Macarons Can Be Murder (A Paris Kentucky Bakery Mystery #1)

Perfect for fans of Ellie Alexander and Lucy Burdette, Rose Betancourt’s series debut is a culinary treat sure to charm.

Living in Paris, Kentucky, and having a sidekick cat named Pepe le Pew gives Marci Beaucoup’s life a certain je ne sais quoi. Combining her love of baking and France, Marci opened La Belle Patisserie to bring her small Southern hometown a bit of French flair and lots of croissants. Everything is sunshine and macaronsat the bakery until her landlord calls to tell her she’s selling the property. Marci’s relieved to hear that if the top bidder, an enchanting Frenchman named Antoine Dubois, gets the property, he’ll renew her bakery’s lease. Charmed by Antoine, Marci figures this development isn’t half bad and sees a handsome new landlord in her future—but then Antoine’s estranged ex-girlfriend Kelly turns up dead in front of her bakery. Sacrebleu!

Everyone calls Marci’s pastries “to die for,” but nobody’s actually died at La Belle Patisserie before. Antoine quickly becomes the main suspect to everyone in Paris—including to womanizing detective Maverick Malone. Who else would have killed Kelly but the ex-boyfriend she was just seen fighting with on the day of her death?

Marci finds out from her landlord that if Antoine is arrested, his purchase of her building will fall through—and her landlord will sell to developers instead, who plan to demolish the building and construct a strip mall in its place. Enamored with Antoine and with her patisserie dreams hanging in the balance, Marci is determined to prove Maverick and the rest of Paris wrong and find the true killer before Antoine winds up in jail—and she has to say au revoir to her bakery.

Now Marci finds herself mixed up in the murder investigation, and she must find the killer before her half-baked theories result in her untimely death.