Red Velvet Revenge: A Cupcake Bakery Mystery by Jenn McKinlay

    Olivia really, truly has got to go.  She is incredibly obnoxious.  To make matters worse, Mel and Angie act really immature when they deal with her.  Even when Olivia is hardly in the book her actions grate on my nerves.  She is definitely a character that has to go.              

    Business has been slow at Fairy Tale Cupcakes.  When an opportunity comes along to sell their cupcakes at a rodeo, bakery owners Mel Cooper and Angie DeLaura think it’s a great idea.  At first, they think they will be able to bring only one other person with them, but everyone involved in the bakery insists on coming along.  That makes five people, in a new cupcake van, on a road trip out of town.

Road Trip Treats/Artwork by Kate Dorsey

    Upon arrival, selling cupcakes at the rodeo seems like it will be a great adventure as well as good for business.  Then, Slim Hazard, the man who runs the rodeo, is shot during a parade.  He ends up okay, but the rodeo star, Ty Stokes, does not.  After an altercation with Mel, she finds Ty dead in a bullpen.  Her intern, Oz, then becomes a suspect when someone tells the police they saw him in the area of the murder.

    Knowing Oz is innocent, Mel tries to keep him safe from the police.  She also tries to keep him out of the clutches of Slim’s daughter, Shelby. 

    Along with clearing Oz’s name and selling cupcakes, Mel also has the task of figuring out how to keep her patience with the tension happening between Angie and their friend Tate.  Angie and Tate love each other, but neither one will do anything about it.  This drives Mel crazy.  In some ways, looking for a murderer may be far more preferable than dealing with those two.

    While Mel kept thinking she was being too tough on her friends when she started telling them off (it was about time), I don’t think she was tough enough.  Tate and Angie really needed to get shaken about their behavior.  They needed to get their acts together, and figure out what was going on between them.  The more they didn’t, the more they were making the situation bad for everyone. 

    Between Tate and Angie’s behavior, Olivia’s antics, solving murders, and trying to run a business, I am not sure how Mel keeps her sanity some days.