Bailey King works in Swissmen Sweets, the candy shop which she runs with her Amish grandmother in Harvest, Ohio. Bailey wasn’t born here, but came for summers and has now made the town her home after training as a chocolatier in New York. BOTCHED BUTTERSCOTCH is a short and sweet novella which will please anyone who has been finding even a cosy murder mystery a bit too stressful.  

Bailey is still finding her feet among the Amish since she arrived a year ago, but she has a handsome boyfriend, the police officer Deputy Aiden Brody, and she is more likely to get cooperation from the Amish in a crime investigation. Technically she’s almost one of them, more so than an Englisch officer. The first half of this novella keeps us busy following activities, including Bailey’s parents dropping in for a visit, and a sumptuous tea being organised for a charity, held in the town’s church hall.  I won’t discuss the crime, as the fact that the novella is only 80 pages long and some of that is in the first chapter of another book, does make for rapid sleuthing.  Suffice it to say that among the interesting characters we meet are two prize pigs, one of which is an emotional support animal and is portrayed on the cover. Well, it’s that kind of story. Have fun and see if you can unravel the mystery before the sharp-witted Bailey.

I previously read Lethal Licorice by Amanda Flower, in this Amish Candy Shop mystery series, and I’m just as keen to get started on her similarly themed Appleseed Creek series. At times, hard-boiled crime stories are quite depressing, but a cosy mystery has all the puzzle-solving elements but none of the bleakness. Sometimes we need to read about a community coming together in the face of a crime, rather than about serial killers and terrorism. BOTCHED BUTTERSCOTCH is an enjoyable light read and even features a recipe. How can you resist?