After being dumped by her fiancé, Piper Donovan decides to get a fresh start. So she moves back home and works with her mother in her bakery shop called The Icing on the Cupcake. Piper used to be a daytime soap opera actor on a show called A Little Rain Must Fall. That is until her character dead.

Glenna Brooks, a fellow actor on A Little Rain Must Fall is getting married. She asks Piper to make her wedding cake. It seems that someone is not pleasured with the idea of Glenna getting married. First Glenna receives a threatening message and next people all around her are dying. It is up to Piper to save a wedding before there are no guests to attend.

To Have and To Kill is the first book in a new series, A Wedding Cake Mystery. I liked this book. It is a nice, sweet cozy mystery. Piper needed to be fleshed out a little more as a character but I could see her potential. This was a quick read. The chapters were only a few pages. There was a lot of suspects thrown in the mix but the reasons to suspect them were not that strong. In addition, I didn’t really get to know the characters that were dying, so I didn’t feel bad that they were gone. In fact, there was a lot of every man or woman for themselves attitude. The yummy recipe in the back for the Butter cream Icing is a nice bonus. I am going to make it. While there was some flaws, it was not enough to keep me from checking out the next book in this series.

This is the first book in a series. It has a cozy mystery element to it in that the main character is a cake designer. It was a good read.

Mary Higgins Clark gets cozy in her five-volume wedding cake series

Posted on March 27, 2021 by michellelovatosbookreviews, world's first book color commentator, book reviews with a twist

Michelle Lovato’s Book Reviews With A Twist!

Piper Donovan is a failure.
Well, not exactly. But this 26-year-old unemployed actress is smarting when she finally moves home to New Jersey, after facing the fact that her recently-broken wedding engagement and wide-open – or in other words acting jobless – calendar can’t sustain her lifestyle any longer. Home, where her heart is not, yet, But Piper licks her wounds while dabbling in the family bakery business to keep her busy.
As if losing her fiance wasn’t enough for this wilting flower, Piper’s best friend Glenna – thanks a lot honey – and fellow actress asks the talented Piper to make a wedding cake for her impending nuptials.
Problem? Of course.
Before Piper can layer icing onto Glenna’s frozen cake patties, a dead body appears out of nowhere. Who killed her best friend’s daytime drama co-star?
(Insert organ music from a ‘B’ horror film here … ) I’ve always been a fan of melodrama, as long as it’s not my own.
In this case, Travis York, Glenna’s television co-star is front-and-center at a charity auction, dead of cyanide poisoning.
Those darn actors always insist on being at the center of everything.
Glenna’s fiance is not happy when he hits the cop’s top suspect list. And Glenna is receiving threatening letters from the killer.
A cozy wouldn’t be cozy without the intrepid, spunky, loyal heroine insisting she jump into the center of this murder investigation, irritate law enforcement everywhere, and hunt down the killer. But, alas, Piper’s tubes are clogged. And the newly-minted wedding-cake artist realizes and she needs help.
Piper’s eggs get whipped when she comes across a childhood neighbor, and an irresistibly sexy FBI agent, Jack Lombardi. Perhaps Piper’s moving home wasn’t such a terrible idea after all.
Together, the smitten, but coy pair stir up a powdered sugar frenzy in their attempt to find the dastardly destructor during the days depressing her best friend’s wedding.
Perfect setup? Of course.
Mary Clark Higgins has the magic touch when it comes to giving readers exactly what they want from a murder mystery. Different from her mainstream thriller bestsellers, To Have and To Kill is the first “light” cozy mystery in her five-book Piper Donavan Wedding Cake Mystery series.
Someday, I want to read Mary Clark Higgin’s biography. This prolific wordsmith hero of mine is the real-life daughter of an FBI agent father and neighborhood cake decorating mother who worked at CBS News for decades before producing this series. Now, that’s my kind of murdering cake baker.

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Happy are those who respect the Lord and obey him. You will enjoy what you work for, and you will be blessed with good things. Psalm 128: 1-2