Blog Tour Post & Review: Eclair and Present Danger by Laura Bradford

‘The first book in the delicious new Emergency Dessert Squad Mystery series from national bestselling author Laura Bradford.

With her rent rising faster than her pie crust, bakery owner Winnie Johnson had hoped to be rescued by an inheritance from her wealthy friend and neighbor Gertrude Redenbacher. Instead all she inherits is the widow’s hostile hissing tabby, Lovey, and a vintage ambulance, restored by Gertrude’s late husband. As her dream crumbles, Winnie makes her final delivery–a peach pie to an elderly widower. But she finds Bary Wagner lying on his kitchen floor, smothered by a pillow.

To comfort her frightened and grieving neighbors, Winnie comes to the rescue with her baked goods–and an idea is born: dessert delivery via her ambulance and a new business called the Emergency Dessert Squad. When she’s not speeding to the scenes of dessert emergencies, Winnie is also racing to track down Bart’s killer–before she needs to call a real ambulance for the next victim…’

I enjoy reading Laura Bradford’s Amish mystery series and I was excited to learn that she has written a new series. In this book, Winnie Johnson is the owner of a bakery and she loves what she does. However, the landlord is increasing his rent and Winnie cannot afford to keep her business open. She has to shut the doors of her bakery and she is at a loss to determine what to do with her life. She has to have money in order to pay her bills. A neighbor that has died has left Winnie a vintage ambulance as her inheritance and genius strikes. Winnie uses her baking skills and the ambulance and the Emergency Dessert Squad is born. Her neighbors are senior citizens and her best friend is a little quirky but the author uses these characters to make an interesting read.

I enjoyed this book. It was a little hard to follow at the beginning trying to keep up with all the characters, but eventually I got into the lull of this book and the story started to come together. The murder mystery was a little easy to figure out, but I still enjoyed reading this book. I feel that this series is the beginning of a series that has a lot of potential. I would say that this isn’t the best debut, but it is a good start. I enjoyed the characters and I am curious to see how things turn out for them in the next book. I think that the concept of the Emergency Dessert Squad is brilliant and I am anxious to see how the business progresses throughout the series. I truly enjoyed the scenarios that the author created and thought that they were very clever. This is a series that I will be sure to continue to look into in the future.

Laura Bradford (aka Elizabeth Lynn Casey) is the author of several mystery series and a handful of romance novels. She is a former Agatha Award nominee and the recipient of an RT Reviewer’s Choice Award.  In her free time, Laura enjoys making memories with her family, baking, playing games, and catching up with friends. In addition to the Emergency Dessert Squad Mysteries, Laura writes The Amish Mysteries and The Jenkins & Burns mysteries, as well as The Southern Sewing Circle Mysteries (as Elizabeth Lynn Casey). For more information, visit Laura’s website: www.laurabradford.com  or get to know her even better on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/laurabradfordauthor, and on Twitter:  @bradfordauthor

This has been a stop of the Eclair and Present Danger blog tour hosted by Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours. Make sure that you stop by the other stops as well!

June 12 – I Read What You Write