Caramel Crush: 9 (Cupcake Bakery Mystery)

After spending most of 2015 catching up on Jenn McKinlay’s Cupcake Bakery books, the last year has been very long. I’ve missed Mel, Angie, Tate, and the rest of the gang, so I was looking forward to catching their latest case with Caramel Crush, and I wasn’t disappointed.For two years in college, Mel Cooper roomed with Diane Earnest, another marketing major. While they haven’t had much contact recently, Mel still owes Diane a favor, so when Diane walks into Fairytale Cupcakes to ask a favor, Mel really doesn’t feel like she can say no even though she wants to. You see, Diane wants to break up with her fiancé via cupcake, and Mel is to personally deliver them and film his reaction.His reaction isn’t what Diane is hoping for or even what Mel expects. When Mel arrives at Party On!. his party rental company, she finds him dead in the middle of one of their rental ball pits. Of course, the ex-fiancee is always a suspect, and Mel finds her requested favor changing from delivering cupcakes to keeping Diane out of jail. Can she do it?Seriously, how can you not love a book that starts out with breakup cupcakes and a dead body in a ball pit? Even if I didn’t already love the series, I knew I was off to a great start with those elements. Of course, Mike wasn’t a great guy, which gives us some good suspects before we reach the climax. My only complaint about the book was that Mel acted rather stupidly at the end, but this isn’t the first time she’s gone off and done something dumb to catch a killer. Not that it really ruined the book for me.By the time you are this far into a series, fans have grown to love the characters. While Mel is the only series regular I mentioned in my teaser, the rest of the gang is all here, and they are their usual charming selves. The new characters are quite interesting and will definitely make you glad not to have people like them in your life. In other words, they are the perfect suspects.The series has always had a strong romantic elements to it, and that continues here. After so many books rooting for these characters, I loved reading these scenes. And if one scene in particular (and one line) doesn’t melt your heart, something is wrong with you.Which isn’t to say that this book doesn’t end with a cliffhanger. I’m definitely ready to read the next book in the series to find out what happens to one of my favorite characters. (Oh, who am I kidding? I love all of these characters.)By the time this book is over, you’ll definitely be craving cupcakes, which means that the recipes at the end will be quite welcome. There’s a total of 5 cupcake recipes, including two that appeal to me most – caramel crush and key lime. Yum!It’s truly hard not to love this series, which is why it has so many devoted fans. Caramel Crush will leave them happy and wanting more. And if you haven’t started this series yet, you’ll find it is as addicting as cupcakes, but with a lot fewer calories.NOTE: I received a copy of this book.