher with a secret poison garden, soon make her the toast of the town. But when the beloved football coach is murdered and Rita's investigation uncovers not only a messy love triangle, but also rumors of her ne'er-do-well son Vinnie's involvement, she finds her newfound journalistic zeal on a collision course with her fierce maternal instinct.Humorous and zesty, "The Secret Poison Garden" includes eight mouth-watering, garden-to-table Italian-American recipes.

Carnevale in Acorn Hollow is all about masquerade balls and sinfully delicious Italian desserts. But this year, it's being spiced up with disastrous romances, blackmail, and even a murder....In the Italian-American community of Acorn Hollow, it's Carnevale. The townspeople are reveling in masked balls and lively processions-and overindulging in meaty lasagnas and rich desserts like sanguinaccio and bomboloni.For once, though, the town's most ardent Italophile, matriarch-turned-reporter Rita Calabrese, is not in the holiday spirit. With no crime to solve, nothing to write about, and the clock ticking down towards her hasty and ill-advised Lenten resolution to stop interfering in (or, as she would say, "improving") the lives of others, she's staring down forty days of sheer boredom.But that's before her twin sister is blackmailed for a scandalous indiscretion and the world's most uncouth, boorish houseguest shows up and refuses to leave until Rita gives him a crash course in feminism and romance, all to woo back his estranged wife.Rita tries to adhere to her Lenten resolution, but fate has other plans. When a friend's wine is poisoned at a masquerade ball and a local vintner's glamorous fiancée is murdered, Rita bows to the inevitable and dives into an investigation rife with suspects and riven by romantic entanglements and family drama. Featuring mouth-watering recipes for Italian classics, including lasagna and Italian Easter pie!

A chance encounter with a wealthy congressman leads to an unusual proposition... When belly dancer and amateur sleuth Jeanne Pelletier meets a wealthy conservative congressman at a Halloween party, neither is in a festive mood. Jeanne is cash-strapped, brooding over her disastrous love life, and rattled by a pair of invitations that remind her of the life she thought she had left behind. Congressman Richardson is worried about the mental stability of his wife, a beauty queen-turned-historian who claims to be terrorized by a vindictive two-hundred-year-old ghost. Before their dance is over, Jeanne agrees to investigate who-or what-is behind his wife's "haunting." But when Jeanne finds a body draped over a Confederate spy's tomb near the Richardsons' Georgetown mansion, she begins to suspect that the "haunting" has escalated to murder-and that her clients may be involved. Wracked by guilt and determined to discover his killer, Jeanne enlists the aid of her grumpy ex-CIA agent neighbor and an ex-con would-be Latin lover. But as they dig deeper into the Richardsons' sordid past, Jeanne is also forced to grapple with her own.

By day, Jeanne Pelletier is a small-town girl toiling in obscurity at a stuffy Washington, D.C., law firm; by night, she's Zahira, the city's newest belly dancing sensation. When a blaze rips through the city's premier Middle Eastern nightclub and kills Jeanne's beloved belly dance teacher Yasmina, Jeanne is drawn into a deadly mystery. Soon, she's assembled a zany, crime-fighting urban family consisting of her obnoxious ex-CIA agent neighbor; her commune-dwelling, wild child best friend; and a sexy Scottish hacker bent on wooing the commitment-phobic Jeanne. But as Jeanne and her friends uncover a string of lovers and a web of family secrets stretching back to the Middle East, Jeanne is forced to confront a dark family secret of her own.

An idyllic retreat in rural Tuscany seems like the least likely place for a murder.... Rita Calabrese is a lover of all things Italian-especially the food. So she is overjoyed when Sal, her normally oh-so-unromantic husband, proposes a second honeymoon at a villa in Tuscany. For two weeks, she'll get a respite from her hectic life as a reporter, sleuth, and mother and be able to just lounge by the pool, traipse through vineyards and olive groves, and gorge on gelato and tiramisu. Then Rita meets a suave Italian art crimes detective convinced that the villa is the epicenter of an antiquities trafficking ring, and her romantic getaway becomes a working vacation. As she quaffs glorious vino and learns to roll pici pasta by hand, Rita sizes up the other guests. Ostensibly, they have gathered for the nuptials of Alessandro and Giovanna, the Romeo and Juliet of the Italian archaeology world. But is one of them also a criminal mastermind? When the villa's owner is found dead in an ancient Etruscan tomb, Rita begins to wonder if something even more sinister is afoot. Plunging into an investigation filled with star-crossed lovers, bitter professional rivalries, long-buried secrets, and fabulous food, Rita finds that Italy never loses its ability to amaze. Featuring delectable, authentic Italian recipes for caponata, pear and almond tart, peaches with mascarpone, and more!