Caturday Reads: Barking Up the Wrong Bakery
Barking Up the Wrong Bakery
By Stella St Claire
Relay Publishing
Mystery & Thrillers, Women’s Fiction
Pub Date 18 May 2017
Review
Dying for a coffee? Or simply dying for a cute cozy to pass the time with? Olivia Rickard is a dog walker who is as disorganized and flighty as many of her furry clients. Change is a four letter word in her book, but murder on the other hand...Fleeing from potential commitment, Olivia manages to stumble across the body of Yvette Dean in the back of her coffee truck. The chance to solve a murder like the heroine in her favorite mystery series is as tempting as one of her sister Janelle’s delicious muffins...especially when Janelle becomes a suspect. Although her extremely patient boyfriend urges her to play it safe, Olivia has other ideas.
Barking Up the Wrong Bakery is an extremely cute novel. Olivia’s extreme response to anything that looks like it means “commitment” is at times so profoundly over the top it is humorous. At other times it is simply annoying. I liked the other characters more, even the self-centered toupee wearing mayor who goes out of his way to try to get the resident psychic’s attention - to the point of adopting an ancient basset hound.
As pet cozies go, Barking Up the Wrong Bakery is pretty solid. It isn’t particularly innovative, but it is a cute and entertaining with a touch of romance.
4 / 5
I received a copy of Barking Up the Wrong Bakery from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.
--Crittermom
Description
Some people would kill for coffee…
Olivia Rickard would kill to keep everything just the way it is. She’s got a gorgeous boyfriend who loves her, a supportive sister to lean on, and a dog walking business that’s briskly barking away. But just as she’s getting comfortable her sister suddenly wants to buy an entire brownstone with her and her boyfriend looks like he’s going to pop the question at every opportunity. Changing the status quo has always been disastrous for Olivia and now everything is changing at once…
What Olivia needs is a distraction and she’s found one in stumbling upon Yvette Dunn dead in her coffee foodtruck—drowned in a vat of fresh coffee. Olivia starts out as an unlucky bystander to the crime, but she’s forced to dig in deeper when it looks like her sister could be involved in Yvette’s death.
Olivia is running out of time in regards to the mystery, the mortgage, and the marriage. She’s going to have to solve all three problems—and quick—or face a future most foul.
