Published 2022

Summary

Maddy Montgomery is an internet influencer from Los Angeles who loves the finer things in life, but when her fiance stands her up at the wedding she feels like something needs to change. Her Great Aunt Octavia, a woman she didn’t know well at all, has passed away and left her an inheritance, so Maddy heads straight from the church to New Bison, Michigan. She’s hoping that once she sells her aunt’s property she’ll at least have enough money to pay her dad back the money he’d spent on the wedding. Instead, she finds that she has inherited a bakery, a home, and an exceptionally large dog, but they will only be hers if she lives in New Bison for an entire year caring for the dog and running the bakery. This is not the future she had envisioned, and when the bakery catches fire and a body is found inside, she is tempted to give up and run away. However, it’s possible that she may have reached the point where she is tired of letting others make decisions for her. Maybe it’s time to take control of her life. 

My Thoughts

I loved this book from the very first page. It would have been fun to watch Maddy move to town and settle in and learn to bake even if there hadn’t been a mystery involved – though it was a very good mystery. 

Maddy Montgomery is an amazing character. She is super-intelligent, fluent in a number of languages, gifted at marketing, creative, stylish, and entirely unaware of how special she is. She knows she’s attractive, she knows high-end fashion (She doesn’t really do casual. She doesn’t even own a pair of sneakers), and she knows social media, but until her Aunt Octavia, nobody had ever believed in her. She may be a bit spoiled, but she’s also hard-working. I’m so excited to see how Maddy’s character will grow over-time. 

Baby, the 250 pound English Mastiff, is a cuddly and totally lovable character too. I could almost be convinced that I want a giant dog. Baby is exceptionally well-trained, except around pizza and croissants, but I’m not well trained around those either, so I find the puppy’s antics adorable. 

Given that this is the first book in the series, where a lot of time is spent developing characters and setting the scene, the mystery is quite good. While it’s clear early on who some of the really nasty people in town are, they aren’t the only ones with motives. There are some interesting red herrings and a secondary mystery. Great Aunt Octavia knew something was going on in town before she died and she left clues for Maddy to discover. I love a mystery where we can’t be quite sure who to trust. 

What Else I Liked

• I am ready to move in to Great Aunt Octavia’s house. Georgian style with high ceilings, walls of windows and views of the lake! And it has a library!!! And a professional kitchen!!! 

• I love the way relationships are beginning to develop. It’s really sweet watching Maddy start to form a connection with her Great Aunt. She realizes they had a shared love of reading mysteries, but over the course of the book she learns exactly how much this woman she barely knew had loved her and looked out for her, at first from a distance, and now by helping her find out who she is in the world. Meanwhile, she’s building up some firm friendships with the baker street irregulars.

• The banter between Michael and Maddy was very funny. 

• There are some scrumptious looking recipes in the back of the book. That’s a really good thing because this book made me so hungry!

What I Didn’t Like

• I wish that all of the mysteries had been wrapped up in the first book, but I believe Maddy is aware that one is not solved. I worry when that happens, because I often lose track of details before I can read further books in a series.

Rated 5/5

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About The Author

Valerie Burns, who also writes as V.M. Burns, is the author of the Baker Street, Mystery Bookshop, Dog Club, and RJ Franklin mystery series. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, Dog Writers of America, and the Crime Writers’ Association, and her works have been finalists for both the Agatha and Edgar Awards. She hold a Master’s degree in Business from the University of Notre Dame and an MFA from Seton Hill University.