To Have and to Kill (Piper Donovan Series #1)

by Mary Jane Clark

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark delights readers with her tasty new mystery

To Have and to Kill

Piper Donovan never imagined that decorating wedding cakes could be so dangerous! A struggling actress with no immediate prospects and a recently broken engagement, Piper moves back in with her parents to take stock of her life. She steps tentatively into the family bakery business and finds herself agreeing to create a wedding cake for the acclaimed star of a daytime television drama. But soon someone close to the bride-to-be is horribly murdered and it seems that that someone is ruthlessly determined to stop the wedding.

With the help of her former neighbor, Jack, a handsome FBI agent with a soft spot for the gorgeous cake-maker, Piper moves closer to the truth. And as she narrows in on a suspect, she realizes that it's hotter in the kitchen than she may be able to handle. . . .

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062036469
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	12/28/2010
Series:	Piper Donovan Series , #1
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
File size:	1 MB

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

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

The number of characters with motive for murder keeps you guessing,and the action-packed short chapters keep the story moving. You’ll also learn a little about cake decorating, and there’s a sweet surprise at the end. — Library Journal

From the Publisher

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 abandons long-suffering TV newscaster Eliza Blake (Dying for Mercy, 2009, etc.) to launch her new Wedding Cake Mystery series with this glossy tale of premarital homicide.

Glenna Brooks and Piper Donovan have both appeared on the soap opera A Little Rain Must Fall, but that's where the similarity ends. Glenna, continuing as the show's most popular star, is about to marry Casey Walden, a teacher at the Metropolitan School for Girls, which her daughter attends; Piper, who's been virtually unemployed since her character was killed off, is moving back in with her parents. Since everything about Glenna's wedding has to be perfect, she wants famous photographer Martha Killeen to snap the pictures and Piper's mother Terri, who owns The Icing on the Cupcake, to make the cake. But the course of true love doesn't run smooth, and murder interrupts a high-profile charity auction at which the cast has gathered to benefit the school. Was the killer Glenna's embittered ex-con husband Phillip? Casey's brother Arthur, a jeweler who's not about to share the proceeds of the family business? Casey's yearning ex-girlfriend Jessie Terhune, an opportunistic drama teacher? Soap-opera king Quent Raynor, scheming for a coup that will publicize his show's move to Los Angeles? Or Martha herself, whose financial woes have made her desperate for the sort of comeback she could achieve by photographing a murder in progress?

Rated PG-13 for brief violence. But no sex, no language, no detection—not even Piper's FBI friend Jack Lombardi does himself proud—and only a single recipe, which you can find on dozens of online sites.

Kirkus Reviews