Tuesday 21 July 2015

Murder Freshly Baked by Vannetta Chapman (Amish fiction, Christian fiction, 10E/10E)

You might not want to eat this pie...
June 2015, Zondervan, 352 pages, Ebook, Review copy 

Content: murder, humour, tense moments, mild romance, tissue needed 

Summary from Zondervan 
When delicious baked goods become lethal, a trail of poetry leads to a sweet-toothed killer.

Don’t taste it / Don’t share it /Just throw it away / If you try my bakery pie / You won’t live to see another day.

The Amish Artisan Village of Middlebury, Indiana, might be the last place you would ever expect to find a murderer. But Amber has been managing the Village for decades and there’s nothing she hasn’t seen. Or so she thought.

When poetic notes begin appearing around the bakery, warning that some of the pies have been poisoned, Amber is as confused as she is concerned. Who poisons pies? And more to the point, who leaves poems of warning after they’ve done it? When Amber decides to help the police track down the sweet-toothed saboteur, she enlists Hannah Troyer for another round of Amish-style detective work.

Can Amber and Hannah help the police before the Poison Poet strikes? Both women will need to draw on their faith to preserve the peaceful community they’ve built in Middlebury . . . and to protect the girls who work in the Amish Artisan Village.

Nayu's thoughts
I love all of Vannetta's Amish stories, and am rather fond of Middlebury. In some ways this is more fun a storyline that the previous two books (which I've listened to the audiobooks but not yet reviewed). The summary leaves out an important question - why would anyone want to warn people of the poisoned pies? I won't spoil any details but my personal view is that it's far more fun for the culprit to see those who may eat the pies be scared and on edge by the notes than simply poison them without warning. 

Amber and Hannah make the perfect duo, with Amber knowing some 'English' ways, and Hannah knowing how to get information and help from those in the Amish community without scaring them away. This third adventure is the creepiest yet, giving me lots of shivers waiting in anticipation for the next note to arrive. There's more to be learnt about the Amish, the story involves a lot of baking which, from other Amish fiction I've read, is a key focal point for the Amish. That & I like cakes and bread, although thankfully I don't eat too many pies - I'll certainly be looking at the next one carefully, even though I should be safe as I'm on a different continent and this is fiction! I say that but Vannetta sets the scenes and characters so well that this could easily be real life. I've visited an Amish market once when I visited Maryland, so it is easy to picture all the Amish stores and dress. Yet another wonderful addition to my happily growing pile of Amish themed reads!

Suggested read 
Check out other books by Vannetta, including the first book in the series involving Middlebury, Murder Simply Brewed (Amish Fiction, Christian Fiction, 10E/10E)


2 comments:

Vannetta Chapman said...

Thank you for your review!

Nayuleska said...

You're most welcome! Always get excited when I see a new book from you