Retro Reads: Cherry Sinister Murder

Now, this was a fun story! As usual I will provide the Goodreads synopsis and then get into my review. But seriously, for a book about murder it was really delightful! Author: Nancy McGovern and Cyra Bruce                    # of pages: 302

Star Rating: 4 out 5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis: Faith Franklin is a dreamer.  She dreams of cakes & pies.  She dreams of crepes & brownies.  And, more than anything, she dreams of making a career of serving her delicious treats to an adoring public. Life is now exactly how Faith had imagined it could be.  She’s made wonderful friends.  The café, now renamed the Slice of Paradise, has been renovated to showcase her amazing desserts.  And both locals & tourists are loving it!
Well, all except for one… 
The owner of a nearby cupcake shop is not at all happy with Faith’s arrival in Paradise Point.  She has accused Faith of trying to ruin her by stealing her recipes & designs.  And she is not shy about letting everyone know it.

So, when the woman is found dead the day after their confrontation, people immediately begin to consider whether Faith is the killer…

 My review:  Where do I begin? I really thought that this murder mystery book was just delightful! The book revolves around Faith Franklin, a young 20 something who has a love of baking. She has no direction in life until her grandmother asks her to come to Florida and run her café. Faith begins to remodel the café and change-up the menu in preparation for the remodel when suddenly the owner of a cupcake place finds out that Faith plans on having cupcakes at her location too. This might not seem like an issue but later on in the story all the vendors have a meeting and Joann the cupcake lady starts arguing with Faith telling her that she was not allowed to sell cupcakes.

Faith offers to bring her a sample of her cupcakes in order to prove that her cupcakes would be different from Joann’s. So after the meeting she drops them off and goes home, only to find out in the morning that Joanne was dead and that they were blaming her for poisoning her. The only problem is that there was a poisoned cherry  the cupcake and Faith never uses cherries…so who did it?

The rest of the story takes off from that point as you piece together who killed Joanne. Unlike other murder mysteries you do not get that dark suspenseful felling. You will find yourself rooting for Faith and hoping that they can prove that she is not the murderer. You find yourself crossing your fingers that everything will be okay and that Faith can get this café reopened so that she can help her grandmother and really make a name for  herself.

I recommend this book to someone who enjoys the occasional murder mystery but is not really looking for the dark and gloomy aspect of it. You will not get the gory details of a murder scene, but you will get a wonderful story with great character development. And to make matters even better there is an actual recipe at the end of the book. Truly, this story was a quick and delightful read.

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