Botched Butterscotch is the 4.5 installment in Amanda Flower’s An Amish Candy Shop Mystery series. This is an easy to read confectionery cozy set in the Ohio Amish country, with great characters and an interesting and entertaining mystery. The story flows smoothly, and the author is very talented in her descriptive and witty writing. There’s no murder in this novella, but the mystery was difficult to solve. I was surprised when the culprit was revealed.
Bailey King gave up her job as an assistant chocolatier at JP Chocolates in New York City to move to Harvest, Ohio to help her Amish grandmother after her grandfather passed away. Bailey isn’t Amish, but her father, who left the Amish community before she was born, was. As a child, Bailey spent her summers with her grandparents, Jebediah and Clara King, and learned to love chocolates in their Amish candy shop, Swissmen Sweets. Juliet Brody, whose comfort pet is a small black and white polka-dotted potbellied pig named Jethro, is convinced her son, Sheriff Deputy Aiden Brody, and Bailey will marry. Bailey will be helping with the tea and is anticipating the arrival of her parents, Susan and Silas King, who seldom visit Ohio. Margot Rawling, the town’s super organizer who has marketing down to a science, is currently promoting a non-Amish Mother’s Day Tea that will benefit Abigail’s Farm, which is a retreat for women who are struggling with drug or alcohol addiction operated by Polly Anne Lind. Over ten thousand dollars was raised, but at some point during the tea, someone stole the money. With all the other deputies investigating other cases, Aiden assigns Deputy Little to the theft. Since she’s been successful in solving mysteries in the past, Bailey offers the deputy her help finding the thief and hopefully recovering the missing money.
I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.