Fun book, but a weird one. It reads like a cozy, and has the feel of a series, but it’s a standalone.

I loved the characters and want to read more about them, especially Pradyumna and Gerald. They seem to have a lot more story in them.

There seemed to be a few nods to other writers, the building was called The Grafton, and I didn’t think too much of it until I came across a character named Hannah Severson from Eden Lake Minnesota. That made me laugh.

Ok, now you want to hear how I feel about the book. I liked it, to a point. There were two mysteries and both of them were easy to see coming. There weren’t a lot of surprises or plot twists, but that’s ok. Sometimes a fun read is exactly what you need.

The problems I did have were, if you’re going to base a book in a baking competition, add more details than “fed everyone I knew at home”. There was very little actual baking or bake talk, which is something I was looking forward to.

All in all, a fun book to read. I’ll check out another one from the author.

Thanks to NetGalley for the book!

I wanted to love this one, I really did! The description hooked me with its comparison to Only Murders in the Building and Great British Bake-Off (my all-time comfort watch!). Alas, the book missed the mark for me. The Golden Spoon's murder mystery is revealed in the first chapter and then the rest of the book builds to the intricacies of the dynamics between the cast and crew of The Golden Spoon Competition. While I enjoyed learning about the characters, it made the murder at the beginning feel like an afterthought most of the time. Additionally, I wanted more about the baking process. I actually think this is a book that would have benefitted from pictures in the chapters of each baker's bakes similar to how GBB shows an illustration on the show. I would have enjoyed also seeing their rankings and elimination lists along the way.

When reading ARCs, I know they are not final proofs and it's clear to me this book still has some revisions to go through. I hope they are completed soon, because I found it very distracting.

The end of the book flies! I was so intrigued and then letdown by the illogical outcome (I feel I can say this because other characters pieced together the inconsistencies). I did love the contestants and I particularly loved Lottie and Pradyumna. I tend to be drawn to complex characters and these two are definitely complicated.

I'm sad it was such a miss for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this book. It had some flaws and a few things that kinda didn't work for me. For example, how rushed the ending was. Also, the flow seemed off. However, I did enjoy the POV of all the characters. All in all a decent debut novel.

The concept of The Golden Spoon is such a fun idea- combine a reality baking show with a murder mystery, locked room style. Six amateur bakers descend upon Grafton manor for a week’s worth of baking competitions, with one baker going home each day. The bakers stay at the estate, home to the show’s professional baker/host, Betsy Martin. Staying together gives them plenty of opportunities to drink wine, gossip, and get up to some mischief in the home. When someone turns up dead, everyone at the home is a suspect.

The book is told in multiple POVs, and each character has a distinct tone of voice and a different reason for being on the show. The baking segments are fun as we bounce from viewpoint to viewpoint and see each character attempt to win the competition. Switching viewpoints so often made the story move very quickly and kept it exciting. I could easily see this one being adapted to the screen.

I would classify this book as a cozy mystery over a thriller, as there really isn’t anything scary or constant tension here. It is more of a whodunnit with little clues dropped along the way. And I greatly enjoyed the epilogue!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for this entertaining ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. I would give it 4.5 rounded up to 5 stars!

4.25/5 stars

A lovely cozy mystery that I devoured in one day. A bit predictable (hence the -.75 star knock down) but a solid read none the less.

Set on a show like the Great British bake-off we meet our quirky cast, the hosts who are not quite what they seem and the range of bakers designed to pull on America’s heart strings. A decades old mystery, sabotage and a murder occur and solving each one result in revealing a deeper layer of the loveable cast of characters.

Told through the view point of each of the bakers, I was concerned it would be too much vantage changing to follow, but instead it moved the story along quickly and engagingly.

Arc provided by Net Galley for an honest review.

I so enjoyed this book. Loved Jesse Maxwells writing style. The first chapter had me sucked in. And the character development was amazing. I felt like I got to know each character. The plot was amazing. One character would say something and you would think that they were involved. And had me guessing up until the very end. Such a good book. Cannot wait to read more works from this author! Splendid job!

A group of six bakers gather at an estate in Vermont for a tv baking competition. A tone of suspense is set right from the beginning and drew me in quickly. The multiple pov’s were engaging and kept the book moving quickly.

This definitely reads more like a mystery than a thriller. Overall, this was a really enjoyable read and a great debut novel.

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for an eArc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a great book, about a mystery on an old estate set up for a baking show. It had great characters that I enjoyed reading about and a good plot! Really enoyable!

Like everyone else, the premise of this novel sucked me in immediately. Bake-Off + Murder in a spooky mansion? Yes PLEASE. And while I found the pacing to be well plotted, the characters felt a bit underbaked (get it?) and the mystery unraveled too slowly for me to feel truly engaged. I would not be at all surprised if there's already a TV adaptation on the way, though-- you just can't beat the double-fandom premise here.

I really enjoyed this story and the characters in the book! It was a quick and fun read. If you are a fan of competition baking shows and movies similar to Knives Out then this book is for you! I would recommend this to my family and friends who are book lovers!

This is a debut novel about a baking competition called Bake Week. The story is told by the six contestants and the host, Betsy, who has hosted this competition for 10 years. This year, for the first time, there is a co-host - Archie. The competition is held at Betsy's mansion. Some strange things happen during the competition that seem like sabotage. There are secrets to be revealed both from long in the past and some more recent. Everyone has their own agenda. And there's a murder.

I enjoyed the book and the antics of the competition kept my attention. It was a fun and entertaining read. I understand there will be an upcoming show on Hulu based on the book.

Thanks to Atria Books through Netgalley for an advance copy. This book will be published on March 7, 2023.

An homage to the Great British Baking Show with a murderous twist! When contestants show up to film a new season of Bake Week strange things begin to happen and the contestants realize their bakes are deliberately being sabotaged. As the show unfolds secrets of contestants come to light and paint a picture of connections you never saw coming. Will they come together and find the murderer? I absolutely loved this murder mystery. I liked the body being discovered right at the very beginning so we have most of the book to back track and figure out how the murder happened. Having multiple points of view from all the contestants normally I wouldn’t enjoy but it really works with this murder mystery format. It gives the reader a chance to learn more about the contestants as the story progresses. The setting of the estate where the show is filmed is a character itself that I would love to visit. The characters also deal with family and mental health issues which helps readers connect with them as well. This is a highly entertaining and enjoyable murder mystery I will be be sure to come back to again!

The Golden Spoon presents a tantalizing premise: The Great British Bake Off, but murdery. I don’t read many mysteries, but I had to see where this one went!

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. This is not a heart-racing thriller as advertised, but a cozy mystery with pacing issues. There are fun parts, especially the descriptions of baking, but the actual death occurs in act 3, and it is disappointingly predictable.

The chapters rotate between seven POVS: Betsy, the inimitable host of Bake Week, an aging and desperate heiress; Hannah, the doe-eyed young pie genius of her Midwestern town; Stella, a haunted former journalist; Gerald, a fastidious, detail-obsessed teacher; Pradyumna, a tech entrepreneur bored out of his skull; Peter, a kindly, humble dad working in building restoration; and Lottie, a seemingly quintessential elderly mother with a secret.

The POV-switching added some depth to the story, but some characters came off as too tropey/exaggerated in the constant back-and-forth. Without enough time to establish nuanced personalities, some came across as too one-dimensional. In particular, the undercurrent of mental health issues that plague multiple contestants throughout the book felt underdeveloped.

The plot also felt underdeveloped. Lottie’s storyline is the most compelling, but falls short in service of the murder—which. by the time it occurs, the book is almost over.

Overall, I was hoping for more from this culinary / mansion mystery. Fans of Bake Off should consider checking this out, but with the caveat that it is cozy and straight-forward. If that sounds appealing to you, give it a shot!

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was such a delight! I was equally engaged in the cooking competition as I was the murder mystery. The characters came alive and were well developed, the setting was vivid and beautiful, and the pace kept me on my toes. I hope the author is planning for a potential sequel because I would love to read more of her writing. She is certainly one to watch!

eARC provided by NetGalley!
I was so excited to be approved for this book and it ended up being a real disappointment.
We follow (in alternating POVs) the contestants and a judge of a British Bake Off-esque reality show that takes place at an estate in Vermont. The setting is ripe for the murder mystery that is teased in the first scene- unfortunately we don’t return to that murder until 80% of the way through the book. For me, there were too many alternating points of view, the narrative chapters were too quick for me to get a good sense of each character’s distinct point of view, or to care about them, and too much of the book was spent building suspense. The last 20% of the book felt so rushed because they had to solve the mystery and tie up the loose ends, so the pacing really didn’t work for me. The writing wasn’t anything special and I had trouble paying attention because it all seemed so obvious. There’s a twist at the end that I think was meant to be shocking, but I saw it all coming a mile away, and I was sorry that this was the first book I finished this year. Hopefully it’s all uphill from here!

Advanced Book Review! Thank you @netgalley and @atriabooks for sending me this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

I was so excited when I got NetGalley approval for this book. I love anything that has to do with a baking competition – and throw in a large, historical estate, secrets, and a few mysteries and I’m totally sold.

This is Jessa Maxwell’s debut novel and I was really impressed, especially with how she writes from the point of view of seven different characters – the 6 competitors in the baking competition, and the host Betsy Martin. I thought each main character was so fully developed and I loved reading from each point of view. It worked together seamlessly. I also thought the background of each character was so smart in the way that they each contributed to the story and I enjoyed many of the relationships that developed.

While this isn’t the most suspenseful thriller I’ve ever read, I loved the way all the secrets unfolded. I actually was writing down notes to myself as I came up with some guesses. Some were correct, some were not.

I would definitely recommend for a fun, lighter mystery read, especially if you like baking competitions and character secrets.

Description: “A killer is on the loose when someone turns up dead on the set of a hit TV baking competition.”

Publication Date: March 7, 2023

This book is the Great British Baking Show mixed with Agatha Christie and it was such a fun read
There’s sabotage and crimes within crimes that will keep readers guessing right until the end. The books goes between each character’s perspective to layer a unique story.

Thank you Atria Books and and NetGalley for this eARC!

I read about this book as an anticipated 2023 new release here on Good Reads and was highly interested, which led me to take a look at NetGalley to see if I could request it and lo and behold I could! As soon as I finished my previous book I started this one and was instantly pulled in. It definitely gave me Great British Bake-Off vibes, a show which is a personal favorite of mine. I liked the variety of characters and their backgrounds and overall found it to be a good mystery. The setting was perfection and I was constantly guessing at each character's motives. However I found the pacing overall to be a little bit off in that the majority of the action happened in the last 1/4 of the book, which made the ending feel a bit rushed and not as fleshed out as might have been possible. The last character viewpoint at the conclusion also left me confused not intrigued. Overall I definitely enjoyed this book and will pick up her next release.

Thank you atria books and net galley for the opportunity to rad an advanced copy of this book.
Synopsis: every summer in the grounds of Grafton manor on Vermont, the top amateur bakers gather for a baking competition. This year there are several changes for the contestants and hosts. These changes start off minor until a body is found. Everyone becomes a suspect but is that the only murder that happened here?
What I liked: I am a big foodie and love the great British baking show so I wanted to read this book asap. It did not disappoint me. The characters were all well defined and had multiple dimensions that will keep you guessing. Jessa Maxwell s writing style was the right pace and coziness you would expect in a murder mystery at a baking competition. I became really invested in the characters and found myself wanting to learning more. The author reveled enough to keep you turning pages and I read this book very quickly to get to the end. Just like GBBS, I wanted to go to that place and stay there.

I highly recommend this book for fans of thrillers, sharp writing, great character development, foodies, and fans of the great British baking show and pop culture.

This book is available for preorder right now. It will be a welcome addition to any readers library. It comes out on March 7th 2023.

First of all, I want to thank Atria books, NetGalley and Jess’s Maxwell for early access to this gem. This was a really fun read for me as I love watching baking competitions and my favorite game growing up was clue.

The writing of the characters was very well done and I enjoyed reading through each characters POV. Although I did enjoy this one, it felt like it started a bit slow and the end felt a bit rushed. It was all tied up very nicely but done quite rapidly in the last couple chapters, which was really my only complaint.

Otherwise I think it’s a fun read that can appeal to most and I’d definitely recommend it.