American chef Nell Valenti will have to serve up more than good eats if she wants to establish a successful cooking school in this charming first installment in a new cozy mystery series set in Italy. When Nell is offered a chance to move to Tuscany to help transform an aging villa into a farm-to-table culinary school, she eagerly accepts. After all, both her job and her love life in America have been feeling stale. Plus, she'll get the chance to work under the acclaimed Italian chef Claudio Orlandini. But Nell gets more than she bargained for when she arrives. With only a day to go until the launch dinner for the cooking school, the villa is in shambles, and Chef O is blissfully oblivious to the work that needs to be done before a group of local dignitaries arrives, along with a filmmaker sent to showcase and advertise the new school. The situation only sours when Nell discovers that the filmmaker is an ex-boyfriend—who's then found murdered later that night. Even worse, Chef O has disappeared, and accusations of murder could shut the school down for good. As tensions reach a boiling point, Nell must throw her chef's hat into the ring and investigate the murder herself. Because if she fails to solve the case, her career, or even her life, could be next on the chopping block.