FROSTED MOTIVES

Some secrets bake longer than others. And some are worth killing for. When pastry chef Zoey Hartwell returns to Maple Glade after the sudden death of her beloved aunt Marigold, she expects grief, memories, and the difficult decision of what to do with The Sugared Maple—the cozy cupcake shop that shaped her childhood. She does not expect to inherit a mystery. Hidden inside an old marble rolling pin, Zoey discovers a yellowed letter, a brass key, and evidence tied to a forty-year-old scandal that ruined a woman’s name and divided the town in silence. Before Zoey can understand what her aunt was trying to tell her, a famous food critic arrives for the shop’s grand reopening. Hours later, he collapses after drinking a warm glass of maple-bourbon glaze. Everyone calls it heart failure. Zoey knows better. Her trained palate caught something bitter beneath the sweetness—something green, strange, and deadly. Now, with the help of a careful deputy, a sharp-tongued bakery manager, a guarded coffee shop owner, and Maple Glade’s unstoppable network of town gossips, Zoey begins following a trail of missing ledgers, old rivalries, hidden recipes, suspicious flowers, and secrets buried deep beneath the town’s picture-perfect charm. But in Maple Glade, everyone remembers something. Not everyone is telling the truth. And the closer Zoey gets to uncovering what really happened one terrible night in 1987, the more dangerous one question becomes: How far will someone go to keep the past buried? FROSTED MOTIVES is the first book in The Maple Glade Cupcake Shop Mysteries—a warm, atmospheric cozy mystery filled with irresistible pastries, small-town secrets, clever clues, emotional twists, found family, gentle romantic tension, and a mystery that proves sweetness can hide something deadly.