Note: I read this book on NetGalley before it was published. It’s now available for purchase at https://www.amazon.com/Golden-Spoon-Novel-Jessa-Maxwell/dp/1668008009.
*****5 stars.
I loved this book. Part of the appeal to me is that I’ve watched The Great British Bake Off and recognized many of the similarities. Each chapter is told by a different character who is a contestant on the Bake Week show. Besides getting to know each of these people, we also meet the hostess, Betsy Martin, whose home, a Vermont mansion, is where the contestants stay when they’re not baking in the tent. The novel opens with the murder, but it’s not revealed who has been killed.
As contestants are eliminated, it seems someone is tampering with the kitchen, switching the sugar with the salt, lowering the oven’s temperature, etc. Is this the killer? The reader doesn’t find out until other mysteries are solved. One of the subplots involve Lottie, a contestant who grew up with Betsy and is at the contest for the hidden reason of finding out what happened to her mother who worked as a cook at the mansion and disappeared when she was a young girl.
This reads like an Agatha Christie mystery, and I would consider it a cozy culinary mystery, although there aren’t recipes. This is the author’s first book, and it’s a winner. Don’t miss it. Lots of fun and several twists round out this charming tale.
Ruff Drafts 