Dying for Devil's Food (Cupcake Bakery Mystery, Band 11) - Softcover

McKinlay, Jenn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451492633 ISBN 13: 9780451492630

Verlag: Berkley, 2019

Inhaltsangabe

As the New York Times bestselling series continues, it's going to take every recipe the Fairy Tale Cupcake crew has to whip up a quick defense for Mel Cooper when her high school reunion goes from a cake walk to a car wreck...

Melanie Cooper has zero interest in catering her fifteen-year high school reunion, but Angie insists it's only right that they bask in the success of Fairy Tale Cupcakes--and Mel's engagement to the delicious Joe DeLaura is the cherry on top!

Everything is going better than expected until Cassidy Havers, resident mean girl and Mel's high school nemesis, picks a fight. No longer willing to put up with Cassidy's bullying, Mel is ready to tell the former homecoming queen to shut her piehole and call it a night. But as Mel and Joe prepare to depart, Cassidy is found dead in the girl's bathroom, next to a note written in lipstick that points right to Mel--making her the prime suspect.

Now, Mel must follow the clues to find the real killer and keep her reputation from being frosted for a crime she didn't commit.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jenn McKinlay, the New York Times bestselling author of the Cupcake Bakery Mysteries (including Wedding Cake Crumble, Caramel Crush, and Vanilla Beaned), has baked and frosted cupcakes into the shapes of cats, mice, and outer-space aliens, to name just a few. Writing a mystery series based on one of her favorite food groups (dessert) is as enjoyable as licking the beaters, and she can't wait to whip up the next one. She is also the author of the Hat Shop Mysteries, the Library Lover's Mysteries, the Bluff Point contemporary romances, and the Happily Ever After contemporary romances. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her family.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Jenn McKinlay

Chapter One

“Squeee!”

At the screechy noise, Melanie Cooper squeezed her pastry bag too tight and frosting shot out of the tip into a big glob on top of the cupcake she was decorating for a wedding the next day.

“Angie DeLaura, what was that?” she asked. She blew her blond bangs off her forehead as she glared at her business partner, who had just come running through the swinging doors from the front of the bakery into the kitchen, where Mel was working.

“That’s Angie Harper to you, and”—she paused to strike a pose and fan herself with a large envelope and fancy-looking invitation before she continued—“to everyone else we graduated high school with fifteen years ago.”

“Huh?” Mel frowned at her recently married petite brunette friend.

“Our fifteen-year reunion,” Angie said. She pointed to the envelope in her hand. “It’s coming up and guess who they want to bake cupcakes for it?”

Mel stared at her childhood friend who was the sister of her heart. How could she put this as tactfully and delicately as possible?

“No.” Mel used a rubber spatula to scrape the glob off the ruined cupcake and flicked it into the large garbage bin to her right.

“What?” Angie froze in mid-fan. “What do you mean, no?”

“I have no intention of baking cupcakes for those people,” Mel said.

She bent over the cake in front of her. It was a red velvet cupcake with cream-cheese frosting. She was keeping it simple and working the frosting in a thick smooth swirl that she then sprinkled with small red hearts. Just the thought of going to her high school reunion made her want to mainline the frosting and shove a whole cupcake into her mouth like a boss.

“But . . . but,” Angie stammered. It was clear she hadn’t anticipated this sort of response, which boggled Mel, but she continued on.

“No buts,” she said. “You’re welcome to go to our reunion but I refuse.”

“Mel, I don’t think you’re grasping the big picture here.”

“Oh, I’m grasping it and I’m tossing it away.”

“But look at us,” Angie said. She swung her arms wide to encompass the kitchen and beyond. “We’re hugely successful. We have franchises all over the country. That gives us a moral imperative to show up at our reunion.”

“No.”

“Mel, I know there were some people who hurt your feelings back in the day—”

“Hurt my feelings?” Mel straightened up. She grabbed a pinch of heart-shaped sprinkles and didn’t so much sprinkle them as threw them onto the freshly piped frosting. She stared at her friend. “Angie, they called me ‘Melephant,’ they bullied me about my weight, and Cassidy Havers, in particular, wrote my name in all of the boys’ bathrooms with my phone number. She was vicious and mean and cruel and if I never see her again, it will be too soon.”

“She’s Cassidy Havers-Griffin now,” Angie said.

“Griffin?”

“Yes, as in Daniel Griffin.”

“She married Danny?” Mel asked. She felt her old high school crush spread its wings and rise out of the ashes of her adolescent heart like a phoenix. “When?”

“A couple of years ago,” Angie said. “I think you were in Paris at culinary school at the time.”

“And you didn’t mention it?”

Angie just looked at her and Mel nodded. Yeah, she wouldn’t have told Angie if her high school crush had gotten married, either. Oh, wait, her crush had been Tate Harper and he had gotten married six months ago. To Angie.

“But you’re going to marry Joe,” Angie said. “And you had a much deeper and longer-lasting crush on Joe than on Danny, right?”

“Well, of course, but I can’t believe he married her,” Mel said. She shuddered. “I mean, he was captain of the basketball team and totally out of my league in high school, and she was the homecoming queen, so I guess it makes sense, but I always hoped he’d meet someone . . .”

Mel’s voice trailed off. She was not going to say it out loud.

“More like you?” Angie guessed.

This was the problem with besties, they knew you too well.

“No, not like me,” Mel said. She felt the need to protest even though they both knew she was full of it. “But someone more like me than her.”

“Uh-huh,” Angie said. She lowered her head and glanced at Mel through her eyelashes. “I can’t believe you’re going to let Cassidy Havers keep you from our reunion.”

“Don’t even try it,” Mel said. “You can’t manipulate me into going. You’re not that good.”

“But what about the commission?” Angie asked. “Five hundred cupcakes with little fifteens on them and we can do them in the school colors of gold and black. They will look so cool and we can use them on our website for advertising and get even more reunion jobs.”

“Nope,” Mel said. “I’m not interested.”

She frosted several more cupcakes and added the sprinkles. Angie didn’t move. She just stood there, glaring. Mel knew she was formulating her argument to get Mel on her side. It was never going to happen. Not only because Angie didn’t have her older brother Joe DeLaura’s lawyerly gifts but also because Mel would not be budged on this. She had less than no interest in seeing anyone from her graduating class. Ever.

“So, the idea of strutting into our reunion, looking amazing, as a successful business owner and renowned pastry chef doesn’t appeal to you in the least?” Angie asked.

“Not even a little,” Mel said. “I could not care less what those people think.”

“And the thought of sashaying into the room on prominent assistant county attorney Joe DeLaura’s arm, while flashing that dazzling sparkler of a ring he gave you, does nothing for you, either?” Angie asked.

“Not a thing,” Mel said. “I’m thrilled to be engaged to Joe but he’s not a trophy husband.”

“You sure about that?” Angie asked. “Because I’m pretty sure every woman in our high school, including a few of the teachers, had a thing for Joe.”

It was true, Mel had to concede that, but she wasn’t about to say it out loud or Angie would have her at the reunion so fast her cupcakes would have whiplash.

“I’m sure Joe would be flattered to hear that,” she said.

She hefted one large tray of cupcakes onto her shoulder and carried it to the walk-in cooler for delivery tomorrow morning. When she came back out, she noted that Angie had her chin set in a defiant tilt. Oh, boy, she wasn’t going to let it go. Mel lifted the second tray and carried that one into the cooler as well.

There was no avoiding Angie as Mel began to clean the steel worktable. Cupcakes were a gloriously messy business. She glanced down at her apron to find some dollops of frosting stuck on the front. She smiled.

Despite what she’d said to Angie, she was thrilled with how successful their enterprise Fairy Tale Cupcakes had become and would have loved to brag about it. When she had started the business with her two childhood best friends, Angie DeLaura—now...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2019
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451492633
• ISBN 13: 9780451492630
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland