Jam and preserve maker Becca Robins is excited about the extra business that the Ridgeway Christmas Tree Farm is bringing to the market this holiday season. But when a competing tree farmer, Reggie Stuckey, arrives with a truck full of trees, angrily barking that he has exclusive selling rights at the market, Becca finds herself pining for more goodwill toward men. After Reggie is found with a tree stake in his chest, she wonders when the Christmas...

Presents a collection of recipes for such items as crackers, dips, pickles, pasta, cured fish and meat, butter, jam, and candy along with hints on ways to serve them and wrap them as gifts.

In their blended family, Mama Duck worries when Bear eats too much jam, but when the ducklings play a game with their vegetables, Bear starts to eat the strange green things on his plate.

"The last person Becca expects to run into at the Swayton County Fall Festival is her ex-husband, Scott Triplett, who's operating a shooting gallery. Honesty was not always Scott's policy, and their unexpected reunion is further complicated when the festival becomes a crime scene. On Becca's second day there, Ferris wheel operator Virgil Morrison is found hanging from his rickety ride, dead from a gunshot"--P. [4] of cover.