murder mystery. When the meanest gossip in Brea Ridge dies mysteriously, suspicions turn to cake decorator Daphne Martin, But all Daphne did was deliver a spice cake with cream cheese frostingand find Yodel's body, Now Daphne's got to help solve the murder and clear her good name, Problem is, her Virginia hometown is brimming with people who had good reason to kill Yodel, and Daphne's whole family is among them, I've had this book for quite sometime now and finally got a chance to read it, Since the author has other series I was wanting to try, I know I'll like those after reading this one, I really enjoyed these characters, and I think Myra, Daph's neighbor had to be my favorite, She was nosy but in a lovable way, Daphne's niece and nephew were fun too, I loved how much they enjoyed being with their aunt and how she went out of her way to show them a good time just by simply baking with them.
I was glad that Daphne and Ben started seeing each other after reading that they were an item in high school, Ben was a really sweet guywell who wouldn't love a guy that used to play Shaggy when you and your friends played being Scooby Doo characters, ya know He was a good date and buddy to sleuth with.
There were some great red herrings in the story! At one point, I did start suspecting the person who ended up as the killer, but I didn't have the entire reasoning down.
It all played out really nice, and I was proud of how Daphne handled herself in the showdown, She was really thinking ahead! I couldn't resist ordering the second book, then I discovered I have the third on my Kindle, Since this was a shortlivedbook series, I'll have to savor it, Delightful and intriguing at the same time, Well written! Fun quick read, Classic cozy mystery, lots of info for anyone that loves to bake and decorate cakes Daphne Martin has recently moved back home to southwest Virginia.
Daphne has opened Daphnes Delectable Cakes, Daphnes first client is Yodel Watson, Yodel has a reputation in town for being a town gossip, She is also not a very liked person, So when Yodel is found murdered, There is no love lost, The million dollar question isWho didnt want Yodel dead
Murder Takes the Cake is the first Daphne Martin Cake Decorating mystery novel.
This book is a rerelease with some added, new material, I like Daphne. She is nice but she is a bit naïve, At the same time, I liked this quality about Daphne and hope she never really wises up, There were quite the wide ranges of interesting characters in this book, While I did have fun reading this book, there were some parts in the middle where I did skim over as I felt that the story could have moved faster.
This book is just what a cozy mystery novel should be likegood story line, interesting characters, and some twists along the way, I did enjoy this book, Mrs. Trent serves up a tasty morsel with Murder Takes the Cake!
This is a snappy, cozy read right from the start,
Daphne Martin has left a failed marriage, crummy apartment and deadend job and moved back to her hometown, Brea Ridge, Virginia, to start over.
She has started her own cake decorating business and her first customer is Yodel Watson, the meanest gossip in town,
When Daphne goes to deliver the cake, which isin trying to satisfy Yodels vague request, a voice yells “Come in! Its open! Come in!” in response to her knock.
What she finds is Yodel lying on the sofa dead, The voice is a grey parrot named Banjo, What a great start for a new business,
Daphnes notoriety from finding Yodel dead isnt the only thing that dampens her business, Seems the police chiefs wife is a blabber mouth and Daphne is her prime subject,
The suspects are many almost everyone in town has suffered from Yodels vicious tongue, When it becomes known Yodel kept a diary, things get a bit more hairy,
Brea Ridge is a small town and it has its own secrets, but some are not as secret as their owners would like.
The characters are good and there is even a budding romance, Daphne does have a problem with her Mom and a past event, but things do get ironed out,
My only rough spot is when Daphne sets up to work on her cakes and becomes a little more detailed in the particular tips she uses for her designs.
If youre into cake decorating, this would be of interest, With that written Id still read more books from this author and series,
Daphne Martin is back in her hometown to start a new life after her husband tried to kill her, she moved back to the little town to start a cake business.
She's delivering a cake to her first customer, Yodel Watson, but when Daphne gets there, Yodel is dead! lt yes, that's her name, lol, it's explained later in the story Now, even though the cake never left the box, the neighbors are blaming her cake for the death! Daphne soon learns that just about everyone in the town had a reason to dislike Yodel, she was a cranky busybody who kept a diary of all the sordid happenings around town.
Daphne peeks into the diary and learns a deep, dark secret about her own family, As Daphne speaks with her family and her neighbors, trying to uncover the truth, she ends up with information in the mystery of Yodel's death.
She's asking too many questions though, and gets a threatening warning to back off, Through it all she's baking cakes and more cakes and trying to keep her business afloat, My thoughts: Murder Takes the Cake was cute, short read, but ultimately it couldn't hold my attention,
Daphne is a likeable character, but we don't know too much about her past except that she's got an abusive exhusband who tried to kill her.
She's also got bad relationship with her mother, but we never find out why just that her mother and sister have a good relationship.
Apparently her mother thinks she should forgive the ex, which leaves my jaw on the floor just thinking about it, When she discovers her mother's secret, Daphne is even angrier, and I felt like this part of the story was never resolved,
The neighbors were quirky and provided for plenty of red herrings, The problem with that is that some of those herrings made the characters seem inconsistent, because we never found out the reasons for some of their weird behaviors, such as the pet store owner being really mean or the grocery store clerk acting suspicious.
The history with the romantic interest was a little more detailed and I thought we'd see some sparks, but really it was just awkward.
Throughout the book, Ms, Trent spends a lot of time describing the baking and decorating process, I have to be honest, I don't cook or bake, so I wasn't very entertained by all the baking references although I'll admit I didn't know you could freeze cake!.
She does include recipes for the cakes at the end of the book, which is pretty cool if you do enjoy baking, The narrator is supposed to be forty, yet she acts and talks like a whiny, naive preteen, I didn't expect to be reading the next Les Miserables, but I assumed the writing would be better unfortunately, I was wrong, Even the murderer was pretty cliché and easily guessable, Murder takes the Cake by Gayle Trent is the first book in the Daphne Martin Mystery series, Cake decorator, Daphne Martin finds her client dead while delivering a cake and becomes suspect, This book was just OK for me, I found it starnge that Daphne would be a suspect and become targetted for just finding the body, and strange that it would be expected of her to find the murderer.
The culprit seemed rather obvious and Daphne came across as rather dense and irritating, resorting to watching movies to help her solve the case.
The mystery seemed to take back stage with other issues in the book and especially the cake baking and decorating which was described in great detail.
Things arent off to a great start for Daphne Martin, Shes just returned to her home town to start a cake decorating business and her first client turns up dead, When its revealed that the woman had been poisoned, suddenly Daphnes cake orders screech to a standstill
and she realizes that, if someone doesnt figure out who murdered her first customer, she might never get a second.
Our leading lady isnt quite what I was expecting for someone with her history, She stands up for herself, is eager to be independent after several years of marriage, has serious issues with her family, and is surprisingly trusting.
Her issues with her mother mellow out a little by the end, and we do end up feeling a little more understanding of her side of things, but theres no escaping what a huge bitch shes been.
Her daughter is nearly murdered by her abusive husband, she has to go through a trial whereupon hes sentenced to seven years for assault with a deadly weapon, and not only does she not bother showing up to support Daphne in court but she harasses her over divorcing him and encourages her to make up with him.
“He said he was sorry,” Mom had scolded me over the phone, “You made the man angry, Daphne, You know how you can be, A person can only take so much, ”
Id hung up on her, A person could only take so much,
Gayle Trent, Murder Takes the Cake, p,
What had gotten him angry enough to turn a shotgun on her Shed put a few extra miles on their odometer by stopping at a bookstore when he hadnt given her permission to.
Yeah, her moms a real gem, Like I said, the reasoning makes you understand her a little better, but this event was just the icing on a lifetime of treating her older daughter like the second fiddle.
You kind of hate yourself a little for connecting with her,
And thats probably my favourite part of the book, Her family feels like real people experiencing real drama, Theyve all taken sides on this and other issues, and you can feel the tension when they have to sit down with each other.
Its unhealthy, but entertaining. All the characters felt real, actually, and the relationships between them were wholly believable and had great chemistry,
The romantic interest is Daphnes former best friend and current local reporter, Ben, They almost had a thing when they were in high school, but went to different colleges where Daphne met her asshole ex, Now that shes single and home again, Bens fallen back into the best friend role very easily, and while hes still sweet on her hes not dopy and obvious about it.
Theres no Bad Cop! Halleluiah! Daphne has one scene with the police chief where shes yelling at him for leaking information to his wife who then went on to spread slander about her baking all over town, and it certainly pisses him off that shed be calling out his wife like that, but we never run into him outside that scene and Daphne herself is never a suspect.
Despite his wife going around telling people the murder victim was poisoned after getting a cake from her, and setting the Department of Food and Agriculture to poke around her kitchen for a surprise inspection, Daphne had actually only been delivering it when shed found the body.
The plot was easy to solve and Daphne really should have put it together sooner, but thats something the author can work on in the next book.
But theres always a flaw, and Cake has its cake decorating scenes,
I took out a Styrofoam block, my flower nail, and my numberand numbertips, Deciding to make yellow roses first, I filled a bag onethird of the way with yellow icing, I attached a square of waxed paper to the flower nail with a dot of icing, I put the numberround tip into the coupler and made a generous cone base for the rose, After I stuck the flower nail into the Styrofoam, I traded the round tip for my numberpetal tip and retrieved the flower nail.
I made sure the wide end was at the bottom, and I made the center petal, I followed up with the three top petals, five middle petals, and seven lower petals, Voila. One yellow rose.
Gayle Trent, Murder Takes the Cake, p,
There is way too much information there, and it reads like a textbook, While you do learn a lot from these very specific, detailed instructions, you dont feel any of Daphnes love for her craft, Its great that Ive learned how to remedy peaks in my Swiss dots, but Id rather have an easily read scene, And instead of having the decorating and baking scenes woven into the story unobtrusively, theyre in only a few focused instances, interrupt the flow of the narrative, and stick out like oil spills on ice flows.
The verdict The abusive exhusband is mentioned several times, but thats forgiven for the ending where her refusal to get pushed around and her history of abuse ends up saving her life in a conclusion steeped in karma.
The obligatory pet was a cute, fluffy stray with an empty eye socket, which captured the cozyclean but realistic nature of the characters, The chemistry was aces and aside from the glaring decorating scenes it was a good first novel, Im planning on picking up the second and seeing if this ends up one to follow, .