Sugar Plum Poisoned (Cupcake Bakery Mystery, Band 15) - Softcover

McKinlay, Jenn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593549120 ISBN 13: 9780593549124

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

It’s Christmastime, and this holiday season, things are heating up for the bakers at Fairy Tale Cupcakes, in the newest Cupcake Bakery Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay.

When up-and-coming singing sensation Shelby Vaughn arrives in town for two weeks of concert dates, she hires her old friend Angie and the rest of the bakery crew to supply cupcakes for the VIP guest lounge every night.

After overhearing Shelby in a heated argument with her manager, Mel is concerned, but she and the crew decide to make the best of their time working with the star. Just as the bakers fall into the rhythm of the job, Shelby’s manager is found dead, clutching a bit of fabric from a Santa suit and a cupcake. With the bakery crew and Shelby’s backup dancers all dressed in similar Santa costumes, it’s impossible to say who is the killer. When all suspicions lead back to Shelby, Mel and Angie stand up for their friend, determined to prove her innocence before she’s frosted for a crime she didn’t commit.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jenn McKinlay is the award-winning New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of several mystery and romance series. Her work has been translated into multiple languages in countries all over the world. She lives in sunny Arizona in a house that is overrun with kids, pets, and her husband's guitars.

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One

"Oh . . . wow," Angie Harper said. She was perched on a stool in the kitchen of the bakery Fairy Tale Cupcakes, which she owned with her husband, Tate Harper, and best friend Melanie DeLaura.

Mel blew the bangs of her short-cropped blond hair out of her eyes and glanced at her friend across the steel worktable. "What's up?"

"A VIP is coming to Scottsdale," Angie said. She wiggled on her chair, an indication of her excitement.

"And . . ." Mel twisted the end of the piping bag full of rum-flavored frosting before she lowered it to the top of an eggnog-flavored cupcake, which she decorated with a fat dollop of frosting. Angie didn't answer, so Mel glanced back up to find her friend staring at her with wide eyes.

Mel lowered the pastry bag. "Okay, you have my full attention. Or you will as soon as you garnish that cupcake."

"Oh, right!" Angie dusted a little bit of nutmeg onto the fresh frosting. She then turned her phone so that Mel could see the display.

It showed a picture of a woman wearing a sequined, hot pink, micromini dress and over-the-knee white leather stiletto boots, with a blond head of hair that was a mass of curls that reached her lower back. She was unmistakable. Shelby Vaughn.

"Oh," Mel said. She tried to say it without any inflection. She and Angie had a complicated history with Shelby in that Angie loved her and Mel not so much.

"She's in residence at the Hotel Grande for the entire holiday season," Angie said. "And, get this, she wants us, Fairy Tale Cupcakes, to cater her VIP events."

"Really." Again, Mel strove to keep her voice even, giving no indication of her feelings away. It didn't work.

"I know you don't like her," Angie said. She met Mel's gaze across the steel worktable. Angie's long brown curls were styled in a messy bun on top of her head. She was wearing her usual T-shirt and jeans under a bright pink apron with the bakery's logo on the front and her name embroidered across the bib.

"It's not that I don't like her. I don't know her," Mel protested. "She's from your life with Roach, of which Tate and I were not included."

Angie nodded. "I know, those were some crazy days, but I really like Shelby, and when you get to know her, I'm sure you will, too."

Mel stared at her friend. Before marrying their mutual childhood best friend, Tate Harper, Angie had dated a rock and roll drummer named Roach who played in a band called the Sewers. It had been a chaotic few months with Angie traveling back and forth from Los Angeles to Scottsdale and then going on tour with the band for brief stints. She had met a lot of famous people, one of which was Shelby Vaughn, who had been the opening act for the Sewers that summer and who'd had several hit singles since.

Mel had no idea how Tate was going to handle Angie's rock and roll days coming back into their life, and she wondered if she should point that out to Angie or let the married couple deal with it on their own. Being best friends ever since they'd all been in the sixth grade together with Tate Harper and Angie Harper née DeLaura made Mel's life a teeny bit complicated when things like this cropped up. Sort of like when Tate almost married Christie Stevens. During that drama fest, Mel had felt her best course of action was to keep her mouth shut. She suspected this was exactly what she should do right now. Consequently, she pressed her lips together to keep from saying anything.

"Um, Mel, we have a situation out here." Marty Zelaznik, their octogenarian counter help, poked his bald head around the swinging door from the front of the bakery.

Mel gently put her pastry bag down.

"What sort of situation?" Mel asked.

"A limousine has pulled up outside," Marty said. "A pink one."

"Ah!" Angie hopped off her stool. "That has to be Shelby."

She dashed towards the swinging door, barely giving Marty enough time to jump back before she plowed into him.

Marty grabbed the still-swinging door and held it open. He glanced at Mel and asked, "Who is Shelby?"

"Trouble," Mel said. "I think she's a whole lot of trouble."

Marty's eyebrows rose as Mel walked past him into the main room of the bakery. The jukebox was playing Christmas carols in the corner, and the normally heavy-on-the-pink bakery interior was festooned with garlands of green and red and strings of white twinkling lights. Even the cupcakes in the display case were predominantly green and red, reinforcing the holiday season that was in full swing in Old Town Scottsdale, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Arizona.

Angie was kneeling in a vacant booth, staring out the front window, watching the limo in the street. Mel stayed behind the counter. She refused to act weird just because a celebrity might be stopping by their bakery. She'd seen celebrities before. This was so not a big deal.

"It's her!" Angie cried. She scrambled off the booth seat and ran for the door.

Before she could reach it, it was pulled open and in strode Shelby Vaughn. She didn't look like the picture Angie had just shown Mel. Instead, she was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a pink and purple flannel shirt over a plain white tank top. Her face was scrubbed free of makeup, and her hair was covered with a floppy brimmed straw hat. She looked like she had just come in from the cow pasture on a farm.

"Is that . . . ?" Oz, a former employee of the bakery, began to speak, but when Shelby turned at the sound of his voice and met his gaze, his words dried up and he blushed a deep shade of red.

Oz, whose full name was Oscar Ruiz, was now a chef in his own kitchen at the Sun Dial Resort but he lived in the apartment above the bakery and still popped in to help out or help himself to a cup of coffee and a quick visit at least once a day, sometimes twice depending upon what Mel was baking.

"Smooth, real smooth," Marty muttered out of the side of his mouth at Oz, who frowned.

"Shelby!" Angie cried. She grabbed the young woman in a hug and Shelby laughed, her whole face lighting up as she squeezed Angie in return. "I can't believe you're here."

"I know!" Shelby cried. She rocked Angie back and forth in an exuberant embrace. "A few weeks in one place. I'm so happy. Now where is this husband of yours and your baby girl? I'm dying to meet them both."

"Tate is off dealing with opening another franchise in Michigan but he'll be back tomorrow," Angie said. "And my daughter, Emari, is with my mother this morning while I work. She started walking a couple of months ago, so I can't bring her to the bakery anymore. That child gets into everything and she's quick like a cat."

"I can't wait to see her," Shelby said. "I'm sure she's as amazing as her mama."

"More," Angie confirmed. "But here, come meet Mel. She's been my best friend since sixth grade and she recently married my brother Joe."

Angie looped her arm through Shelby's and dragged her over to Mel.

"Hi." Mel waved but Shelby wasn't having it.

She opened her arms wide and pulled Mel into a big hug. "Any friend of Angie's is a friend of mine."

"Oh, okay," Mel said. She bent down to hug the petite woman. Being on the tall side, Mel always had to reach down to hug people, which she was used to, but Shelby was so tiny and delicate and perfectly formed that Mel felt like a giantess next to her, which was not something she'd felt in a very long time. It gave her a horrible flashback to her teen years when she'd been taller and wider than most of her classmates and incessantly teased about it.

Shelby's hug was mercifully short, and Mel straightened back up. She gestured to Marty and Oz. "This is Marty, our counter person, and Oz, a former employee who still helps out from time to time."

"Nice to meet...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593549120
• ISBN 13: 9780593549124
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 305
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland