Pumpkin Spice Peril is the 12th book in the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series by Jenn McKinlay. When one of Fairy Tale Cupcakes’ favourite customers is murdered, Mel and her crew are on the hunt for a killer.
Title: Pumpkin Spice Peril
Author: Jenn McKinlay
Series: Cupcake Bakery Mystery #12
First Published: April 28, 2020
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Categories: Mystery
Acquired: from the publisher via NetGalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, Berkley Publishing Group, for providing me with an advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
Life is all sugar and spice for the Fairy Tale Cupcake bakers – Melanie Cooper is engaged to hunky Joe DeLaura while Mel’s best friends, Tate and Angie Harper, are savouring their new married life together.
Local glass artist and cupcake lover Rene Fischer-Klein has always suffered from a wide variety of health issues. In an effort to cheer her up, her doting husband, Peter, brings her a 4-pack of her favourite cupcakes every week. But when the police discover that Rene has been poisoned, there’s no sugarcoating the fact that the last things she ate were the bakery’s signature pumpkin spice cupcakes! With their lives and bakery at stake, it’s up to Mel and Angie to find out who poisoned their artist friend and why, before their future is frosted for good.
Murder by cupcake??
Mel, Angie and their staff at Fairy Tale Cupcakes are busy planning a large cupcake order for the opening night of an art-glass installation being created by their friend and long-time customer, Rene Fischer-Klein. Rene and her husband Peter are Mel’s idea of “couple goals” – they have a seemingly loving and supportive marriage.
But things are not as they seem. When Peter stops by the shop to pick up his weekly order of cupcakes for Rene, he confides to Mel that Rene has been feeling sick and acting moody and paranoid. Later, when Mel goes to visit Rene, she finds her friend unkempt and suspicious. Things go from bad to worse when Rene is found dead in her studio. Rene has been poisoned and the last things she ate were … cupcakes from Fairy Tale Cupcakes.
To make things worse, the police chief has begun to be suspicious of why murders always seem to occur when Mel is around and opens an investigation into our favourite cupcake baker. And while the chief seems to (understandably) have it in for Mel, I was far more annoyed by Officer Tara Martinez, aka “Detective Harpy” (as Mel calls her and Mel is a lot nicer than I am). Tara still has a huge chip on her shoulder and her tough cop persona has become more and more annoying with each book in the series.
As for the murder, there are more than a couple of viable suspects, including Peter, Bernadette (a rival artist) and Emersyn (Rene’s intern). While Mel runs around trying to clear her name and solve the case, there’s a ton of other things happening with the other characters. The murder almost feels like a secondary plot when there’s so much else going on that I wanted to find out more about.
Lots of change is in the air for Fairy Tale Cupcakes
As a long-time reader of this series, the usual fun-loving capers abound. There’s the usual antics with the Fairy Tale Cupcakes staff, Angie’s brothers and Mel’s mother. And let’s not forget one of the quirky things I loved about this series – the movie quotes that Mel, Angie and Tate throw into their conversations (this doesn’t happen as often as it used to).
Since this is the 12th book in the series, it’s almost a given that there are going to be some changes in the air for the characters. Mel continues to plan for her wedding to Joe. Angie and Tate are settling into their wedded life. Oz has changed from a goth punk to a well-groomed grown-up (to Mel’s alarm). Angie’s brothers make longer appearances and we’re getting more details into their personal lives. Mel’s mother has started dating again. Whew!
McKinlay’s writing and characters are as strong as ever – she is one of my favourite cozy mystery authors and it’s easy to see why. Her books are incredibly easy to read and packed with fun and action. I did feel that there was a bit *too* much going on with all the characters at the same time in this story and it felt a bit chaotic. As much as I understand the need for change, I also don’t want change. LOL. Still, this is another fun addition to the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series (one of my favourite series) and I’m looking forward to the next one!
Read Pumpkin Spice Peril for yourself
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Well, that’s another book for my #AtoZCozy2020 Reading Challenge!
I’m so happy to add Jenn McKinlay as the letter “M” to my year-long alphabet challenge – only 17 more letters to go! I’ve been trying to discover new authors during this challenge but it’s always nice to have favourites to read as well and I couldn’t resist since there was a new book in one of my favourite culinary cozy mystery series.
If you’d like to learn more about the challenge, have some suggestions or want to join in, check out my blog post about it here.
