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.)
She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.” — USA Today
Clark fans will enjoy the short chapters, interconnected plotlines, and multiple points of view, all of which keep the pages turning. — Booklist
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. — Romantic Times BOOKclub
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.” — Kirkus Reviews
Touchesof 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.… Clark’s fans and readers who enjoy mysteries in the vein of Mary Higgins Clark may want to check this out. — Library Journal
...Clark’s diverting second Piper Donovan cozy... — Publishers Weekly
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.
Clark fans will enjoy the short chapters, interconnected plotlines, and multiple points of view, all of which keep the pages turning.
She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.
Clark fans will enjoy the short chapters, interconnected plotlines, and multiple points of view, all of which keep the pages turning.
She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.
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.
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
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."
