What is Leslie Budewitz reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Leslie Budewitz, author of Butter Off Dead.

Her entry begins:

I’ve been doing a lot of driving around Montana this summer, with a big stack of audio books on the seat next to me. That raises the pesky question whether listening is reading. Yes, in my view, though it reading with my ears is a vastly different experience from reading with my eyes. I miss the ability to flip back and check a phrase I missed—or one I particularly liked. But there’s something wonderfully comforting about being read to. And I feel freer to choose books I might not pick up otherwise, because my sit-down-and-read time is limited. Audio books let me dip into other worlds beyond the light-hearted mysteries I write.

At the moment, I’m listening to The Husband’s Secret by Liane Moriarty. I can’t remember the last time I read a book set in Australia—something more recent than The Thorn Birds, I hope! From the brief prologue about Pandora of myth—did you know she was given a jar, not a box?—and the opening lines of Chapter 1, I knew this book was going to be...[read on]

About Butter Off Dead, from the publisher:

As the national bestselling Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries continue, the merchants of Jewel Bay, Montana, try to heat up chilly winter business with a new film festival. But their plans are sent reeling when a dangerous killer dims the lights on a local vendor…

In an attempt to woo tourists to Jewel Bay and cheer up the townies, Erin Murphy, manager of the specialty local foods market known as the Merc, is organizing the First Annual Food Lovers’ Film Festival, filled with classic foodie flicks and local twists on favorite movie treats. But when her partner in planning, painter Christine Vandeberg, is found dead only days before the curtain rises, Erin suspects someone is attempting to stop the films from rolling.

To make matters worse, Nick—Erin’s brother and Christine’s beau—has top billing on the suspect list. Convinced her brother is innocent and determined that the show must go on, Erin has to find who’s really to blame before Nick gets arrested or the festival gets shut down. But the closer she gets to the killer, the more likely it becomes that she’ll be the next person cut from the program…

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The Page 69 Test: Butter Off Dead.

Writers Read: Leslie Budewitz.

--Marshal Zeringue