Book 45, 2025

A Murderous Macaron by Fiona Grace

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


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I finished reading A Murderous Macaron by Fiona Grace last night. It’s the second book in her “Beachfront Bakery” series. The main character is Ali Sweet, who owns...a beachfront bakery!

Now that Ali’s bakery, Seaside Sweets, has established itself via her gourmet cupcakes, she’s ready to branch out. Ali intends to begin offering macarons. Her launch day is a huge success. That is, until Brandon Lennox, a vlogger who gets his views by being rude and pranking people, stops at her bakery. After trying and spitting out her macarons, Brandon drops dead. When it’s determined he was poisoned, everyone assumes Ali did him in. With her bakery now closed as a crime scene, Ali takes it upon herself to find out who really killed Brandon.

I did not enjoy this at all. Murder by poison is completely overdone in cozy mysteries. This isn’t the middle ages, for heaven’s sake! Also, the EMT isn’t going to make a determination as to what killed the victim and then alert the police; it would be up to a doctor to notify the police that the death is suspicious. Since Ali’s bakery was closed down the bulk of the story dealt with her amateur investigation. I thought she was too quick to jump to conclusions, alienating other characters. My favorite scene was when Ali went to talk to Fat Tony, the mobster who has taken a shine to her. The twins who own competing pizza places on either side of Seaside Sweets also provided some comic relief.

Favorite lines:
♦ She loved baking because it spread joy.
♦ “Quite a pickle we’ve found ourselves in, huh?”
♦ Sharing a pizza with the mob was the last thing Ali really wanted to be doing.

Disappointingly ho-hum. Two stars.