Review: The Crime Brûlée Bake Off by Rebecca Connolly

The Crime Brûlée Bake Off by Rebecca Connolly

Blurb from Goodreads:

An unexpected romance. A haunting mystery. Pastries to die for. The Great British Baking Show meets a cozy mystery with a contemporary romance and a Regency-era twist.

Amateur baker Claire Walker is thrilled to be a contestant on Britain’s Battle of the Bakers. She can almost smell the fresh pastries wafting through the air. If she can win the grand prize, she can ditch her teaching job and launch her baking career.

The Viscount of Colburn, Jonathan Ainsley, is the custodian of Blackfirth Park and an eligible bachelor. He reluctantly agrees to allow the cooking competition show to film on his estate, but when a contestant is found dead soon after filming begins, Jonathan is forced to get involved. To make matters worse, the baker’s death stirs up rumors of the legendary death of the tenth Viscountess of Colburn two hundred and fifty years earlier.

Even as suspicion falls on some of the bakers, a decidedly different kind of heat begins to simmer between Claire and Jonathan. If they are to have any hope of a future romance, they must first solve the mystery before the show gets canceled or someone else falls prey to what some believe is the Blackfirth Park ghost.

 

This was another fun spin on the Great British Bake Off plus cozy murder mystery!  I enjoyed it a lot even though it was a bit more murder speculation than I anticipated.  The setting was great and if love baking, baking shows and cozy mysteries, you will love this one!

The Crime Brûlée Bake Off comes out next week on February 4, 2025 and you can purchase HERE.  

He liked her. He liked Claire, and not in a "she's really good company" way, though she certainly was. He liked her in the "he liked looking at her" way, or the "liked laughing with her" way, or the "lost track of time when he was with her" way. It was a strange feeling. Minutes usually crawled by when he was in the company of most people, and the exceptions to that unofficial rule were few and far between. And nobody had ever given him these extremes in emotion before. Hilarity until he almost cried. Fear that could keep him awake at night. Anticipation that made his legs buzz in the strangest ways. Curiosity that made him go where he hadn't ever intended on going. Investment that made him watch hours of a baking competition he had happily avoided all these years.

He genuinely and thoroughly liked Claire.