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Utah author Josi S. Kilpack knows exactly where people should read her Christmas-themed mystery “The Candy Cane Caper” — at Snowbird Ski Resort.
Its view of the mountains, combined with the book’s “I want to stay inside and drink hot cocoa” feel, makes Snowbird the perfect place to curl up with her story, she said.
“The Candy Cane Caper” is the last of Kilpack’s 13-book culinary mystery series, but don’t let that deter you from picking it up — with the exception of book 12, each one was written so it can be read as a standalone story, she said.
The series follows amateur detective Sadie Hoffmiller as she solves cases in her Colorado town and makes some delicious food along the way. Each book is named after a dish and includes the recipes featured in the story.
Kilpack, who’s also known for her clean romances and fiction that centers on members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said the 12th book was intended to be the series’ last.
But due to popular demand, she revisited her food-savvy sleuth in “The Candy Cane Caper,” which she described as " a Christmas special five years later.” It follows Sadie as she tries to help a terminally ill friend whose antique ornaments have been stolen just before the holidays.
Kilpack recently spoke with The Salt Lake Tribune about what inspired the series, how it changed over the 10 years she wrote it and where she got all those recipes.
(Provided by Josi S. Kilpack) "The Candy Cane Caper" is a Christmas-themed culinary mystery by Utah author Josi S. Kilpack.
What inspired the series?
I started the series back in 2005. I actually wrote the first chapter of the first book, which is called “Lemon Tart,” as a contest submission [for a competition] that J. Scott Savage was having on his blog. And I ended up just loving it. I worked on it for the next couple of years. I was publishing contemporary LDS fiction with Deseret Book at the time, and so “Lemon Tart” was kind of my recess book. It was so far out of my wheelhouse, but it ended up coming together over time. When I finished it, I submitted it to Deseret Book thinking they would reject it because it was not in line with the things that they were publishing at the time, but the timing was great and they were looking for some new ideas. It was already in production when they suggested making it into a series, and it just kind of grew throughout the process.
Why did you choose to center your mysteries around food?
Originally I didn’t. I just had my main character who loved food. But it was actually Lisa Mangum, my editor at Deseret Book, who suggested turning it into a culinary mystery. I wasn’t super familiar with the genre, but essentially, it’s a whodunnit kind of soft mystery that involves recipes. The food was already in there, so we just had to come up with the recipes.
Where did you get your recipes?
Some of them are my own that I’ve made over the years. After “Lemon Tart,” I put out a request (I had a blog at the time) for people to make the recipes and make sure they were as good as I thought they were. I got a really great response. I chose the first eight who responded, and five of them ended up staying with me throughout that entire 12 book series. So when I needed a recipe and I didn’t have a good one, I would reach out to them. A lot of the recipes are theirs. With other recipes, I’d go online and find three versions of a dish, and I’d use those to make my own.
“Lemon Tart” was published in 2009 and “The Candy Cane Caper” was published in 2019. How did the series grow and change across the 10 years you wrote it?
It grew specifically because it did well. The first one came out right after the 2008 economic issues. Deseret Book warned me that they weren’t sure what would happen with it. But it’s directly because of the readers that we continued the series. Typically in a series, the first book sells really well because people will start with that one. And then it kind of goes down from there, which is why you see a lot of series that don’t go past three books. But with this series, once we got to about the third book, each time a new one came out, all the books would sell a little bit better.
Storywise, it was a challenge for me to learn how to do a series. You’ve got this main character who everyone loves and there has to be some growth, but it can’t be so much growth that she’s not recognizable. Lisa Mangum was absolutely priceless, because she would help point that out.
What does the Christmas element bring to “The Candy Cane Caper” that’s not in your other culinary mysteries?
The others are all murder mysteries and this one is not. A friend of Sadie’s has antique ornaments, and some of them go missing. Sadie is trying to make this the perfect Christmas for her friend, and so she takes the case to try and find these ornaments. There are a lot of Christmas aspects throughout the story like Christmas recipes and Christmas events. It was really fun. I’ve done a couple Regency romances set at Christmas, but this had more of a Hallmark movie feel.
What are some of the book’s themes?
I love exploring challenged people. So some of the themes explored in this book are death and dying, and aspects of terminal illness. I wrote a lot about family and family connections. There’s a growing relationship between two people that I explored, as well as the theme of forgiveness, which is always so good at Christmas. I also explored ideas of “How do you want to be remembered? What do you leave behind?” The relationships that we make on Earth are always going to have the highest value, but that doesn’t mean they’re the simplest part. They’re often the most complicated, but they’re worth working on.
You also write romance and fiction. Are there any challenges to writing mysteries that you don’t encounter in other genres?
Mysteries are hard for me. Typically, when I write a mystery, I think I know who did it, but as I write towards that, I realize that I’ve made it too obvious, so I have to pick somebody else. So in some ways, my stories unfold as a surprise to me because I have a different expectation. I have to put a lot of brainpower into the plots.
Romance is a lot more straightforward for me. In a romance, everybody knows how the story is going to end, but in a mystery, nobody knows how the story ends. And yet, the type of mysteries I write appeal to the same audience as the romances I write. That’s allowed me to be successful in both genres, which isn’t always something that’s easy for authors to do.
Are you working on any projects right now?
I’m working on a new mystery series. It’s another cozy mystery series, set in Sedona, Arizona, and it’s been a lot of fun. It’s challenging my brain, yet again. And then I’ve got another Regency romance. It’ll be out in the spring from Shadow Mountain.
Do you have any advice for aspiring mystery writers?
Grab five mystery novels in the genre that you want to write, read the first chapter, look for what’s similar and utilize that. Mystery novels have a pretty specific formula, and that first chapter is super important. So pay attention to how other authors have done their first chapters, and then find a way to incorporate those elements into yours.
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