Kasey impulsively pitches her Gram's pie business and is sent back home to try to land the deal. Along with her life-long crush, Jackson, she starts to investigate as she starts having suspicions. Could these sweet ladies really be related to the deaths of abusive men around town?

This was a quick, fun read. Kasey is a little all over the place, and Jackson provides the perfect foil to her. Celia and Gram are absolutely spunky and delightful.

This book is perfect for those who like cozy mysteries and closed door romances. The slow burn was slooow, but I actually enjoyed how clueless the two were. The vigilante justice was a fresh twist on a typical rom com.

Thank you to Avon, Harper Voyager, & NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book. All views and opinions are my own.

Love this cozy thriller that takes several well known tropes and gives them a fresh new look.

Kasey Nottingham travels south to her childhood home to pitch her grandmother and aunt on the needs of signing with the business incubator company that employs her. Mags’ Desserts is currently a well known small-town business and could potentially be the next big thing.

Right away she clashes with a family friend and finds that not only are Grandma Mags and Celia not interested, they seem to be hiding something. There are locks, there are strange business records and plenty of whispering. Kasey needs to get to the bottom of the mystery right away and be sure to help her beloved family.

There's a thread of rom com and plenty of hilarious banter. Just loved it and you will too! Be sure to get yourself some delicious muffins when you start this great read. #avonharpervoyage #theusualfamilymayhem #helenkaydimon #bookloversthebuzz @hkdimon @@bookloversthebuzz

This book was so fun. Mags and Celia had me laughing all the way through the book. I loved all the trouble they got into and caused. Kacey was a great character and caused her own amount of trouble and I loved her story as well. A great book!

A perfect southern family book filled with loving grandma’s, a best intentions granddaughter, and the other family in the neighborhood. I couldn’t get enough of Kacy and her side comments had me laughing. She didn’t hold back (at least in her mind) her thoughts and feelings. I didn’t want this book to end because I wanted to sit the kitchen with everyone and join in their conversations. A feel good book that I loved reading.

Right off the bat I enjoyed the witty banter. Good dialogue and banter can make an entire book. I also enjoyed all the clashing personalities within the family (be they blood or chosen). The story was paced so well, with secrets popping out at just the right times and enough intrigue to make you keep turning the page. Great fit for fans of Deanna Raybourn, Lauren Berenson, or Jesse Q. Sutanto.

What’s that I hear?! That would be #thebuzz from my friends @bookloversthebuzz @hkdimon @avonbooks about this cozy cute book!

I feel like if you enjoyed the book The Change you may like this one too! This one is very strong in the female empowerment category but written in this cozy, fun, baking environment which made me love it even more!

Mags Desserts is a family owned business where Grandma Mags and her best friend kickstarted this company after leaving their deadbeat husbands behind. Their marketing? All word of mouth and boy are they busy! Kasey, Mags granddaughter, needs some help with a catchy business idea and she decided to use Mags desserts as her focal point. Kasey zips home to to try and start her work but notices that there are definitely things happening in words that aren’t being said and glances between grandma and her best friend. Kasey can’t get past some of the vague messages and locked cabinets and so when some men end up dead Kasey is convinced Grandma is poisoning her pies. 🥧 Kasey must stop her sweet granny from ending up in the slammer if that’s in fact what is happening!

I thought this book was a fun, sweetly delicious, cozy book that I ended up enjoying more than I had expected! I really loved all of the characters and how each one had so much spunk! This book was fast paced and kept my attention the whole way through and even had me chuckling a few times at the family drama. My favorite part was the ending and they “why” behind it all! If you love baking, like a dash of romance, with a cup of love and teaspoon of family craziness then make sure you grab yourself a copy of this one next March when it comes out!

I was thrilled to get this book and a Netgalley copy for Book Lovers The BUZZ! This was my first by this author and it was a fun read. I love to read in several genres and this was a perfect one filled with family drama, kitchen antics, desserts, and revenge.
Fun characters you love to hate. Revenge can be fun, but don't getting caught is NOT so fun. You decide which!

What a fun read!
🥧Cozy Mystery
🥧Strong Female Characters
🥧Family Secrets/Drama
🥧Romance
🥧LOTS of yummy desserts

Kasey gets herself in a mess when she pitches her grandmother and Celia’s small business, Mags Desserts, to investors at work. Especially when the owner likes the idea and she has to go home to tell her family what she did.
But when she gets home she discovers something weird going on with the business and clients husbands ending up dead. Kasey and Celia’s nephew, Jackson, work together to see what secrets they are hiding.
A fun and humorous cozy mystery with romance!

This was cosy and mysterious read. Loved the warm characters and some were deceptive. Author has created such a beautiful family dynamics and everything is so mysterious in this book. You can expect family dynamics, female empowerment, unexpected romance, secrets and mystery. If you love the description of a small town Desserts business, baking fragrance and the small town vibe with mystery, secrets and romance, read it.

Kasey Nottingham returns to her hometown to land a deal. But there is something suspicious going on in the small town business owned by her grandmother. She tries to get to the bottom of the mystery. While she comes across her childhood friend and not only secrets and mystery unveils with grudges also comes in light and unexpected romance blooms. I loved the investigation part. The secrets her grandmother was harbouring were unpredictable. I didn’t see some twists coming. Kasey’s backstory is so touching. This was such a good read.

Thanks to the Author and Publisher

In HelenKay Dimon’s latest novel, we follow Kasey Nottingham, a driven professional who returns to her small hometown in North Carolina in a bid to secure a deal for her company. Her grandma Mags and Mags’ partner, Celia run Mags’ Desserts, a local bakery that seems to have more than just pies in the oven. With quirky humor and a dash of mystery, Kasey and her long-time crush, Jackson Quaid, team up to uncover what’s really going on behind the locked cabinets and cryptic conversations in her grandmother’s kitchen.

Dimon expertly weaves together elements of family dynamics, female empowerment, and a light-hearted investigation into the secrets that could change Kasey’s life—and the lives of those around her—forever. Fans of cozy mysteries and strong female leads will appreciate the characters and the small-town charm. As Kasey navigates her career, budding romance, and a potential scandal involving the elderly bakers, readers are treated to moments of suspense, humor, and heartfelt emotion.

With a mix of mystery, romance, and intrigue, this novel will certainly appeal to those who love their stories with equal parts sweetness and sass. Perfect for a weekend read!

A huge thank you to Avon Books, HelenKay Dimon, The Buzz, and Netgalley for the ARC in return for a honest review.

Kasey has to come up with a huge idea at work to impress her boss and the investors of her company. The only thing she can think to pitch is the small company Mags' Desserts, which is owned by her grandma Mags and her "best friend" Celia. Kasey is now headed home to North Carolina to try to get her Gram and Celia to agree to a deal, but they aren't interested. While home, Kasey finds more than desserts being baked in the kitchen. There's locked cabinets, whispered conversations, weird messages in the business records, and clients being found dead after receiving deliveries from Mags Desserts. Wanting to get to the bottom of things, Kasey enlists her long-time crush Jackson to help her. As they work together to get to find answers, while also dodging Kasey's persistent bosses, Kasey and Jackson also find exploring their past crush on each other.

What happens when you take 2 baking women, a meddling granddaughter, a well-meaning nephew, an overbearing brother-in-law, and two pushy bosses? The Usual Family Mayhem, of course. This book was such a fun read! Kasey gets herself stuck in quite the mess and has to find a way out of it. Not only is she having to convince Gram and Celia to sell their company, which she doesn't want to do, even if it means saving her job, but she's convinced herself that Gram and Celia are using their pies to kill men. So she enlists the help of Jackson, her teenage crush, to help her prove/disprove this theory while also trying to distract her bosses from wanting to buy the business. At the same time, there's a blooming romance between her and Jackson. There's so much going on in this book that there's never a dull moment. I couldn't put this one down until I turned the last page.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon and Harper Voyager for providing this book, with my honest review below.

The Usual Family Mayhem seems like it would have a quirky cast of characters who I’d enjoy in a fun story, and I’m so glad my instincts were right. I loved reading about Kasey’s attempt to both hoodwink her way into staying in her current job (because free bagels) and her unique family who have a home bakery that may just be poisoning bad me. The home bakery part of the story was even more enjoyable due to her very southern Grandmother and her partner. Both are funny and caring while also teaching Kasey to have some mettle. Unique to this story Kasey’s Grandmother’s partner is a woman (I found this unique given Grandma is part of a generation that hid their feelings, and this a southern town). I loved the relationship between the two and that we find that their possible path as murders, and their relationship, came from getting through abusive relationships with men.


The mystery was a fun one due to Kasey’s partnering up with a since childhood love interest who is charming and funny in his own right. Overall this story didn’t hit a misstep, I enjoyed both friends and foes and loved how easy it was to read with its balance of some tough subject matter that was lightened with humor.

I have no notes to add to this hilarious and amazing novel. It was definitely new for me to read something like this but I very much enjoyed it