Bread Over Troubled Water
A Bread Shop Mystery
by
Winnie Archer
Cozy Mystery
8th in Series
Setting - California
Publisher: Kensington Cozies
Publication Date: November 29, 2022
Mass Market Paperback
Page count: 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1496733568 / ISBN-13: 978-1496733566
Digital ASIN: B09TX2QMZY
About Bread Over Troubled Water
Rising cozy mystery author Winnie Archer cooks up her latest installment in her delightful and delicious Bread Shop Mystery series.
Photographer Ivy Culpepper is soon to make a home with her husband-to-be in the California beach town of Santa Sofia—but the Yeast of Eden bakery remains her second home. It’s not just a place to work, but a community. And now one member of the community has been murdered . . .
A regular who used Yeast of Eden as a workspace, Josh Prentiss always turned heads with his startlingly good looks and thousand-watt smile. But Ivy can’t help noticing one morning that he seems distracted and off his game. Later, during a visit to the park where she and Miguel plan to hold their engagement party—with plenty of baked goods on the menu—her rescue pug, Agatha, sniffs out Josh lying in a bed of poppies…scone cold dead.
There’s no reason for Ivy to get involved. She’s busy enough holding down the fort as the shop’s owner, Olaya, cares for her recently orphaned niece, not to mention the stress when a new employee is fired and storms out in a rage. Then a band of rabble-rousers starts picketing the bakery, claiming that Olaya’s sourdough roll is what killed Josh—and Ivy hears some salacious gossip about her beloved boss. She doesn’t think there’s a grain of truth to the seedy rumors—but to prove it, she’ll have to start sleuthing . . .
Character Guest Post
by
Miguel Baptista
Dear Reader,
As I write this, the gulls are gliding
through the azure sky in the distance. The crashing waves of the Pacific play
like music in the background. A barge is a speck on the expanse of blue, and a
curve of rocky cliffs are a backdrop to the north.
This is the view from the front deck
of my bungalow. I live in what we Santa Sofians call Bungalow Oasis in the
Upper Laguna District. It is one of the
town's oldest neighborhoods and holds the highest concentration of traditional
bungalow architecture.
If you want a
single-story, low-rise house on a curving road, with a veranda, and mature
landscaping, this is the place to be. Malibu Street sits to the east and
Riviera is to the south.
When I bought
this place, it was a major fixer-upper. I worked painstakingly to restore it to
its historical beauty. I redid the stucco siding, I landscaped the knoll the
house sits on, and I painted the house and the single-car garage. I resurfaced the red terra-cotta tiled stairway
that leads up to a wrought-iron gate. I planted green leafy shrubs on both
sides of the railing to the side of the front steps. And I installed massive
cement pots on top of the pillars. They are always overflowing with a colorful
riot of flowers.
Here's the
thing. Ivy has a cool house, too. Hers is an historic Tudor crafted of old
brick. It has a half-timber exterior, a steep gable, and a high-pitched
roofline. It even has the wavy edges along the gable peaks, and a cobbled
walkway leading to an arched front door. It's kind of like a gingerbread
fairytale house.
This is the
problem. We both love our own houses and each other's. I have a plan, though.
Hopefully, she'll agree. You'll have to stay tuned for more Bread Shop
mysteries to find out what it is.
See you around
Santa Sofia.
-Miguel
Baptista, Restauranteur
About Winnie Archer
Winnie Archer is the nationally bestselling author of the
Bread Shop Mystery series, as well as the
Lola Cruz Mysteries and the Magical
Dressmaking Mystery series written as Melissa Bourbon. A former middle school English teacher, lives in North Carolina with her educator husband, Carlos, and the youngest of their five children. Visit Winnie Archer online at
www.MelissaBourbon.com!
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