The Look of Love (Wedding Cake Mystery Series #2)

( 33 )

Overview

“One of the most talented story tellers around.”
—Associated Press

“Clark has perfected the suspense novel…in classic Christie fashion.”
—Booklist

New York Times bestseller Mary Jane Clark introduced readers to professional wedding cake decorator and amateur sleuth Piper Donavan in her acclaimed mystery novel To Have and To Kill. Piper’s back in The Look of Love, on cake creating assignment at a West Coast luxury spa for the wealthy and ...

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The Look of Love (Wedding Cake Mystery Series #2)

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More About This Book

Overview

“One of the most talented story tellers around.”
—Associated Press

“Clark has perfected the suspense novel…in classic Christie fashion.”
—Booklist

New York Times bestseller Mary Jane Clark introduced readers to professional wedding cake decorator and amateur sleuth Piper Donavan in her acclaimed mystery novel To Have and To Kill. Piper’s back in The Look of Love, on cake creating assignment at a West Coast luxury spa for the wealthy and famous—where nip and tuck and murder are offered in equal measures. Clark really hits her stride with The Look of Love, providing a winning recipe for delectable mystery that combines chills, twists, humor and often very romantic suspense in the bestselling vein of Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark, Faye Kellerman, Elizabeth Lowell, and Jayne Ann Krentz. She even includes scrumptious pastry recipes and fabulous cake design tips.

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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly
At the start of Clark’s diverting second Piper Donovan cozy (after 2011’s To Have and to Kill), Piper, a New York City cake decorator and aspiring actress, receives an invitation to stay, all-expenses-paid, at Elysium, one of L.A.’s most exclusive spas, in exchange for making the wedding cake for the owner’s daughter, the beautiful Jillian Abernathy. Alas, Jillian’s pending nuptials have not gone well. First, someone disfigures Jillian’s maid, mistaking her for her employer. And before the ailing maid can identify her assailant, she’s murdered. These unfortunate events, once leaked to the press, tarnish the spa’s reputation and reveal the grit behind the glitter. As Jillian’s wedding grows near, the attacks continue, drawing closer to the bride. While Piper may make an unlikely detective, she has personality, which is more than can be said of the supporting cast of familiar types (vengeful stepmother, doting oblivious father, etc.). (Jan.)
Romantic TimesBOOKclub
Piper Donovan, professional cake decorator, actress and amateur sleuth, is back. A multilayered plot filled with murder, a taste of jealousy and a healthy dose of madness and mistaken identity is frosted liberally with a rich confection of humor and romantic suspense.
Booklist
Clark fans will enjoy the short chapters, interconnected plotlines, and multiple points of view, all of which keep the pages turning.
Romantic Times BOOKclub
Piper Donovan, professional cake decorator, actress and amateur sleuth, is back. A multilayered plot filled with murder, a taste of jealousy and a healthy dose of madness and mistaken identity is frosted liberally with a rich confection of humor and romantic suspense.
USA Today
“She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.”
Library Journal
In this second installment of Clark's series (after To Have and To Kill), aspiring actress, professional cake decorator, and amateur sleuth Piper flies to Los Angeles to decorate a cake for Jillian Abernathy, the rich, beautiful daughter of the founder of Elysium Spa. Piper's agent has also managed to arrange an audition for her. The spa's exquisite surroundings seem to harbor ugly secrets, however, and Piper is soon embroiled in murder, deceit, and a host of unsavory events. Short chapters with shifting points of view help the story's pace while fragmenting the plot enough so that the reader can't be certain who has the best motive for murder until close to the end. Touches of humor keep the mystery light, the baking subplot keeps it cozy, and there is enough going on with family and Piper's newly developing relationship to keep it real. VERDICT Clark's fans and readers who enjoy mysteries in the vein of Mary Higgins Clark may want to check this out. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/11.]—Pamela O'Sullivan, Coll. at Brockport Lib., SUNY
Kirkus Reviews
Whoever's trying to kill Jillian Abernathy certainly is making a hash of the job. New Year's Day should herald a wonderful new year for the director of Los Angeles' fabulous Elysium Spa. But how can Jillian savor her upcoming nuptials with handsome psychiatrist Benjamin Dixon knowing that her housecleaner, Esperanza Flores, has been disfigured by acid meant to be thrown in Jillian's own face? Only by engaging actress/baker Piper Donovan (To Have and to Kill, 2010, etc.) to construct the perfect wedding cake. Abandoning her patient swain, FBI agent Jack Lombardi, to fly to L.A. for her all-expenses-paid week at Elysium, Piper is quickly drawn to Jillian. "I feel sorry for her. Talk about bad karma," she says after a second attack leaves unmourned Esperanza dead. Many people, Piper soon realizes, have it in for her client. There's Hudson Sherwood, the former Elysium director who's now toiling as a lowly hotel clerk. And George Ellis, whose daughter Wendy lost most of her nose to a botched surgery by Jillian's father, plastic surgeon Vernon Abernathy. And Kyle Quigley, the paramedical esthetician whose "sleep therapy" includes services his clients know nothing about. Undercover reporter Anastasia Fernands quickly enlists Piper to help get the goods on Kyle. But another Elysium guest will die before Piper finally realizes who the killer is--just in time to get attacked herself. In a manner strikingly reminiscent of the author's famous ex-mother-in-law, everything turns out in time for the diminished wedding party to enjoy a cake made from "the best pumpkin bread they have ever tasted."
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780061995569
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 1/17/2012
  • Series: Wedding Cake Mystery Series , #2
  • Pages: 340
  • Sales rank: 585,198
  • Product dimensions: 5.90 (w) x 8.40 (h) x 1.20 (d)

Meet the Author

Like Piper Donovan, New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark has a mother who made customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when Mary Jane was growing up. After a career at CBS News and writing twelve media thrillers, the author is currently taking cake-decorating classes herself, having fun as she works on her baking skills and concocts her next novel.

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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 33 )
Rating Distribution

5 Star

(20)

4 Star

(5)

3 Star

(4)

2 Star

(1)

1 Star

(3)

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Sort by: Showing all of 6 Customer Reviews

  • Posted February 29, 2012

    highly recommended

    I have always enjoyed her books. This one was very good. I would
    recommend everyone to read this book.

    2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted February 14, 2012

    more from this reviewer

    KEPT ME GUESSING!!

    This series keeps getting better...fast paced...great characters and lots of plot twists. This was one of the best mysteries I've read in a long time. Anxiously awaiting the next in this series...nice going Mary Jane!!

    2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted June 14, 2012

    more from this reviewer

    Even though the storyline is similar to other murder mystery nov

    Even though the storyline is similar to other murder mystery novels, it is still a good read. The descriptions allow the reader to feel as if he/she is right there in the middle of the suspense. Also, there are several suspects to select from and you may not guess the identity until he/she is revealed. This was a nice weekend distraction from the reality of life.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 19, 2012

    Excellent Author

    I like all of Mary Jane Clark Books

    1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted February 11, 2012

    highly recommended

    read in 2 days very good

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted January 18, 2012

    Piper Donovan: A New and Engaging Heroine!

    Invited out to the West Coast to decorate a wedding cake for Jillian Abernathy, the beautiful director of Elysium, a luxury spa and cosmetic surgery center nestled in the Hollywood hills, 28-year-old Piper Donovan already knows that the wedding had been postponed once because Jillian's housecleaner had received a disfiguring splash of acid in her face. The moment Piper arrives, the housecleaner, who has been recuperating at Elysium at the invitation of Jillian's surgeon-father, is murdered -- and so begins a wicked countdown to the wedding which someone clearly doesn't want to see happen. Along the way, others die and Piper is lured into a web of mystery that will, before the fast-paced and chilling conclusion, count Piper herself as the next victim. An investigative journalist who is working undercover at the spa invites Piper to join her in unmasking a darkly unscrupulous member of Elysium's staff but, all the while, he and a very believable set of suspects go about their business in such a way that any one of them could be the killer. "The Look of Love" is the second in Mary Jane Clark's new series of cozies and, in her signature short chapters, Ms. Clark has concocted a delicious confection of tension, suspicion and foreboding that make the book nearly impossible to put down. Piper Donovan is a young, attractive and engaging heroine, so here's hoping that her adventures have only just begun!

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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