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Welcome to my author home! I write mysteries featuring fudge or fowl (two different series). I mix in fun, little-known facts, recipes about fudge, a bit about Belgians and the culture of Wisconsin and the Door County Peninsula.

They say in Wisconsin there’s a holy trinity of beer, brats, and cheese. Didn’t I tell you we’re about fun? But my books take you into culture in a more, well, cultured way, too. I even delve into the history of fudge! There are types of fudge around the world in most cultures, but it only took hold in this country in the 1840s when it sold for pennies at fundraisers at Vassar College. Find out more when you read Book 1, First-Degree Fudge, of The Fudge Shop Mystery Series.

This space will keep you updated on my books and topics they touch on, such as Belgian culture in Door County. Did you know it has the largest rural population of Belgians in the United States? Did you know it has an exchange program where for years the locals have sponsored trips to Belgium where they stay in the homes there, and in exchange, the Belgians come here for visits and the harvest festival known as kermis (or kermiss). You can bet there’s a lot of Belgian chocolate, beer, booyah and boulliabaise involved in those visits. (The recipes for booyah and boulliabaise are in First-Degree Fudge.)

I’d love to hear from you.

Do you love Door County–the Cape Cod of the Midwest? Love lighthouses? (That’s the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse pictured above, which was featured in Book 2 of the Fudge Shop Mystery Series.)

Are you Belgian? Love fine chocolates and fudge? Make fudge? Have a favorite family recipe you’d like to share? (I’m always researching for things to include in my books and here on these web pages.)

Do you have chickens? Love reading about them? (That’s my other series of short, humorous mysteries set in fictional Moonstone, Wisconsin.) What do you do with all your eggs??? Let me know.

I also work at University of Wisconsin-Madison where I teach fiction, nonfiction, and screenwriting. I love to hear from new writers and all writers. Check me out there and email me through the UW, if you wish. www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/writing

Thank you for taking the time to stop by here today. I look forward to entertaining you with my mystery short stories and novels.

Christine DeSmet

What’s New?!

Coming Soon: Holly Jolly Fudge Folly

Book 6 in the Fudge Shop Series.