Crafts and Life

Piper Prescott, a transplanted Yankee living in the South, has got her sass back.  She might be down, but don’t count her out.  “Change of life?” she asks.  Bring it on.  Recently divorced, Piper decides to pursue a dream she’s secretly harbored: owning her own business, Spice it Up!, a spice shop in her adopted hometown, Brandywine Creek, Georgia.  But Piper’s grand opening goes awry when the local chef who’s agreed to do a cooking demo is found stabbed.  Not only did Piper find the body, she handled the murder weapon and doesn’t have a witness to her alibi, making the case look like a slam dunk to brand new police Chief Wyatt McBride.  Desperate to uncover the truth—and prove her innocence—Piper enlists the help of her outspoken BFF Reba Mae Johnson to help track down the real culprit.  The pair compile a lengthy list of suspects and work to eliminate them using their own creative brand of sleuthing techniques including stakeouts, breaking and entering, and one very unorthodox chocolate pie. When Piper narrowly avoids being a victim of a hit-and-run, she knows she’s getting closer to the truth, but can she catch the killer and clear her name before she becomes the next victim?

Piper is divorced but not letting that get her down (although she wishes CJ her ex would stop overriding her decisions re their daughter!), she has sunk all the money she got from the divorce into a spice shop and the grand opening is the next day, well it would be grand if she hadn't had a public argument with the chef who was going to do a cookery demonstration to signal the opening and the use of spices, a chef that she then finds dead! Not only did she find the body she had picked up what turned out to be the murder weapon and the new chief of Police has added 2 and 2 and come up with life behind bars (if not the death penalty) for Piper.  Her alibi has gone missing and now she and her best friend need to hunt around to find out who is the killer, Piper needs to stop CJ from letting Lindsay (their daughter) fail her school year, oh and stop Melly (her ex mother in law) from rearranging the shop stock!

A great start to a series about spices and spicy murder, with a not unusual premise of the main character having a change of life for some reason this book delivers a spicy punch and I am glad I finally got around to reading it (I really must diminish my TBR list more if this is the kind of great book I have missed out on!)