After a broken engagement and growing disillusionment with
her floundering acting career, Piper Donovan has left the
bright lights and big city of New York to live at home with
her parents and occasionally help her mother Terri out at
her bakery, Icing On The Cupcake. Piper keeps her hand in
the acting game by taking on a small reoccurring role in a
daytime soap opera that her best friend, Glenna, stars on.
When Glenna announces that she's marrying her new
boyfriend, math teacher Casey Walden, Piper offers to make
the wedding cake. But the wedding bells just might not ring
after a co-star is horribly murdered and Glenna begins to
receive threatening notes warning her against going through
with the marriage.
With help from her occasional boy-friend, FBI agent Jack
Lombardi, Piper follows the many leads that all seem to
lead right back to Glenna's new fiancé, but the math just
doesn't add up to show enough proof to arrest the math
teacher. The real killer just might have the last laugh
unless Piper can mix up a new suspect before the bride
doesn't make it down the aisle.
Meanwhile, when she isn't busy tracking down a killer,
Piper must puzzle out the reason behind her mother's sudden
odd behavior in the bakery and finds her parents have been
keeping an important matter secret from her for a very long
time.
Author Mary Jane Clark is well-known for her career with
CBS News as well as her mesmerizing "KEY News Mystery"
series. But growing up with a mom who baked and decorated
cakes for all the kids in the neighborhood, Clark knew that
writing a mystery series that featured cake decorating
would be a natural for her. And she was right!
TO HAVE AND TO KILL is the first book in Clark's
debut "Wedding Cake Mystery" series, and it is as sweet as
buttercream icing, but also as suspenseful as waiting to
see if the cake is going to rise.
I found the heartwarming relationship between Piper and her
mom is the key ingredient to this new series, but I also
appreciated Mary Jane Clark's expertise in developing and
presenting a flawless mystery that keeps readers on the
edge of their seats. (Plus as a former cake decorator
myself, I can attest to the correctness of Clark's
descriptions of making icing roses -- she "nailed" it on the
head! Cake decorators will know what I mean!)
TO HAVE AND TO KILL mixes up the best in sweet family
fiction with a spicy little murder story that results in a
cozy mystery novel that is a pleasure to enjoy. I look
forward to future books in this series.
Piper Donovan never imagined that decorating wedding cakes
could be so dangerous! A struggling actress with no
immediate prospects and a recently broken engagement, Piper
moves back in with her parents to take stock of her life.
She steps tentatively into the family bakery business and
finds herself agreeing to create a wedding cake for the
acclaimed star of a daytime television drama. But soon
someone close to the bride-to-be is horribly murdered and it
seems that that someone is ruthlessly determined to stop the
wedding.
With the help of her former neighbor, Jack, a handsome FBI
agent with a soft spot for the gorgeous cake-maker, Piper
moves closer to the truth. And as she narrows in on a
suspect, she realizes that it's hotter in the kitchen than
she may be able to handle. . . .
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