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Danishes: Flaky Alibis
Marcus Chen thought the biggest challenge of catering a small-town Danish festival would be keeping the pastries warm.
When pastry chef Marcus Chen arrives in New Bremen, Wisconsin to cater the Danish Days Festival, he expects nothing more complicated than serving authentic pastries to celebrate the town's heritage.
Instead, he finds disaster.
The Andersen Family Bakery—four generations of traditional Danish baking—is in crisis. Their time-honored techniques are mysteriously failing. The festival is in jeopardy. And the family that's preserved authentic recipes for over sixty years may lose everything.
Marcus knows food science. He also knows when something doesn't add up.
What starts as a simple ingredient problem quickly reveals something far more sinister. Someone wants the Andersen bakery to fail. But why target a small-town family business? And why now, during their most important festival?
As Marcus digs deeper into New Bremen's close-knit Danish-American community, he discovers the bakery isn't the only traditional food operation facing mysterious problems. A pattern is emerging. And it's bigger—and more dangerous—than anyone imagined.
In a town where everyone knows everyone, trust becomes a luxury Marcus can't afford. Because someone is watching. Someone with resources, connections, and a plan that could destroy everything the community holds dear.
Traditional recipes. Family legacies. Cultural heritage.
How far would someone go to eliminate them all?
📚 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.
"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.
When pastry chef Marcus Chen arrives in New Bremen, Wisconsin to cater the Danish Days Festival, he expects nothing more complicated than serving authentic pastries to celebrate the town's heritage.
Instead, he finds disaster.
The Andersen Family Bakery—four generations of traditional Danish baking—is in crisis. Their time-honored techniques are mysteriously failing. The festival is in jeopardy. And the family that's preserved authentic recipes for over sixty years may lose everything.
Marcus knows food science. He also knows when something doesn't add up.
What starts as a simple ingredient problem quickly reveals something far more sinister. Someone wants the Andersen bakery to fail. But why target a small-town family business? And why now, during their most important festival?
As Marcus digs deeper into New Bremen's close-knit Danish-American community, he discovers the bakery isn't the only traditional food operation facing mysterious problems. A pattern is emerging. And it's bigger—and more dangerous—than anyone imagined.
In a town where everyone knows everyone, trust becomes a luxury Marcus can't afford. Because someone is watching. Someone with resources, connections, and a plan that could destroy everything the community holds dear.
Traditional recipes. Family legacies. Cultural heritage.
How far would someone go to eliminate them all?
📚 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.
"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.
259 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 10, 2025
1 person is currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Blake Rivers
70 books12 followersI did not write any of this AI Slop that keeps being attributed to me. I would never use AI. I am sorry Goodreads is so bad at this… I have three books. The Assassin Princess, A Step into Darkscape and The Assassin's Codaci, and a short story collection called Takes of Legacy.
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.
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.
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