I feel a strong need for a cupcake!

A beauty pageant doesn’t seem like the place for a lot of sugary, high calorie desserts but Mel and her crew from Fairy Tale Cupcakes have been hired to provide cupcakes as treats at the Miss Sweet Tiara pageant and to bake the contestants’ recipes that are part of the competition. Mel has a problem with pageants in general but this pageant, or “scholarship competition”, as the promoters like to call it, could give her friend Lupe a chance to attend college and Mel’s bakery a lot of publicity.  But everyone knows the world of pageants isn’t as sweet as it seems.

This is a book that has heart, a quality hard to describe but you know it when you read it. The friendship between the characters seemed genuine and warm.  It has a likeable cast of characters, good writing and a decent mystery.   The villains were villainous. The description of the cupcakes makes my mouth water and I’m anxious to try the recipes in the back of the book. There is a lot of romance and a love-square.  It’s quite a pleasant, fun read.  I enjoyed the descriptions of the girls at the pageant.

Sugar and Iced is the 6th entry in the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series.  It’s the first one I’ve read and that probably accounts for why I gave it a lower rating than some others that read it.  I wish I had started series at the beginning because there was a lot of talk of past events and I felt a bit left out.  It would have been a 4 if I had had more background. I do want to go back and read it from the beginning but knowing what I know from this book will color previous events, I fear.  So my recommendation would be, read this series but start at the beginning.

I received this book through Goodreads giveaway program and I appreciated the opportunity to give it an honest review.