Meet Your Baker

I picked up this first book in the Bakeshop Mystery series because I was recently given the 22nd book in this cozy mystery series and wanted to see where it all started.

This series centres around Juliet 'Jules' Capshaw, a pastry chef who has traveled the world and returns to her small town in Oregon with a broken heart to help her mom with her bakery. When a body is found in the bakery, Jules puts herself in the middle of the investigation.

This would be a good pick for readers with a sweet tooth (the recipes mentioned are found in the back of the book) who are looking for an easy-going murder mystery with the requisite small-town charm and a few twists. Where it lacked a bit for me is in its secondary characters who I didn't connect well with and I found the story to feel a bit too drawn out. But readers should be happy with the twist and the small spark of mild rekindled romance.

Final Thoughts: A decent start to the series. I'm eager to jump into the 22nd book to see how things have fared for Jules since this book and hope to get a better feel for the town and its inhabitants.

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Ellie Alexander

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Series: Bakeshop Mysteries 1

Type and Source: ebook from public library

Publisher: St Martin's Press

First Published: Dec 30, 2014

Read: Dec 20-25, 2025

Book Description from GoodReads: Welcome to Torte-a friendly, small-town family bake shop where the treats are so good that, sometimes, it's criminal...

After graduating from culinary school, Juliet Capshaw returns to her quaint hometown of Ashland, Oregon, to heal a broken heart and help her mom at the family bakery. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is bringing in lots of tourists looking for some crumpets to go with their heroic couplets. But when one of Torte's customers turns up dead, there's much ado about murder...

The victim is Nancy Hudson, the festival's newest board member. A modern-day Lady Macbeth, Nancy has given more than a few actors and artists enough reasons to kill her...but still. The silver lining? Jules's high school sweetheart, Thomas, is the investigator on the case. His flirtations are as delicious as ever, and Jules can't help but want to have her cake and eat it too. But will she have her just desserts? Murder might be bad for business, but love is the sweetest treat of all...