Bakeries and Buffoonery by Elizabeth Pantley Series: Magical Mystery Book Club #4
on February 15th, 2023
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Pages: 310
Format: ARC
Source: Great Escapes Tours
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It’s a magical book club! When this group chooses a book, magic happens. The mystery comes to life, and they find themselves part of the story. To exit the book and get back home, they need to solve the mystery and reach The End.
This time, the club chooses a book called The Great Cake Rivalry, because, well … cake! They read the back cover and it’s unanimous. So off they go into another grand adventure into a town aptly named Frosting.
Frosting is a rural town in an idyllic setting. The people live quiet lives most of the year. But in the spring, things change. The Annual Cake Competition becomes the focus of every man, woman, and child. They take this competition seriously. The cakes are spectacular. The festival is fabulous. For a week there are contests featuring all kinds of cakes. The people of the community become official tasters and vote for the winning cakes in each category.
The grand finale is a display of finely decorated cakes, made by the town’s bakeries. The winner of the best design receives a prize package that would make any baker dizzy.
Sadly, this event has been tainted. Once a year, each one different, but all somehow related to this event, a person is murdered. The main investigator is stumped, but that could be because he’s an inept buffoon.
Can the book club help the people of this community figure out who is causing this disturbing pattern of deaths, and stop another murder from happening? Can they figure out why some of the citizens dress so oddly, and why they always wear those unique backpacks? All while they fill themselves to the brim with cake, of course.
Greetings you guys! Welcome back to the Magical Mystery Book Club series! By now I’m sure you all know what’s happening in this fun-filled joyride of a cozy mystery series. The 8 members of the Book Club literally escapes into books to solve the mystery at hand.
In this instalment, they can have their cake and eat it too! Quite literally. Yes, yes – I have used that adjective already, but I am literally over the moon (okay that’s not true, I’m still sitting here on my Mommy’s lap) about the latest instalment, Bakeries and Buffoonery. Gosh, I love the title! I had to look up the meaning of buffoonery, I’m not as fortunate as Frank to literally be a library cat. So some words are still new to us. Buffoonery is the best word to describe this book and actually this whole series. Some people might call it rather ridiculous, but it’s so amusing that even the grumpiest curmudgeon will crack a smile for the antics of the Book Club Members and their extraordinary bookish adventures.
Food has always been a very important aspect for our Book Club Members. So when they landed in a cozy little town called Frosting and just about in the middle of the Annual Cake Competition, the members couldn’t believe their luck. Nope, ‘cake’ is not some or other weird acronym, it’s a literal cake competition. And it might be slightly on the obsessive side in this town….
As always with any book by the talented Elizabeth Pantley, you get more than you bargained for. Sometimes it’s in the form of a history or geography lesson and there’s always a lesson in human and feline kindness hidden in her stories. Pure Magic.
The only thing we didn’t get from this book, was an easy-bake, sure-to-win, fool-proof cake recipe. When we asked Elizabeth about this, we’ve realized that the fault with that is that the author don’t bake!
How I Wrote a Baking Mystery – When I Don’t Bake
By Elizabeth Pantley
Author of the Magical Mystery Book Club series
Okay, l’ll be honest. I can bake a cake. A really, realllly simple cake. I can follow directions on a box cake package and spread frosting from a can. I have even managed to create a simple carrot cake. But I’ve never made a fancy decorated cake from scratch. Bakeries and Buffoonery is set in a town that holds a very serious cake competition once a year. I would lose. I would be so far in last place I’d be a half a block down the street.
The good news is that I have friends who bake! I even have one friend who makes amazing wedding and birthday cakes. These folks were kind enough to read through my descriptions and repair some fine points that would have made the professionals in my books sound like bumbling amateurs.
I also spent plenty of time on YouTube, Pinterest, and Google, watching cake baking videos and baking contests. I even tried my hand on some pretty frosted cupcakes. An interesting, although somewhat crumbly endeavor.
Between guidance from my friends, the ever-helpful internet, and a bit of hit-and-miss experiments in the kitchen, I managed to create a baking contest that my experienced friends swear sounds real and authentic. I also was able to describe some delicious-sounding cakes that some baker somewhere made at a dinner party to rave reviews (or so says their blog.) So cheers to all you fantastic cake-bakers! I hope you enjoy the creations in the town of Frosting’s annual cutthroat cake-baking contest.
Luckily for me, my Mommy is quite the baker and she will go and bake me a cake right this minute. Who else feels like cake?
About the Author
Elizabeth Pantley is the internationally bestselling author of The No-Cry Sleep Solution and twelve other books for parents, published in over twenty languages.
She simultaneously writes the well-loved Destiny Falls Mystery & Magic book series and the new Magical Mystery Book Club series.
Elizabeth lives in the Pacific Northwest, the gorgeous inspiration for the setting in many of her books. Visit her and sign up for her newsletter at www.nocrysolution.com
Author Links
Website: https://www.nocrysolution.com/books/
Newsletter Sign-up: https://www.nocrysolution.com/mailing-list/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DestinyFallsMysteryandMagic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/destinyfallsmystery/
BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/elizabeth-pantley
If you haven’t read anything by Elizabeth yet, don’t waste another minute! (Yes, you may finish your cake first)
Thank you to Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours for inviting us along for this fabulous blog tour!
Thanks for the awesome review and feature! So happy you are having fun with the Magical Mystery Book Club! : – )
Wonderful review. This sounds like a fun series.
Hi there Wendy!
I adore this series and anything written by Elizabeth Pantley actually!
Thanks for the visit, I hope you are doing well!