Arya Winters makes a tiramisu to die for. Now someone has.
Arya creates wickedly quirky desserts from her home kitchen in the English village of Trucklewood. Her signature chocolate fudge cake comes with a sugar dagger plunged straight through its heart. She’s brilliant with buttercream.
People are harder. Arya has a heart of gold but absolutely no filter, so she keeps herself to herself. Then a neighbour is found dead. Poisoned. By a slice of Arya’s own tiramisu.
With the police turning her kitchen upside down, Arya has no choice but to brave the village busybodies to clear her name. Soon she’s trying — and failing — to resist dangerously charming children’s author Branwell Beam, who claims all he wants to do is help.
(That’s not even mentioning the victim’s enormous, imperious white cat. Arya’s given The Marquis a new home — and now he’s acting like he owns it.)
Busybodies she can handle. Dead bodies are another matter, especially if the next one might be hers.
Amita is a writer, based in London. She first discovered her love for Georgette Heyer’s sparkling banter and runaway horses when she found one of Heyer’s romantic adventures in a second-hand bookstall as a teenager. There was no looking back – as in, it took another few decades to realise that Heyer was more than just a delicious obsession.
Amita’s first Regency, Unladylike Lessons in Love, comes out in 2023 and takes readers on a ride through a diverse 19th century London landscape like you’ve never seen it before. Amita’s Arya Winters series of mysteries is published with Agora. The first came out in 2021.
My thoughts: This was very fun, like Arya, I’m not the biggest fan of people, I like cats and while not as a job, I do bake cakes from time to time.
Thankfully no one has ever died shortly after eating something I’ve made, but Arya does start off as a suspect, as it was her tiramisu that appeared to have killed someone. Except she had no reason to poison anyone. She actually liked the victim. But she’s determined to find out who actually did use her dessert as a murder weapon – hopefully before anyone else gets killed.
An entertaining, enjoyable read with quirky characters and a satisfying ending.
*I was kindly gifted a copy of this book in exchange for taking part in this blog tour, but all opinions remain my own.
