Book 68, 2024
Sugar Cookies and Scandal by Sue Hollowell
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I sat down last night to begin reading Sugar Cookies and Scandal by Sue Hollowell, and I finished it in one go. It's not that it was engrossing so much as it was short. However, it was chaptered, and I'm counting it. This is the 4th installment in the author's "Belle Harbor" cozy mystery series, starring up and coming baker, Tilly.
Tilly accompanies her shop-neighbor, Florence, to the vet's office when Florence's cat is about to give birth. There, they learn the vet's assistant, Nicole, was murdered. As Tilly encounters people who knew Nicole, she tries to figure out who may have killed the woman. In the meantime, Tilly's Uncle Jack has taken on an estate sale, and the woman he's helping, Linda, is a novice baker. Tilly hires her on as an assistant with one eye on a potential budding romance between Linda and Jack. There's one other mystery puzzling Tilly: why aren't her neighbor's hens laying eggs any more?
This was less of a mystery and more of an update on Tilly's life. She didn't investigate so much as speculate, but that was kind of refreshing. I also appreciated that Tilly didn't find the murder victim. Characterizations were mediocre, and the plot was not terribly cohesive.
Favorite line: "What am I going to do with five cats?" Amateur
Rather banal overall--two stars