Some books I consulted while researching S'more Murders. "I want you to duplicate the final dinner served on the Titanic. Ten courses for eight people.”

Val Deniston stared at Otto Warbeck. Was he joking? Not visibly. The yacht owner had wrinkles in his forehead, but no smile lines. Not a man given to jests. When she’d agreed to cater a dinner for him on the Chesapeake Bay, she hadn’t expected him to demand an elaborate, custom-made meal, not to mention one with really bad karma. --S'more Murders, Chapter 1
Today is the 106th anniversary of the day when the Titanic hit an iceberg. When I started researching S'more Murders, my Titanic-themed culinary mystery, I was surprised to find long shelves of nonfiction about the disaster at my local library, a small subset of the books on the subject. A Google search of Titanic brings up 28 million hits. A rare copy of a menu from the first meal served aboard the Titanic is slated for auction later this month, expected to sell for 100,000 British pounds (140,000 U.S. dollars).

What explains this fascination with a disaster that claimed 1500 lives more than a century ago? Comment with your thoughts for a chance to win an Advanced Reader Edition of S'more Murders. To comment, click on the word "Comments" in the column to the left of this post.
Read more about the book and the contest below. 
In S'more Murders, my 5th Five-Ingredient Mystery, the victim and suspects include Titanic memorabilia collectors, dealers, and thieves, as well as a descendant of a Titanic survivor. ​

As warm April weather brings boaters to the Chesapeake Bay, Val agrees to cater a dinner party aboard a yacht. Its owner, a collector of Titanic memorabilia, asks her to re-create the final meal served on that doomed ship. On the anniversary of the Titanic disaster, the yachtsman welcomes his guests aboard and assigns them roles in a murder mystery game called Death on the Titanic. Val soon reaches the chilling conclusion that the host is fishing for the culprit in a real crime. When someone disappears from the yacht, Val and her grandfather have to reel in a killer before s’more murders go down. 

Available now for preorder, S'more Murders comes out on July 31, 2017. ​To enter a contest for an advanced edition, leave a comment about Titanic fascination. The contest ends on May 1st.