Murder Freshly Baked, a review

Murder Freshly Baked is the third book in the Amish Village Mystery series by Vannetta Chapman.  However, it easily reads as a "stand alone" novel.  I haven't read the first two books and the author provided enough background on the characters and their history that I could easily follow the plot.

I must say, after reading this book I'm certainly going to read the first two!  This is an exceptionally good cozy mystery!  I found it amusing that as I read the first few chapters, I realized it had to be based on one of our favorite restaurant locations... Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, Indiana.  We lived within an easy drive to Middlebury at one time and enjoyed a family style meal a few times a year there.

But I digress, this review is about the book and not the actual place!  I absolutely loved this book.  I started out skim reading as I often do with novels I'm reviewing but became so interested in it that I found it hard to put down.  As it turned out, I stayed up until 1:00 in the morning to finish it and see "who dunnit".

Murder Freshly Baked centers around Amber, who manages Amish Village and her friends both "English" like her and Amish.  It opens with a murder occurring but then flashes back a month and the story is about everything that leads up to the murder.

There are a few subplots such as a former soldier who works at the Village who is suffering from PTSD, Amber's young Amish friend who works at the village and is getting married soon, a young English man who is dating three women at once, and then the central story of e-mails arriving warning Amber that the writer of the e-mails is going to poison pies sold at the Village.  Thus, the title.

The author does a superb job of mingling all the subplots within the frame of the main storyline.  I liked the way everything begins to come together even before the end of the book and she points the finger at a few characters who could have committed the murder.  So it is possible to be completely surprised at the ending!

I highly recommend this book for lovers of cozy mysteries and/or Amish novels.  Very good!  A perfect kind of book to slip into your bag when heading to the beach (or to read next to a warm fireplace with a hot cup of tea for our friends who are just now in "real" winter!).

This book was provided by the publisher for the sake of review but the opinion is my own.

Further information can be found... here.*

*All links to Amazon.com are Associate links.