Piper Donavon is a 27-year-old actress whose character was killed off on a popular soap opera and now has no real prospects for work. When it becomes clear that she's not going to be acting anytime soon, she gives up her Manhattan apartment and moves back in with her parents. Her mother, Terri, is a baker and owns The Icing on the Cupcake bakery. Vin, Piper's father, is very much into being prepared for disasters of any and all kinds. Piper loves her parents and grew up helping her mother bake and decorate cakes, cookies, cupcakes and anything else that Terri made. So she's fine with helping her mother out at the bakery from time to time. However, her true love is acting and she wants to get back to that as soon as she can.

In the meantime, her good friend is getting married and wants Piper's mom to make her wedding cake. Piper is astounded when Terri refuses to make it because she's "too busy." So Piper agrees to make it instead, although she knows something is going on with her mother. Terri has never turned down baking business and she's been making a lot of mistakes lately.

Piper becomes involved in a celebrity auction to benefit an exclusive girls' school that her friend's fiance teaches at. The evening is going great until one of the celebrity auctioneer's drinks a glass of water onstage and collapses. He's dead before he reaches the hospital. The question among people close to the event is whether or not he was the intended victim. It seems that Piper's friend has been getting anonymous notes warning her against getting married.

As the bodies start to pile up, Piper realizes that there's much more to all of this than anyone knows. She turns to her FBI friend, Jack, for help in figuring it all out. There's a definite attraction between these two but Piper doesn't want to risk their friendship if a relationship doesn't pan out. But Jack is more than willing to help her and, before long, he's also involved in the investigation. Can the mystery be solved and the murderer stopped before more people get hurt? And what is going on with Terri?

TO HAVE AND TO KILL is the first book in a brand new series by Mary Jane Clark. She's calling this series A Wedding Cake Mystery and this first entry is an absolute delight to read! Ms. Clark has her characters down so that you get involved with all of them immediately. I cared about these people and want to know more about them. This means that I'll be keeping an eye out for the second book in this series. Not only do you get a great murder mystery, but you also get some guidance on making wedding cakes thrown in. At the end of the book, there's even a recipe included for Piper's Simple Buttercream Icing. Do yourself a favor and spend some time reading this book.