Review by Booklist Review
Arriving in a snowstorm, California girl Madison Montgomery has come to New Bison, Michigan, to receive her great Aunt Octavia's bequest of a mansion on the lake and a popular bakery. Meeting with a lawyer, Maddy learns that to receive the bequest, she needs to live in the mansion for a year and run the bakery--and care for Baby, a 200-pound mastiff. A lover of designer clothes and all things social media, Maddy is wholly unprepared for her new responsibilities. For starters, she doesn't bake. Then the mayor is fatally stabbed, Maddy's fingerprints are the murder weapon, and a fire set to cover up the crime destroys the bakery. Now committed not only to clearing her name, but also to making the business a -success--using social media, of course--she starts by learning to bake. Townspeople loyal to Aunt Octavia--they call themselves the Baker Street Irregulars--support Maddy's search for the killer. A lively series launch, with an edgier heroine than in the baking-framed novels of Joanne Fluke.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A Navy brat inherits a bakery in rural Michigan. Madison Montgomery carries all the baggage of a typical cozy heroine, albeit in a Louis Vuitton suitcase. Dumped by her high-earner fiance: check. Contentious relationship with her father, an admiral, that makes her yearn to succeed on her own terms: check. Inheritance from her grandmother with some pesky strings attached: check. Less common for the genre, Maddy is Black, and she's young enough to document her life on Instagram. When she learns that she's now the owner of Baby Cakes in New Bison, Michigan, provided that she operates her late grandma's bakery for a full year and cares for her giant mastiff, Baby, she responds with a burst of hashtags: #NewVenture #EntrepreneurLife #LoveEnglishMastiffs. With the help of loyal Baby Cakes employees Leroy Danielson and Hannah Portman, sales skyrocket. When mayor Paul Rivers is killed in the bakery, prompting the police to shut down the crime scene, Maddy simply moves the operation into her grandmother's large, though uninspected and unlicensed, home kitchen and continues to sell her popular delicacies out of her garage. From then on, it's pretty cookie cutter. Maddy dates most of New Bison's eligible bachelors until she figures out who's a good guy and who's a bad guy and rattles enough cages that the killer eventually comes after her. #StandardCozyPlot #HealthCodeViolations. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
