Vintage Kitchen Mystery Books In Order

Publication Order of Vintage Kitchen Mystery Books

The Vintage Kitchen Mystery series is a series of mystery and thriller novels written by the well known American author Victoria Hamilton. There is a total of 5 books published in the series between the years 2012 and 2015. All the novels of the series feature the main protagonist in the form of Jaymie Leighton, who is described as a cookbook and cookware collector. She lives in an old house located in Queensville, Michigan across the river St. Claire from Ontario, along with her sister. She is featured as a typical girl from a small town. Throughout the series, Jaymie keeps stumbling upon dead bodies which lands her in trouble many times. As the series progresses, it is seen that her she keeps getting into trouble more and more. The old house in which Jaymie lives is a century-old and situated in Queensville in Michigan. She grew up in the same house along with her sister Becca. The house got deeded to the Leighton sisters when their parents shifted Boca Raton In Florida. As a passionate collector, Jamie likes to collect vintage kitchenware items as well as cookbooks. She maintains a modern cookbook and keeps it updated by compiling it with a collection of vintage recipes.

Along with this hobby, Jaymie juggles with a number of jobs like helping for a couple of days every week at the town’s emporium called as the Queensville Emporium, where her best friend named Valeta works as the village pharmacist. Jaymie also operates a rental service of vintage kitchen baskets, and works in the shops of some vintage dealers in the town. Along with all these jobs, Jaymie also writes a column based on cooking recipes for the magazine called Wolverhampton Howler. In the later parts of the series, it is shown that she becomes a member of the heritage society and helps to redo the kitchen work in an old house called as the Dumpe House. As far as the personality and love life of Jaymie Leighton is concerned, it seems to be as complicated as the novels of the historical romance that she loves to read. She was once in a relationship with Joel Anderson, who dumped her later. Since then she has never gone on a date with anyone. Jaymie stills feels satisfied with her life and thinks that she is recovering nicely and moving on in her life. Jayme often tends to become busy with her life as she has the habit of coming across the dead bodies of the recently murdered victims. She possesses a determination and an inquisitive nature, with the help of which she solves the crime in a unique way. Jayme is called as a natural investigator because of her sleuthing habits. Later, Jayme Leighton gets involved in the hunt of a killer and is backed by her best friend Valetta.

The first novel of the Vintage Kitchen Mystery series was published under the title ‘A Deadly Grind’. It was released by the Berkley publishing house in the year 2012. The plot of the novel is set in Michigan, United States, and revolves around the life of the main character Jaymie Leighton. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Jaymie is shown as a cookware and cookbook collector, spying on a kitchen cabinet at an auction, which is an original Hoosier brand of the 1920s. She falls in love with it immediately after seeing her. Even though Jaymie is protested by her sister Becca to for bringing the vintage junk in her old house of the 19th century. But, Jaymie wins the auction of the Hoosier cabinet and adds one more vintage junk to her collection. During one night in summer, a man gets murdered near the Hoosier, after getting hit with the steel meat of the vintage cabinet. Now, Jaymie and Becca begin to wonder who the stranger was and what was he doing in their house. Also, who was the one who hit him with the steel meat of the Hoosier. As the local police begins to investigate the matter, Jaymie also tries to do a little bit of sleuthing on her own. But, it seems that instead of uncovering the truth Jaymie getting trapped in the web of the criminal world surrounding her. The novel went on to become extremely successful and helped author Victoria to make a name for herself in the world of mystery and thriller novelists. The success of the novel allowed her to sell a number of copies in print all over the world. The novel was also translated into a number of foreign languages for the non-English speaking readers throughout the world.

The second novel of the series was published under the title ‘Bowled Over’. It was released in the year 2013 by the Berkley publishing house. The plot of the novel continues to feature the vintage collector Jaymie Leighton. In the opening sequence of the plot of the novel, Jaymie is shown as getting estranged from her childhood best friend Kathy Cooper. But after years of stiffness between the two, Jayme does not really understand what turned her. Soon, she discovers the dead body of Kathy in a park after the fireworks at the 4t of July picnic. Nearby the dead body, Jaymie finds her glass bowl of the Depression era, broken in two pieces. Suddenly, she finds herself as the prime suspect in the murder, because of her fingerprints on the glass bowl and her long rivalry with the victim. Now, she wonders whether the killer tried to frame her. So, she gears up to carry out the investigation on her own in order to clear her name of the crime that she knows she has not committed. The novel proved to be an interesting read as many readers felt excited after reading the story of the novel. It became extremely successful just like the first novel of the series. The success of the novel helped the author Victoria Hamilton to establish herself as a noteworthy author of the mystery and crime fiction genres. Even the notable critics and the fellow authors of Victoria praised her unique style of writing the novel plots and giving interesting character descriptions. This helped her to get herself motivated for writing a few other novels in the series as well as other series.