After the unexpected death of her husband, Celestine doesn’t feel like to compete in the Virginia Commonwealth Bake-off, although she could sure use the prize money. Tish offers to compete in her place. The competition organizer is okay with this, so with just with a week to prepare (think of recipes and tweak them to perfection) Tish enters the bake-off with hopes of winning.

Everyone at the bake-off pales when she mentions that for her final bake she will bake a cherry pie. As it turns out: in the past two years the contestants who intended to bake a cherry pie died before the final day of the competition. Tish doesn’t believe in any such curse, but when she receives a threatening note and someone tampers with her mixers, Tish wants to know what the connection was between the two women, ‘cause that may be the thing that got them killed.

Very likeable read. During the day Tish collects clues by talking to fellow contestants and overhearing things, in the evening she bounces off ideas on her friends and a local policeman, who doesn’t seem out of place at all for helping out or sharing information. The information comes it good doses and there are plenty of twists and turns.

I read an ARC through NetGalley.