The Look of Love (Piper Donovan Series #2)

by Mary Jane Clark

Overview

Nestled in the Hollywood Hills, the ultra-luxurious Elysium spa and plastic surgery center caters to the rich and famous who are in need of "refreshing"—a nip here, a tuck there, a little Botox, a little detox. When Jillian Abernathy, Elysium's owner, offers actress and professional cake artist Piper Donovan an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to create a dazzling and unique wedding cake, Piper eagerly accepts. The job, after all, will give her the time and distance she needs to sort out her feelings for handsome FBI agent Jack Lombardi.

At Elysium, everything seems picture-perfect—until a guest is brutally murdered in one of the private bungalows. Someone, it seems, wants to make sure the spa's beautiful director never gets to walk down the aisle. And now Piper must dig beneath the glamorous surface of this idyllic oasis to uncover a very ugly truth—and a cold-blooded plan for murder.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062106964
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	01/17/2012
Series:	Piper Donovan Series , #2
Edition description:	Large Print
Pages:	359
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mary Jane Clark worked at CBS News for nearly three decades. Her twelve KEY News media thrillers were inspired by that experience. Envisioning the Piper Donovan/Wedding Cake mystery series, Mary Jane enrolled in cake-decorating classes and researched unique wedding locations. The daughter of an FBI agent and a mother who customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when she was growing up, Mary Jane has two grown children and splits her time between New Jersey and Florida. She is currently concocting her next novel.

Editorial Reviews

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

Clark fans will enjoy the short chapters, interconnected plotlines, and multiple points of view, all of which keep the pages turning.

Booklist

She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.

USA Today

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

From the Publisher

She understands how to hang on to her audience. Her characters are the sorts with whom many readers identify.

USA Today

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 TimesBOOKclub

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."

Kirkus Reviews