“Here Today, Scone Tomorrow” by R.A. Hutchins

If you are on the look-out for a perfect recipe of a cozy mystery, look no further! “Here Today, Scone Tomorrow” by R.A. Hutchins is what you’ve been looking for.

Ingredients:

–          a newly-divorced forty-something lady with a hefty check from her ex-husband on its way and a glamorous wardrobe

–          a quirky English village

–          even quirkier village inhabitants

–          a talking parrot

–          a murder (the victim is an extremely unpleasant individual over whose demise nobody mourns)

–          a handsome detective

Spiced with humour, delicious pastry, and secrets of the village inhabitants.

Cooking method:

Transplant a high-level “white-collar” career woman who spent twenty years climbing the corporate ladder and married to an equally ambitious and successful guy from the city of London to a traditional English village, where it seems that the time had stopped when Jane Austen was still alive.

Add all the ingredients mentioned above. Don’t forget to throw in a hearty portion of the required spices.

I don’t hide that I have a soft spot in my book-obsessed heart for heroines who are long past their adolescence years. I mean there is nothing wrong with teenage angst “he loves me / he loves me not”, but we all have our preferences in everything, and this is mine. I love reading about grown-up women who have been through their life struggles – and those struggles can be a good old lousy marriage that didn’t work or “I’m not pretty” even though men fall in dozens to her feet – and who start afresh. And I also love pets.

So, Flora with her exquisite dresses and shoes that don’t really fit into the Baker’s Rise rural picture, and the parrot who can’t keep his tongue tied even when the words he utters can put him and others in danger, were the most welcome guests on my bookshelf.

Besides, I love small-town stories where the secrets of its inhabitants get gradually revealed.

“Here Today, Scone Tomorrow” is the first instalment of Baker’s Rise Mysteries. Don’t hesitate to come in for a freshly baked scone with a dash of mystery and English humour.