Apples: Rotten to the Core

by Blake Rivers

Apples shouldn't kill people.
Marcus Chen came to cater desserts.
Orchard owner Ernest Hillcrest collapses after judging. Everyone thinks natural causes. Marcus knows better.
Someone wants Ernest's priceless heritage trees.
Time to find out who's rotten to the core.

📚 MORE CULINARY CHRONICLES 📚
🍎 ROTTEN TO THE CORE (Book 1)
🍞 RISING TO THE OCCASION (Book 2)
🍪 CRUMBLING UNDER PRESSURE (Book 3)
⭐ START THE SERIES ANYWHERE! ⭐ Each Culinary Chronicles mystery is a complete standalone adventure. Jump in with any book and fall in love with Marcus Chen's world of food, friends, and fascinating mysteries.

★ PERFECT FOR FANS ★Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen Mysteries)Laura Childs (Tea Shop Mysteries)Diane Mott Davidson (Goldy Schulz Series)🔍 WHAT READERS LOVE ABOUT CULINARY 🔍
✓ Food Science Meets Mystery
✓ Cozy Small-Town Charm
✓ Clean, Wholesome Fun
✓ Traditions & Heartwarming Characters

"Finally, a cozy mystery series that teaches you real cooking techniques while keeping you guessing!" - Food & Mystery Blog

Perfect for readers who love their mysteries served with a generous helping of heart, humor, and heritage recipes that have been perfecting themselves for generations.

260 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 3, 2025

About the author

Hi, I'm Blake and as you may have guessed by now, I'm a writer. Yup, that’s right, I write books and I wrote my first novel, The Assassin Princess, in 2011 when I was twenty-eight. Two sequels followed, A Step into Darkscape and The Assassin's Codaci. This magical fantasy series started as a story written about my girlfriend, at the time, an artist who dreamed of being a fierce warrior in another world, who kicked butt and swung a sword to battle the enemy. It grew and became The Assassin Princess, a tale of an artist who is kidnapped and taken to a strange land full of magic, talking unicorns and dragons. It goes dark, exploring jealously, greed and hunger; it goes light and reaches for the best in even the most flawed of characters. But in essence, it still remains about her at its heart.

I started writing when I was seven years old. Back then it was mostly poems about whatever interested me at the time, be it the seasons or the planets, or my love for libraries and books. I also turned my hand to a few short stories, all hand written and lost over time.

I don’t remember why I started writing, but I do remember what inspired me to do it. It was Yuri, writing his poems to Lara in the frozen house in the film Dr Zhivago, and the beautiful music played, Lara’s Theme; it was the sound of the typewriter at the very start of the film Misery, where Paul Sheldon finishes his latest book.

These still inspire me to this day, along with whole host of other influences: the novels by Brandon Sanderson, Sarah J. Maas, J. R. R. Tolkien, J. K. Rowling, Anne Rice, Stephen King, Patricia Cornwell to name a few. Any movie that shows a typewriter.

Reviews

[Rachel Boyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marcus is a pastry chef that goes to an apple festival on an apple farm. Sounds pretty normal. But everything changes when the owner of the farm is poisoned by his own recipe. With a few suspects, Marcus assists the police in uncovering the motive and culprit.

The motive was quite unique in this book, which I really appreciated. No spoilers but it was a book that made me think about this subject a little bit more while reading.

Most of the cozy mysteries that I have seen have female main characters so it was nice to have a male main character. It offers a different experience and perspective. Initially, I was questioning why Marcus was even helping with the case so I was pleased to see that it was a query Marcus had for himself and addressed. I enjoyed the book but felt it could have really been a tad longer and some more detailed descriptions of the farm would have gone a long way for me. I received an advanced copy of this book and am leaving an honest review of my own accord.

[Faith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cozy mystery offers a refreshing twist with Marcus, a male pastry chef, taking center stage as the main character—a welcome change from the norm in the genre. I really enjoyed seeing the story unfold from his perspective, especially as he's drawn into the events of a local festival. The motive behind the mystery was also quite unique and thoughtfully developed, adding depth to the plot. Overall, I found this an engaging and enjoyable read, and I’m looking forward to continuing the series. I received an advance reader copy of this book, and this review reflects my honest opinion.

[Gail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect book to read in the Fall during Apple harvest season. There is so much to learn about apples and heritage varieties. Lots of research went into the story. Lots of connections created through the apple festival which become important to the Hillcrest family and orchard. Time to harvest some apples and bake!

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a male MC, which is unusual for cozies so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I liked Marcus.
Marcus is a pastry chef who’s going to put up a display at a local festival which went really well until it didn’t. Now there’s a mystery to solve. They not only have to figure out who but why. The why turns out to be a reason like none I ever thought of. But as crazy as the reason seemed, it made sense in the context of the story. It made for very interesting reading.
I received this book as a free ARC and am leaving this review voluntarily.