Bun for Your Life (A Bread and Batter Mystery)
Publisher: InterMix (November 17, 2015)
Cozy Mystery

Synopsis

As the co-owners of Bread and Batter Bakery in Destiny, New York, Molly Tyler and Olivia Williams have plenty on their plates. Molly is recently divorced and looking for a place to live, but they’re also both preparing for Destiny’s annual Apple Harvest Fair. The bakery has a booth where they’ll be selling not only delicious cupcakes and cider doughnuts, but also tote bags and t-shirts emblazoned with the bakery’s logo.

Tensions rise at the fair when local orchard owner Calista Danforth discovers organizers have assigned her usual booth to Bread and Batter. Although a heated argument ensues between her and Molly, the bakery manages to rake in lots of dough. But when Calista is found strangled to death with one of their t-shirts, Molly is named the prime suspect. Now these two friends must whip up some answers quickly before the future of their business crumbles…

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Review

A new cozy series that is sorta set in a bakery (the protagonist owns one but not a ton of time is spent in the shop) and they make donuts, yum, among other things! All is well in town until Calista is found dead, after releasing a new variety of apple. She is found dead with a donut from said bakery and one of their t-shirts wrapped around her neck. Enter the new detective in town, he of course questions Molly since the items came from her shop, but I don’t think he really thinks she did it. Of course Molly decides to take matters into her own hands and find the killer for the detective.

Overall this was a good book. I did find Molly irritating at times when she was so insistent on sticking her nose into it despite texting with the Detective (while he was out of town) and demanding to know who the suspects were.

I really liked Jane, who is Molly’s ex grandmother in law. She is suffering from dementia but is on meds that give her some better days. She is the one that gives Molly some clues to dig up and pinpoint who the killer might be.

While they try to point the finger at a few of the ex-boyfriends of Calista, my sights were on someone else but for no reason other than this character seemed strange, or at least some of their actions.

I did find one spot where there was some inconsistency – but i was reading an ARC so hopefully it was caught in editing!

I’m not sure I liked all the texting back and forth – yes it was how Molly and Sean needed to communicate while he was out of town, but seemed like too much to me. Oh and Molly would turn her phone off after texting him? There are jokes about how she has a cell phone but doesn’t use it like most people – which is good and bad!

We give this 3 1/2 paws and think it will be a series to continue reading.

About The Author

After having several short stories published, I decided to tackle novel writing a few years ago. My first book, The Art of Being Rebekkah, is women’s fiction. Since the genre I love is mystery, my agent suggested I write one. I’m so glad she did! I recently signed with Penguin/Intermix for my Bread and Batter cozy mystery series. The first two books, Bun For Your Life and Raisin The Dead, coming soon!

I’ve live in lots of different places during my life. At the moment, I’m in a small Connecticut town with my husband. When I’m not writing, I’m either reading, spending time by the water, traveling, indulging in social media, accompanying above-mentioned husband to New York Yankees games, or doing anything that does not involve math.

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