When retired pastry chef Clarissa Hart inherits her late aunt's charming cupcake shop in the idyllic town of Maple Glade, she expects to spend her days perfecting buttercream and learning the rhythms of small-town life. What she doesn't expect is a decades-old mystery hidden inside a hollowed-out rolling pin?or a murder that turns her fresh start into something far more complicated.

On the night of the bakery's grand reopening, a sharp-tongued food critic drops dead after taking a single bite of one of Clarissa's cupcakes. Suddenly, the sweet scent of vanilla and sugar is tangled with suspicion, and everyone in Maple Glade seems to have something to hide.

As whispers of the past resurface and long-buried secrets begin to unravel, Clarissa finds herself at the center of a mystery that reaches far beyond her kitchen. With the help of a handful of unlikely allies?and her own sharp instincts?she'll have to sift through gossip, grudges, and generations of carefully guarded truths to uncover what really happened.

Because in Maple Glade, some secrets were never meant to stay buried...

Jennifer M. Baldwin writes cozy mysteries fueled by caffeine, chaos, and a deep appreciation for small-town secrets. When she's not dreaming up fictional crimes in charming bakeries, she's juggling family life, attempting to keep up with laundry, and wondering how she still ended up with more dishes than she remembers using.

She lives in Missouri with her husband, kids, and a house full of pets who firmly believe they are in charge. Murder, Buttercream, and Buried Secrets was written during a season of unexpected free time?and just enough determination to turn it into something magical.