Ali Daniels, fresh of a breakup, is happy to throw herself into her work at Honeybun Sweets and Sandwiches, making delicious mini pastries and healthy smoothies for New Yorkers and tourists alike. When a mega event planner arrives at the shop and rudely orders a green smoothie, Ali must practice her best customer service skills. Even though Ali already knows Heidi is a mega you-know-what, she's still excited to be invited to participate in a taste-testing for the mayor's Black and White ball held by Bella Events, Heidi's company. Once there, Ali discovers Heidi is in rare form, being nasty to everyone but Ali never dreams Heidi will keel over dead after eating Honeybun pastries! Of course the police set their sights on Ali and she's determined they won't arrest her for something she didn't do. Together with her best friend Izzy, she sets out to clear her name.
This story was OK but nothing special. There are some typos/spelling errors and word misplacements that bothered me and the New York City setting felt odd to me. I like small town cozies because they're an escape from reality and the suspect pool is limited. In New York, the murderer could be anyone and get away with it. Even so, I never figured out which one of the suspects did it until Ali did. I was thinking something else entirely that would have made a less predictable plot. There was one twist that surprised me though.
I didn't warm up to Ali at all. She seems like a nice person but a little two-dimensional. At first I thought she might be TSTL but she isn't entirely. I'd like to know how Ali went from working in the corporate world to baking without a culinary degree! Some of things she makes are too sophisticated for home bakers without prior experience. I also didn't understand why she was always making smoothies if her job was to bake pastries and why she didn't offer a free pastry with Heidi's smoothie, even if Heidi would be rude and reject it. In the course of her sleuthing she breaks about a million laws but does it at the urging of her best friend, an online journalist. FYI: Ali has a cat, Tika, who doesn't really do much. I tend not to get along with cat-loving heroines for some reason. Ali's mom, a former hippie, is a little too much to handle. Why is she so in favor of the patriarchal institution of marriage? She is one heck of an embarrassing and sometimes overbearing mother but she means well.
Izzy cares about Ali but she really, really wants this story and will do anything to get it. I didn't approve of her methods. I also didn't like Honeybun employee Oscar Berrega, a flamboyant, wannabe actor. I really didn't like his over-eagerness to obtain and share dirty gossip about Bella Events and anything else juicy he found out. I also felt he was stereotypical. Al, the shop owner and bread baker, is a man of few words, yet I can tell how much he loves baking and cares about the shop and employees. He reminded me of Murray Goldberg in the ABC sitcom The Goldbergs.
Heidi Slatter-Chakeris was a really nasty woman. She was ruthless in business, clawed her way to the top by unethical means and was rude to everyone. Her husband, Bernard, seems like a much more calm and rational person. His job is to hose down his wife. Taffy, senior event planner, has every reason to hate Heidi yet she continues to work for Heidi. Taffy vents her frustrations in a not-so-moral way and I can see her losing it and killing her boss. Media mogul Roman Garret, the producer of Heidi's show, is completely naive or a good actor. He runs a company producing clean and wholesome entertainment, yet Heidi did not fit that mold and everyone else knew it. Could he have killed her because she was bad for business? His daughter Meghan seems to know what's what and is a better business person than her dad.
Officer Wierzbowski really has no idea who killed Heidi or why. He seems to think it was Ali and is quick on the draw when it comes to bringing her in for questioning. Derek, Chief Assistant to Chief of Staff and liaison to the Mayor’s Office for the taste-testing is Ali's new potential love interest. He's good-looking and kind to Ali but he throws his weight around and pulls strings to help her out. He doesn't really know her or know whether she's capable of murder. Yes he eats Honeybun sandwiches for lunch every day but she doesn't make those! It doesn't make sense for him to want to clear Ali's name. Detective Avery Hamilton is much better at his job than Officer Wierzbowski. He looks at the facts and doesn't job to conclusions. It wasn't necessary to have him be "hot" and not wear a ring.
The characters are all two-dimensional and the plot wasn't all that engaging. This series just isn't for me. I won't be reading any of the others.