I couldn't resist a book described as a mashup of the movie [Clue] and 'The Great British Baking Show.' Sadly, I should have paid more attention to the lukewarm reviews I saw of it and at least tempered my expectations...

[The Golden Spoon] started off well enough, setting up the plot and characters. Betsy Martin is a grande dame of American baking and hosts a baking competition at her family home in Vermont. This year, 6 contestants will be vying for the coveted Golden Spoon. We meet the characters in alternating chapters as they prepare for and arrive for the show. And then weird things start happening - someone is sabotaging some of the bakes, strange footsteps are heard at night, some people appear to be keeping secrets.... It really could have been a fun novel, but the characters are incredibly flat, the writing barely rises above pedestrian, and the ultimate denouement is just kind of dumb. I'm not sorry I read it, as there were some good moments, but overall, it was a big bowl of meh.

3.25 stars ( )

I love the Bake Off so this book was a must read for me.

I appreciated the multi-POV style and I thought it was pretty fun to know that there was a murder but not know who the victim was until late in the book. My main complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed.

Still, it's a really easy read and seems like the perfect thing for vacation because you don't need to invest a whole lot of brain power to enjoy it.



( )

After being on the library waiting list for this for ages, this buzzy cozy finally came in, and I took it with me out of town, putting a just-begun Agatha Raisin on hold.

Little did I dream I would gobble it down in one day! (I had time on my hands for once). What fun!

I am not always a fan of the multiple POV style, which also includes hopping around a bit in the narrative. But it was a fun way to tell this locked room tale, and it kept me guessing.. Including, "Okay, this is a mystery story, but who is the victim going to be?"

If you bake, if you have a sweet tooth, if you enjoy TV cooking competitions, hell.. if you just like imagining luscious goodies to eat and imbibe, you might agree that this is a lively, fairly well-written (*), and (at least for me, once I got into it), addictive murder mystery.

Bon appétit!

(*) - I found at least 2 glaring homophone errors. So glaring that I had to pause and look back at the title page to prove to myself this was not a self-published work but an imprint of Simon and Schuster, no less. For shame! ( )

The obvious Bake Off rip off i can forgive, the bad writing less so. ( )

Synopsis: Betsy runs a baking show out of the family manor home she grew up in. Her producers want to bring in a new assistant host/judge to spice the show up a bit. Unfortunately, as the Baking Show's season begins contestants believe someone is sabotaging their bakes. Then, murder happens.

My rating: 4/5

Overall I really enjoyed this book. The concept of a murder mystery held in a Great British Bake off setting checks so many of my bookish boxes. There are a lot of characters to keep track of but I read this as an audio book and there was an excellent ensemble cast so I didn't have too much trouble keeping straight who was who.

All the characters were complex and most of them had detailed back stories. This book also had a diverse cast of characters, which I always appreciate seeing. I enjoyed learning about each character almost as much as I enjoyed the baking part of the book.

There are actually three mysteries going on in the book. The book opens with one mystery but it takes quite a while in the book to get back to that mystery and by the time we do there are two other mysteries happening. I wasn't equally invested in the mysteries and I cared about some more than others. I also liked the outcome of some of them more than others. There were a couple places where I really needed to suspend my disbelief but I was having such a fun time I didn't care.

I also think the "justice" at the end was a bit lacking. I generally like to feel that the bad guys in mysteries I read got what was coming to them and I didn't feel that way with how this book ended.

Despite some mild disappointments about the mystery elements I had a great time reading this and would recommend to other readers who also love the Great British Baking show. ( )