The big day is coming, for the wedding of police officers Thomas and Kerry, and Juliet Capshaw and her baking team are getting ready. As the caterers for the wedding as well as the bakers of the 5-tier wedding cake, Jules is doing everything possible to make the day go perfectly.
The wedding will be at Lithia Park, with Jules and her team from Torte making picnic baskets filled with sandwiches, salads, cookies, and tartlets for all the guests. They have the wedding cake and a groom’s cake as well as an assortment of the bride’s and groom’s favorite donuts. Barista Andy has created a special wedding day champagne latte, and they are also providing wine from their organic winery Uva, which Jules’s husband Carlos runs.
Everything is going as scheduled in the run up to the wedding day. Except for one thing. Jules is as Torte early one morning when she sees Kerry run by, yelling at someone by the fountain. When she catches up to Kerry a few minutes later, Jules finds out what’s going on—Kerry’s father has shown up for her wedding. Kerry hadn’t seen her father in years. He had been in prison, and at first Kerry isn’t even sure how he got out. He and her mother were in and out of jail when Kerry was a kid. It was part of the reason she became a detective.
Jules calms her down, and the two of them set off through the park to find him. And when they do, Jules finds out that Jamie Crosby is legitimately a free man, and that he had come to Ashland to celebrate with his daughter, not to embarrass her. So the wedding preparations are back on, and Jules can go back to focusing on the food.
As they’re setting up the tables in the park that Jules and her team will use to serve drinks, Jules goes to grab another table, and that’s when she finds out that someone canceled the jazz trio that was supposed to perform. The bass player is laying in a pool of blood, and Jules finds herself once again having to call 911. She is heartbroken that this has happened on Kerry’s and Thomas’s wedding day, but things get even worse when Kerry’s father is arrested for the murder.
Jules doesn’t believe that Jamie had worked so hard to get paroled in time for the wedding just to commit a crime, so when Kerry asks her to help solve figure out who the murderer is, Jules agrees to help. Usually Kerry is discouraging her, wanting Jules to be safe and leave the police work to the detectives. But this time, since she and Thomas will be on their honeymoon, Kerry asks Jules to meddle. And meddle she does. But will Jules be able to figure out who the killer is before the killer tries to cancel her too?
Ellie Alexander is back with another Bakeshop Mystery set in the beautiful mountains of Oregon. Donut Disturb mixes a litany of delicious descriptions of baked goods and savory dishes with a murder mystery. She finds a balance between the love and support of Jules and her bakery family and the terrible crimes that she encounters. Add in the humor that Lance brings and the essence of Shakespeare that adds depth to the story, and Donut Disturb is the perfect recipe for a delicious cozy.
Alexander has a way with descriptions that transports me to a bakery, describing the scents and sights so intensely that I feel like I can almost taste the fresh sourdough, smell the coffee, and drool over those chocolate crinkle cookies (which have been a favorite of mine since I was a kid). I love the relationships that are at the heart of these mysteries, and the bakery is such a warm setting that reading these books feel like coming home. I loved Donut Disturb, as these characters feel like friends to me. But if you haven’t read any of the other books in the series, you’ll be fine. But you should know that one of these won’t be enough, and you will definitely get hungry.
Egalleys for Donut Disturb were provided by St. Martin’s Paperbacks through NetGalley, with many thanks.
