Beignets, Brides and Bodies

Maggie Miller, the narrator of Ripley’s appealing sequel to 2015’s Buried in Beignets, is up to her flour-caked elbows in batter and angst in Table Rock, Ariz., where she’s trying to establish her café, which features the famous fried French pastry. One day, Maggie agrees to give a lift to her friend Clive Rothschild, who owns the Hitching Post, the wedding store next door, with his husband, Johnny Wolfe. Unfortunately, Maggie and Clive wind up finding the body of 27-year-old Lisa Willoughby under 700 pounds of wedding cake. Lisa had some history with Clive and Johnny, and Clive becomes suspect number one. The good-hearted Maggie joins a long list of plucky female protagonists who start new businesses—and sometimes new romances—but still are unable to say no to their know-it-all mothers. That creates complications, of course, since Maggie manages to get into plenty of trouble on her own. Every step leads to a misunderstanding or worse as Maggie strives to track down the real killer in this clever, amusing cozy. [em]Agent: Priya Doraswamy, Lotus Lane Literary Agency. (Nov.) [/em]