Title: Fondant Fumble

Series: Cupcake Bakery Mystery

By:  Jenn McKinlay

ISBN: 9780593549155 (ISBN10: 0593549155)

Website: https://www.jennmckinlay.com/

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

Professional football players Keogh Graham and Tyler Matthews want to open a Fairy Tale Cupcakes franchise. They’re spending the off-season in Scottsdale working in Mel’s bakery, learning about the business and how to bake show-stopping cupcakes. The popular athletes bring a boom of customers to the store as football fans flock to see the friends mixing batter and piping icing.

Everyone’s excited the athletes are pursuing their dream of owning a bakery—except for those who fear the players will ditch football for fondant and retire early from professional sports. The angry naysayers include their team owner and Keogh’s sports agent, along with some very vocal fans.

When the owner of their team, the Arizona Scorpions, is found dead on the floor of their new bakery following an argument with Keogh, the pros become prime suspects. As the investigation heats up, Mel and the rest of the cupcake bakery crew must step up and prove their franchise owners are innocent before it’s game-over for the new bakers. (Goodreads)

Review:

Fondant Fumble is the sixteen (wow!) book in the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series by Jenn McKinlay. However, it is only the third book of the series that I have read. I must say that each book I have read in the series has captured my interest totally. This is leading me to say to myself “go and read the rest of the series” ☺ !!!

The premise for this story is that two local football players (Keogh Graham and Tyler Matthews) are planning for post football life by investing in a business for their future and have chosen a Fairy Tale Cupcakes franchise as the business. As we learn, Keogh has wonderfully fond memories of his childhood and baking, with his mom – Mama June (who is in fact – a character that I loved!). Mel 

(Melanie Cooper) is looking forward to teaching Keogh the in’s and out’s of baking cupcakes as this is a requirement for franchise owner’s. Everything is going well until Keogh discovers a body (and yes – the individual is dead) in his new bakery… and the person is none other than the Arizona Scorpion’s owner – Chad Dayton. To muddy the playing field, we learn that Keogh had a past with Chad’s current wife Kendall Dayton. 

As we sift through (like the pun ☺) all of the clues and possible suspects we come to know the character of Keogh and soon realize, he was set up to take the fall for this murder. And to be perfectly candid – it is a murder. The most unpleasant part for me was the discovery of “scorpion’s” crawling on the dead body. Yuck!  There are no end of possible suspects and as the playing field of whodunit is narrowed down, it becomes more dangerous for Mel and her crew.

I found the pace of the story was perfect. I was kept guessing throughout (and no…I will not give away ‘whodunit’ as that is not my style). The characters were well developed and, happily I report, easy to differentiate from each other. The support of the whole football team was inspiring and I loved how they all showed up for the opening. Though not surprising – football players like to eat and who wouldn’t want a delicious cupcake or three? And I cannot iterate how much I like Keogh as a character. He was a stand up guy who looked out after his team mates and seemed to keep a cool head under pressure. Of course, that could have been his upbringing and the fact that his mama was close by. I doubt she would have put up with any shenanigans from her boy!

While stepping into this series sporadically was not a problem, more knowledge of the main characters from the bakery might have enhanced my reading enjoyment (though not really sure how that would work since I truly enjoyed this book!). 

My suggestion for any cozy mystery lover… pick up this book, sit yourself in a comfy chair with a beverage of your choice and spend a few hours just being taken away to another world. You will not be disappointed in the writing acumen of Jenn McKinlay!