Includes 3 full-length cozy mysteries and four free dessert recipes!
The Great Brownie Taste-off, Book 1
Cat shelter employee Yolanda Carter loves her job, but her dream is to own a bakery. Living in Sherman Oaks, California with her tuxedo cat, her only outlet is baking treats for her friends, coworkers and family.
Her situation changes when her high school friend, Teagan Mishkin, drops by to tell her about an incredible job opportunity that will give Yolanda enough money to launch her bakery.
The job interview takes an unexpected turn and Yolanda stumbles across a scheme to close the cat shelter. She concocts a sweet plan to save the shelter and share her decadent brownies in the Great Brownie Taste-off. Assisted by her artisan parents, friends, shelter employees and a rising young blogger who gives her much-needed publicity, will she win the taste-off and save the shelter?
Includes the winning brownie recipe.
The Missing Sea Captain, Book 2
The successful launch of Yolanda’s Yummery in the trendy Brentwood area of Los Angeles has Yolanda Carter working seven days a week. Her delicious desserts are garnering many repeat customers and in just a few weeks the adjoining Beverage Bar will be opening. She’s involved in a budding romance with sophisticated British tea baron, Nigel Garvey.
The mystery involves Captain Angus, a regular homeless customer who disappears. Clues point toward Yolanda being involved in foul play. Lead investigator Detective Churchill thinks she’s a murderer, along with her best friend, Teagan Mishkin.
Will Yolanda’s name be cleared, and can those bestselling Magical Cakes of Love save her and the yummery?
Includes two new recipes!
A Pie to Die For, Book 3
In this cozy mystery, Yolanda Carter is told of her grandmother’s best friend’s unsolved murder. Mildred Overmeyer was an outstanding home baker who was stabbed to death while baking a cherry pie. The story of the 1960s crime touches Yolanda, along with her new friend, Detective Churchill. Her budding sleuthing skills lead her to search for the killer.
In between investigating and baking batches of pies in time for her latest product launch, Yolanda discovers more about the sweetness of love. And who is heating up the kitchen with Yolanda?
Includes the recipe for Yolanda’s Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies!
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Yolanda Carter took a bite of the red velvet cupcake. The swirl of sweet and tangy cream cheese frosting dissolved in her mouth, followed by the rich chocolaty goodness of the cupcake. Yes, this batch was just fine, but a smattering of sprinkles would help the cupcakes stand out even more. Sprinkles were always good to have when bringing in cupcakes for Fun Food Friday. Employees and volunteers loved the tradition of sharing different types of food every week. It had been going on at the Crown Street Cat Shelter for years, and Yolanda was always happy to bring in her freshly baked cookies, cupcakes, layer cakes, or brownies.
Since it was February, but an appropriately gorgeous sunny day with temperatures promising to soar into the mid-80s, she thought that turquoise sprinkles would be a nice touch. She went over to the wooden spice rack that sat on her counter and found the sprinkles, which she gently shook on each swirled cupcake top. She loved that the rack had only decorations and her most used-and-loved vanilla and flavor extracts, rather than the twenty-four herbs and spices that had come with the housewarming present from her parents. Yolanda baked far more than she cooked; while she still had the standard spices, they were kept in the back of a cupboard at the far end of the kitchen. She’d shoved them next to some extra salt-and-pepper shaker sets she’d received as gifts years ago but hadn’t used.
For a second, she admired the array of cupcakes sporting their perky blue buttons of sugar. A glance at the chalet-style cuckoo clock above the back door showed that she was running late. She swallowed the rest of the red velvet and placed the decorated cupcakes in the plastic carrier. Shouldn’t have this much sugar in the morning, she thought, knowing she’d have to be careful about what she ate the rest of the day.
Yolanda was of average height and had an extra ten pounds on her hips that wouldn’t go away, even when she went for day-long canyon hikes or rode her bike countless miles along the beachside bike trails. She had warm hazel eyes and long chestnut hair pulled back into a ponytail. She wore baggy jeans she’d bought at a resale shop, pairing them with a purple batik shirt made by her artsy mother. Wearing comfortable clothing was necessary in her line of work.
She thought about her upcoming day. Missy Wakefield, her boss, would be there, as would Sid, the new college student, along with a couple of volunteers. Tomorrow will be another Cat Adoption Day, so there was more work than usual. She had to make sure there were plenty of adoption forms and copies of the kitten-and-cat tips booklet. Yolanda was proud of the fact that she had helped her boss write the booklet and take cute photos of some cats and kittens to enhance it. She had grown up with cats and even a few dogs, and last year had adopted Miss Chef, a classic tuxedo cat with a white stripe down her face and a perpetually curved white smile. Her dainty white paws were always kept clean, and the stripe along the front of her body was groomed several times a day. Her official name was Miss Pastry Chef, but sometimes her name was shortened to Mischief. Once, Yolanda had left a cupcake on the coffee table in the living room, as she was going to have a snack while she watched Cupcake Battles. The cat had jumped up and devoured the sweet treat. She learned never to leave anything edible unattended after that.
While she loved her job, especially being around a cast of approximately 175 cats and kittens 40 hours per week, she knew that earning just over minimum wage wasn’t going to get her the bakery that she envisioned. Not even if she scrimped and saved every dollar she earned. Start-up fees for a tiny bakery in Los Angeles County were very high—even if she opted for a location in Whittier or somewhere less expensive than Sherman Oaks.
She picked up her pink-and-purple batik tote bag that was always filled with cat toys and packets of nutritious homemade cat treats. The four-legged residents staying at the shelter enjoyed eating her signature tuna and chicken treats.
Inside the detached garage, she unlocked her car and put the carrier in the back seat of her old silver hatchback. It was good for hauling things and occasionally visiting the gas station. It was also a source of embarrassment for her boyfriend, self-professed “ragtop-man” Zac Field.
Within a few minutes, she was approaching the small, prefabricated building with a potholed parking lot behind it. She could tell who was there by the show of vehicles: her boss’s Toyota SUV, the Harley favored by part-timer Sid, Tatiana’s older Jetta, and Julio’s minivan. A vintage blue Schwinn bicycle with shiny chrome fenders was locked in the bike rack--Laura’s ride.
On the other side of Crown Street, she noticed two men in dark shirts and slacks talking to each other. The man with a wispy fringe of blond hair was peering through a late-model camcorder as he focused on filming something behind her. The other man, with gray hair and a matching beard, was clutching a minuscule point-and-shoot digital camera. He stood on the sidewalk taking photos of what looked like the shelter or the small warehouse next to it. He happened to notice her and quickly turned, heading farther down the block.
As she reached into her car to grab her stuff, she saw them scurry over to a burgundy Lexus sedan and get inside. It took off in the opposite direction and turned down Warren Street, disappearing from view. That’s odd, she thought.
She balanced her tote bag in one hand and the carrier in the other and opened the back door of the cat shelter. The smell hit the instant she stepped inside, the ripe stench of dozens of cats. She couldn’t wear her favorite perfume, as some of the cats were allergic to harsh aromas, even though it smelled like freshly baked cookies. So, she had to close her nose and concentrate on her adored little charges. The meow-chorus greeted her, as a group of cats made it evident that they knew she had special treats for them. Even as she walked up to the back entrance, she could hear the kitty cat glee club as her diehard fans called out.
Resembling the Pied Piper of cats, Yolanda rushed to the closed door with the NO CATS/EMPLOYEES ONLY sign prominently displayed. On cue, it opened for her. She gratefully stepped inside, as the size-twelve track shoe of Sid gently nudged the large calico leader aside.
“So sorry I’m late,” she said, the door slamming behind her. In the hallway, the meowers doubled their efforts, underscoring the ruckus with their frantic claws scratching the door.
Gangly young Sid, who wore his usual faded black jeans and T-shirt, looked in the direction of the noise and laughed. “Reminds me of zombies,” he said.
“I know what you mean!” She placed the carrier on the scratched former dining room table in the center of the room. In the shelter, the break room also served as a conference room. She plunked her tote bag next to it. The room, walled in cinder blocks and painted in gaudy neon like a sunset on steroids, always made her eyes hurt for a few seconds. “I have red velvet cupcakes.”
Missy walked in and kept the strident cats at bay with her fast entrance. The older woman had hip-length black hair with graying roots. Baggy cargo pants sported bulges of telltale cat treats in the multitude of pockets, and a bulky navy sweatshirt attempted to hide her girth. “Hey, Yolanda,” she said, observing the younger woman removing the lid from the carrier. “You brought my favorite cupcakes!”
“You always say that, Missy.”
“It’s always true. Good news! This time, we have plates and napkins.” Missy went over to the small table that held a coffee maker with a fresh pot that was almost full. “Discount store sale so we got the pretty ones!”
Yolanda walked over to the table and saw a stack of pink-patterned cupcake-motif plates and matching napkins.
Sid ambled over, poured himself a cup of coffee, and plated a cupcake. In one bite, he managed to remove all the frosting. A second large bite, and the cupcake was gone. “I’m a frosting-first kinda guy.”
Yolanda laughed. “Just like my dad!” She touched her nose, seeing a smudge of frosting on the tip of his nose.
Sid smiled and wiped it away. “I love any cupcake with cream cheese frosting. Or chocolate. But yours are always the best.”
She beamed. “Thanks, Sid.”
Another clamor from the cats as they tried to catch their attention when the door opened a crack. A flash of wavy golden-brown hair and the angular face of the morning volunteer, Laura, was seen when she peeked in and waved.
“Missy, you have a call on line two.”
“Hey Laura, have a cupcake,” Yolanda said.
“Are they gluten-free?”
“Sorry, no,” Yolanda replied.
“Bummer,” Laura said as she closed the door. There was a yelp from a cat that almost got its tail caught in the door.
Yolanda took a red velvet for herself, foregoing the coffee in favor of a bottle of water from the fridge. This’ll be my last cupcake today, she thought. Opening the bottle and taking a sip, she closed it and quickly finished her snack. The remaining cupcakes tempted her to stay longer and indulge her sugar craving. Her next job was anything but sweet. She mentally braced herself for the dreaded duty of litter box cleanup. Stashing her tote bag in her locker, she removed a packet of the tuna treats and put them in her back pocket. Then it was time to face the feline hordes in the sunroom, where they roamed free.
She tentatively pulled the door open a crack to see if there were any nearby. Fortunately, there weren’t any, so she was able to leave the break room without having to fend any off. Sometimes she had to resort to throwing spare treats in the hallway about ten yards to the right so she could leave unscathed and not have to chase any strays around the room.
The large sunroom was where dozens of cats spent time together on a daily basis. All sorts of carpeted climbing and sleeping towers kept them off the floor. Secondhand couches and chairs served as beds, as did the cushions. The wooden floor was also home to lounging cats. Small groups of them occupied a few carpets and rugs. Three strategically placed litter boxes were in dire need of waste disposal. Yolanda stopped off at the supply closet to don a pair of latex gloves, grab a clean plastic scoop, and take a wheeled garbage can with her. Just as she approached the first litter box, a young tabby leapt out of it, leaving behind an uncovered mess. Worse than that was the diarrhea deposited about a yard away from the box. Sid walked in carrying a young tiger cat and noticed the situation. “I guess Doc couldn’t make it to the box in time.”
Yolanda shook her head. “At least two or three times a day he goes there. Someone was being sarcastic when they named him Doc.”
“Diarrhea Doc,” Sid said.
After she finished cleaning out the plastic boxes and refilling them with generic-brand cat litter, she sprinkled a layer of baking soda on top of the clean clay surface. That gesture wasn’t appreciated as she was almost shoved aside by a couple of eager cats. Returning her cleaning supplies, she walked down the hallway and saw Laura putting a large calico cat into its cage. “This is the sixth time Cameo’s been passed over for adoption,” she said.
Petting the cat, Yolanda saw the animal’s downcast expression. She reached into her back pocket and pulled out two squares of the treat. Cameo enthusiastically ate them and purred. “Don’t worry, Cameo, you’ll find a good home.”
Looking at the other cages, she made sure all the occupants got a couple of tuna bits. Cage number 23 was now home to a muscular shorthaired black cat with a single white whisker amid his black whiskers. Upon seeing Yolanda, he rubbed up against the bars. She handed him a few of the treats and he gobbled them down loudly. He stuck his paw between the bars, and she stroked it. “When did he get here?”
“Mr. Whisker got here this morning. He was sitting on the back doorstep looking like he was waiting to be let inside.”
“Another drop-off,” Yolanda said. “Seems like it’s every day now.”
Laura nodded. “You’re right. It does.”
Yolanda sighed and handed out treats to every cat behind bars. She felt like they were little prisoners in the cages. They always had enough food and water. They were taken out for exercise, but all needed a real home, what most people involved with the shelter called a forever home.
Missy stopped by as Laura returned to the reception desk at the main entrance. “I think you should be selling those cat treats.”
“Well, uh, I don’t add preservatives and I don’t have a commercial kitchen. I just like to bake cat treats on the side.”
While she enjoyed making the feline delicacies, they weren’t nearly as fun and exciting as coming up with a new cookie or cupcake recipe. It wasn’t like determining if a chocolate caramel pecan cookie needed to be crisp or soft. Or what colors to make her favorite buttercream frosting. As she was walking down the hall to fill the food bowls, a Siamese mix ran out of the reception area followed closely by Julio.
With his marathoner's training, it didn’t take the man long to nab the errant cat and return it to the smaller room.
“Hey, Julio, you were here early this morning, right?”
The older man chuckled. “You know me, I love to get up early.”
“Did you see anything weird this morning? Like two guys with cameras and video equipment taking pictures?”
“People make movies everywhere.”
“But of a cat shelter?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Location scouts, maybe? And if they made a movie here, we’d place a lot of cats in forever homes.”
Yolanda smiled. “Wow, that’d be great. I just got suspicious. They had a real fancy new car.”
“Even more likely they’re making a movie.”
She looked at her watch and saw it was time to report for front office duty and deal with Ozzie the office manager. Inside the cramped office, she went to the scratched-up desk where the elderly computer sat, decorated with colorful sticky notes along the monitor’s edges. The wallpaper showed a fluffy Persian cat. The chair’s added cushion held a huge tabby that was curled up, snoring and purring. Ozzie weighed nearly thirty pounds and his general duties consisted of eating, sleeping, shuffling over to his private litter box in the corner, and returning to slumberland in his favorite chair. Working with Ozzie meant that he had to sit in the employee’s lap while they used the computer. Yolanda helped compose the email newsletter and add more names to the contact list. Ozzie noticed her, sniffed her hand, and returned to his extended sleeping schedule.
Finally, quitting time rolled around. She would have to work on Saturday but had Sunday off.
Only Missy was still inside doing the paperwork. Yolanda put her empty cupcake carrier in her car and did a perimeter check to make certain there were no drop-offs and no escapees. Nothing. The last place she looked at was the dumpster on the east side of the building and it was a case of saving the worst for last. The stench wasn’t for the faint-hearted, and discovering abandoned felines was something Yolanda and her co-workers dreaded finding. Picking up the stick that was kept next to the big garbage bin, she opened the lid, bracing herself for a nasal assault. It was bad, and she concentrated on looking for any movement from a bag or wads of towels or rags; gently poking the long stick around, finding and hearing nothing. Relieved, she was about to shut the lid when a loud shout of “incoming!” made her look up.
A dark object was flying in her direction. Behind that she saw a flash of light from a pair of eyeglasses catching the last rays of the setting sun. A man on a bicycle sped westward on Crown Street, concealed by the shadowy buildings.
The object was a backpack that fell next to the dumpster. Letting the lid fall with a crash, she bent down to retrieve it. Oh no, I hope there’s no one in here, she thought. But the weight of the bag wasn’t heavy, and she unlatched it, finding a crumpled piece of paper in the main compartment. “I should tell Missy about this,” she said to herself, knowing that no one was around.
Rushing back inside, she found her boss putting on her jacket. “Hey Missy, some guy on a bike just dropped this off.”
Her boss frowned, “What’s in it?”
Yolanda put the bag on her boss’s desk. “I just checked the main area, not the pockets.”
“Okay,” Missy said, rummaging through the navy knapsack with a broken strap. “Glad there’s no cats in here.” She pulled out the paper. “Notebook paper,” she said, uncrumpling it. “It says ‘get out of here’ in all caps.”
“Get out of the shelter? The block? The city?”
Missy shrugged. “I know less than you. Did you see what the man looked like?”
“No, I was doing the dumpster check and had the lid up. The knapsack fell on the ground, so that’s why I’m super glad there wasn’t a cat in it. I only know it was a man on a bike wearing glasses. It happened so fast, you know.”
“He threw it at you?”
“Yeah. And he shouted incoming.”
“Incoming? That’s all he said?”
“Yeah. And he rode off—fast.”
“Look, it’s Friday night, it’s Van Nuys, and people are weird. Just put it back where it belongs and forget about it,” said her boss.
“Okay,” she said, going back to the dumpster and tossing it inside. Yolanda hurried to her car, mulling over the strangeness of the incident.
“Nancy Drew Meets CSI”. It’s another Annie Tillery Mystery
Letters can really change a life. In Linda Maria Frank’s latest Annie Tiller Mystery, teen detective and her boyfriend, Ty Egan, bump into the intrigue of a past time in American his
Do you love a Mystery? How about a Ghost Story? Grab some pure entertainment! Enter the world of “Nancy Drew Meets CSI”. Follow the new girl detective, Annie Tillery, as she navigates her way through intriguing plots with good forensic science, narro
Dallas attorney Stan Turner hates criminal law but has a propensity for attracting murder cases anyway. So, it's no big surprise when a simple attorney-ad-litem appointment in family court evolves into a complex murder trial.
