A cozy mystery with 14 books in the series and this was my first. There is a bit of backstory but the author does a decent job of covering it so you’re not lost. The mystery surrounds a stolen manuscript of Shakespeare and who might have taken it. There were a few main suspects but it was obvious to me early on. A solid mystery series but other than the deliciously described food, I’m not sure how memorable it will be for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

It was a light read but it seemed to drag. There was just a little too much fluff for my taste. That being said, I was not suspecting the culprit to be the culprit, and the reasoning behind it... was forced.

It's Winter in Ashland, OR and the off season for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. That means Jules and the staff of her family's bakery, Torte, have the time to accept a large catering job for the local university. A lost manuscript by the Bard has been discovered and will be on display at SOMA, the campus museum. The gala event will bring in people from all over and Jules has chosen to put on an Elizabethan feast. When the big day arrives all seems to be going well. All of that changes when, in short order the manuscript is deemed a forgery, the real manuscript has been stolen and the guard in charge of its safety is found murdered.
When her step-father, former police chief, becomes involved with the case, Jules, her husband, Carlos and the rest of the Torte family lend a hand in catching the killer. Besides being a very good mystery to unravel, the descriptions of food (especially chocolate) are drool worthy. Add the charming setting of Ashland and a recurring cast of characters who long time readers of the series have come to care about...it's the perfect Winter reading escape.
My thanks to the publisher St. Martin's Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

For those who enjoy culinary mysteries, this latest one is a fun and cozy read. Jules and her staff at Torte assist with a new museum exhibit featuring a lost Shakespeare manuscript. While their focus is supposed to be food, as usual, Jules and her staff get involved in helping law enforcement solve several mysteries. The characters are described well (and some of them are real "characters") and the reader can easily picture the town in November, with its preparations for fall holidays and its scenic views. The story contains many descriptions of food preparations and culinary venues. While there are no cliffhangers, the stage is set for the next novel in the series. Although this is part of a series, it can be read as a standalone.

I received this novel from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

Dollycas’s Thoughts

We return to Ashland, Oregon at what should be a slow time at Torte but Jules and the Torte team are preparing for a big event. The museum at the local college had landed the huge honor of unveiling Shakespeare’s lost manuscript, Double Falsehood to the public. Important people from up and down the west coast will be attending and Torte will be serving them a feast of food from the Elizabethan era. They are also making some amazing chocolate sculptures to add to the exhibit.

But the Shakespeare’s Lost Pages at SOMA reveal does not go as planned. Just before the doors are supposed to open an eagle eye noticed the pages on display are fake and the real lost manuscript has been stolen. A search is immediately started and a museum employee is found badly injured in the basement and a security guard is killed. Lance immediately decides he and Jules can find the missing artifact and the thief. The Professor also asks her to keep her eyes and ears open. She just hopes she doesn’t become the killer’s next missing artifact.

All my favorite characters are back and have time to shine within these pages. I am so happy that Juliet and Carlos are settling in their lives off the cruise ship. Carlos works so well with everyone and is such a great mentor. I think he brings out the best in Jules too giving her the confidence to take on big events like the one at the museum. Rosa plays a bigger role in this story because her uncle Javier is the director of the museum and is in charge of organizing the unveiling event. Every time I read a book in this series I enjoy the way everyone at Torte is like family. They support each other, cheer them on or pick them up depending on the situation. All are very well-developed with room to continue to evolve as the series continues.

Ms. Alexander also introduces readers to new characters with the museum staff. It is a small group but they all play vital places in the plot. Suspects all, we get to know them just well enough not trust any of them. The plot is filled with twists and turns but the true guilty party was evident to us much sooner than it was to those in the book. I really enjoyed the way the reveal played out. The author’s detailed descriptions put me right there in the moment.

Again, the food details had me drooling. I really wish Torte was a real place and I could just pop in to have one of Andy’s special coffees, a cup of Sterling’s soups, a slice of Marty’s bread, and one of Bethany’s brownies. Of course, anything Jules baked up would be wonderful too.

Bake, Borrow, and Steal is a marvelous addition to this series. It can be read as a stand-alone but I encourage you to read the series from the start to truly enjoy these remarkable characters.

Now the waiting begins, Donut Disturb will be released on June 28. I see love will be in bloom. I can’t wait!

Love this series. A "lost" Shakespere play is to be on display at the local museum and Jules and staff at Torte are catering the gala opening. Much research and tasting of historical food and making a period desk (with working drawer) and chair with chocolate for the banquet is stressing Jules to the max. The big day finally arrives and everything is coming together beautifully until the Shakespere document goes missing and someone is murdered. Jules and husband, Carlos set out to find who would kill for an artifact. With many people on the museum staff and volunteers with motives, they have to weed out the innocent from the guilty, and try to keep themselves alive while trying.
A wonderful addition to the series.

I have read several books in this series and I think I may just be getting tired of cozies with long descriptions of food and drink in the text of the book. I usually just skip the paragraphs that describe Jules baking something, and there are many.
Also, I could not get past the idea that a new play by Shakespeare is discovered and the museum where it is to debut can only afford a college student stoner as a guard. That is the whole basis for how the theft comes off but there is no way an item this precious, not to say priceless, would be treated so carelessly. This idea really ruined the whole book for me. I think Jules and I will be parting ways in the future.

If I lived in Ashland, Oregon, I'd want to eat every meal at Torte - if only it weren't fictional! Everything they make in this book sounds SO GOOD! Besides the delicious sounding food, this was an interesting mystery. A new Shakespeare manuscript was discovered, and is being unveiled at the museum in Ashland. The museum party is elaborate, the food for dinner is authentic, and there is even a chocolate desk with a real (chocolate) drawer! But, the manuscript is missing!

This book would read fine as a stand alone, but it's also enjoyable to know the characters and their relationships. Juliet is such a good and competent main character, and she works with a good team at the bakery.

I'd recommend this book, and this series, to those who enjoy cozy mysteries. Especially if you like reading about delicious food! Thanks to netgalley for letting me read an ARC of the book

Jules and her team at Torte are preparing the food and intricate chocolate display to accompany the unveiling of Shakespeare’s lost manuscript at the local museum in Ashland, Oregon. Jules is not prepared when the night of the event includes theft of the manuscript, an accident, and a death. Are they all connected? And who is responsible? A variety of interesting characters, lots of yummy descriptions of food and coffee, wonderful setting, and good mystery.

This is the first one I’ve read in the series. There are enough details to make it easy to enjoy without having read the others. However, I do want to go back to the beginning, now.

I love this series and this one was no exception. I enjoyed getting back into the story, back into the town and back into the food! I love the food descriptions in this book, they all sound so yummy! The cast of characters in this book was well done, especially because there were so many of them. I already enjoy and know all the main characters but the extra ones were also very well done. I thought the mystery in this one was really well done and I enjoyed reading the book. Although this can certainly be read as a stand alone, it will be much more enjoyable if you start with the first book in the series.

Fourteenth in the Bakeshop series

Jules, the owner of Torte has been hired to cater a gala at SOMA, a museum located on the campus of Southern Oregon University. As the gala is to unveil a lost manuscript of Shakespeare, the menu will be an authentic Elizabethan feast.
Unfortunately, it is discovered during the gala that the manuscript has disappeared. As the investigation begins, the security guard is murdered and another staff member is attacked and injured. Jules investigates the people involved with the exhibit to uncover the culprit.

Thanks to NetGalley for a copy.

Princess Fuzzypants here: I do like this series. I like the relationships with the characters. I like the inner workings of Torte and the other businesses that Jules runs. There are a couple of characters of whom I am less than enamoured but I have always found the richness of the background and the development of the relationships compensation.

I am not sure why I did not like this one better. It had an interesting premise. A priceless manuscript is stolen from the local Museum right under the noses of everyone who is anyone in town at the big unveiling of the display. Jules and Torte are catering and she is there when the theft occurs and two employees are hurt. Now there are several mysteries to unravel. Where is the artifact? Who stole it and was it one person or several? And who tasered the security guy who was standing guard? The evidence seems to point to Javier but it is a bit too tidy for Jules and the Professor who asks her to keep an open ear. One of the things that I do like about this series is how Jules’ step father, who is chief of police, involves her in his investigations.

There is an interesting sub topic too. Was Shakespeare a woman? I am not sure I can buy into the argument but there is no question that females, even though they were played by boys in his time, are strong and well rounded. Many of the female characters were forces of nature. I was not aware there was this debate on-going in academia. So while there was much to recommend the book, why am I hesitant.

It just did not grab like some of the previous works did and so I am going to give it four purrs but only one paw up. It is good. It is not great.

Book was unable to download on the Netgallery shelf app. Netgallery said that this is a known issue.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an e ARC of this book.
This is the first I've read in this series. I think I might have enjoyed it more had I not jumped I the middle. Having just come off an intense, emotionally draining book, I wanted a light cozy. I certainly got what I asked for. If one is into recipes and cooking, the many pages devoted to same might have been less boring. The plot was not surprising. Liked the description of Ashland but just could not get excited. I wanted to like it more than I did.

To be honest, in the beginning I just couldn't get into this book. I started it and was so bored with all the talk about Shakespeare that I put it down. I probably read 3 or 4 books before getting back to it. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but it seemed better when I started it again. Also, to be honest, I didn't realize it was the 14th book in a series that I had never read, so there was a lot of background that I was missing out on and that is my fault. So I will give this one more star than I had intended to.

First, an admission. I was initially attracted to the Bakeshop Mystery series because of the Shakespeare connection. Ashland, Oregon, the setting, is basically "Shakespeare Central" with some much of the town focused on him, from festivals and plays to shops and names. While my own knowledge of Shakespeare's work is fuzzy at best, entombed in old notebooks used for college notes, I do have a connection. According to some pretty solid family tree research, he's a distant cousin many times removed. Now that I've bored you, on with the review.

A precious, priceless artifact is coming to Jules' hometown museum, an exhibit of "Double Falsehood", a long lost Shakespeare manuscript. Jules, real name Juliet Montgue Capshaw, is a busy, successful businesswoman who finds joy in food, food of all kind. Her restaurant, Torte, has been selected to create a unique display for the exhibit, a chocolate desk and chair, the desk even to have working drawers. Her restaurant will also provide the food and treats for the grand opening of the exhibit. No pressure, right?

Then, the manuscript goes missing. A custodian is found in the basement seriously injured just as the theft becomes known with a box of cash nearby. Not long after, the young security guard is found dead. It's a puzzle worthy of a Shakespeare play. Jules is drawn into the investigation by friend and family ties, not to mention her own curiosity. She's joined by her friend Lance, who is flamboyant and eager to investigate. Although that investigation initially seems stuck in neutral, Lance does play a critical role in the story. Toss in several strong suspects, red herrings, twists and turns, not to mention an abundance of food and food preparation mentions, yummy, and Jules' investigation seems to be flailing. Fortunately, she's not in this quest alone.

Then....oh, read the book.

You won't be disappointed. Excellent characters you'll wish you knew, food you'll wish you could taste, a wedding to plan, and the approaching holiday season, all while attempting to help solve a murder and theft. I've thoroughly enjoyed this series and hope you will, too. I've already looking forward to the next installment. Was Jules serious about what she was thinking about? I don't know. I'll have to read that book to find out.

Thanks to #NetGalley and #StMartin'sPaperbacks for the ARC.

Bake, Borrow, and Steal by Ellie Alexander is the 14th book in A Bakeshop Mystery series, and another great addition. I love this series, and have read them all, and when a new book comes out it's like visiting old friends. Juliet Capshaw owns Torte Bakery with her mother. The staff of Torte are all excited about their biggest event ever, a showing of Shakespeare's lost manuscript at the local college. Unfortunately the pages are stolen and Juliet is determined to find the truth. I suggest you read the books in order, to get the full effect. I love this series. I have to admit that I find Juliet and her husband Carlos, relationship very dull, but the mystery is always good. I highly recommend this book for all cozy mystery lovers, you will not be disappointed.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I read 33% of this book and decided to put it aside for now. I want to come back to it later this year, but right now I just wasn’t enjoying it the way that I should. The mystery hadn’t grabbed me the way that I hoped, but I did find the descriptions of the chocolate sculpting process utterly fascinating. I loved learning more about that baking art. Hopefully when I pick this book up again, I’ll be in the right mood and love the rest of the story just as much as those scenes.

This was a pleasant surprise. I love cozy mysteries but I haven’t read one that centered at a bakery. It worked so well.l and established the little community and small business workers that would all be connected in this fun murder mystery. I enjoyed the various characters but at times it was hard to remember each one. That was a minor problem as the story progressed. I could not get enough of this delicious mystery. I’m still thinking about the baking after finishing this book and I look forward to reading more from the author!

Ashland, OR, home of Southern Oregon University, Southern Oregon Museum of Art, Torte (Bakery and coffeeshop extrodinaire) and all things Shakespeare is preparing for the reveal of a newly discovered manuscript that is believed to be a lost Shakespearean canon. Of course, Juliet, Carlos and the rest of the Torte crew are catering the event.. From designing a writing desk (with a working drawer!) out of chocolate, to researching the candies and breads that would be part of a timely feast, the crew goes all out to prepare for the night. But once the event starts, there is some concern that the manuscript may not be the real thing, and before the night is over, one man is hospitalized and another is dead!
The Professor and his team at the police department find themselves in the awkward position of having to arrest a friend, not really believing that he is guilty, but needing to follow the evidence. Juliet tries to help, while friend Julian insists on it. Even the FBI are called in!
This book is very well written and I love all of the cooking methods MS Alexander weaves in - the food is genuinely a part of the story.