Bittersweet Betrayal: Spirited Sweets Paranormal Cozy Mystery, #1

By Stephanie Damore

Claire and Nick are the perfect crime-solving couple.

Except one of them is dead.

 

Ever since Nick passed, Claire has been able to see ghosts. 

 

When Nick's not-so-dearly departed grandma makes an untimely exit, Nick relies on his ever-clever wife to track the clues and bring the killer to justice. Claire is more than willing to take the case if only to send Grandma up to the Pearly Gates and get her out of her hair...and bakery.

 

If you love a clean paranormal mystery, heavy on the whodunit, you're going to love these mysteries!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephanie Damore
• Release date: Dec 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201412999

Book preview

1

I’m a morning person. I’ve always been. I don’t need coffee in my cup or a ghost’s face popping out of my bread dough to get me rising, which is why at 5 AM, I stared wide-eyed at the talking head lecturing me on my bread-making skills. You would think my recent experiences with the paranormal would make me an expert at such ghostly encounters, but truth be told, I was far from one.

I’ve never seen bread made this way. With a machine? Tsk tsk. That would never fly in my kitchen, the talking head lectured.

I blinked a time or two.

Where’d you get this recipe? The internet? It’s not the London way. No wonder your bakery’s in trouble, the head continued.

At that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about my bakery. I was more concerned with how my husband’s grandmother had died and what her head was doing in my bread dough. Not to mention wondering where the rest of her body was. This was a first. Adele’s death had to be a recent turn of events. Bleu Clair Bay was a small village. No way had the monarch of the London family met her demise without me getting word of it. I looked around my deserted bakery for its resident ghost, but I couldn’t see my dearly departed husband anywhere.

Great.

I was definitely having a case of the Mondays.

I continued surveying the bakery. Ellen, who was like a mom to me, wouldn’t be coming in to lend a hand for another hour or so; until then, it looked like I was on my own. Not that Ellen would’ve been able to see Adele, but the moral support would’ve been nice. Adele London hadn’t cared for me much in her life, and I’d bet she still didn’t if the bread comment was any indication.

I took a fortifying breath. Mrs. London, I’m sorry to see that you’ve, ah ... passed, I said, trying to be polite. Although I might have missed the mark. There was nothing in the etiquette book about addressing the ghost of your grandmother in law.

Passed? What are you talking about? Adele looked around and took her herself in, or rather, the lack thereof. I felt her anxiety spike within my chest. Her energy buzzed, and her image started to pulse like a strobe light.

Mrs. London, it’s okay. I reached out to her, but her head jerked away from my hand as if it was an annoying fly buzzing toward her. The bread machine kicked up a notch, whizzing louder and angrily throwing the ball of dough inside the bowl. It smacked around the metal bowl—thwack, thwack, thwack—threatening to knock the entire thing off its base. I moved to turn the machine off. Adele misread my movement.

Get away from me. What am I even doing here? I don’t even like you. Adele’s words were biting. Delivered in death with the same spite as in life, which is why her insult didn’t surprise me. How sad was that? Adele gave me one last glare, a look I hoped to never see again, before zapping into the ether.

I shivered.

Okay, that was weird. And seeing how weird my life was already, that was saying something.

With Adele gone, I forced myself to get back to work. I went to the fridge and pulled out a tray of leaf-shaped sugar cookies I had baked the night before. I had debated making snowflakes but thought I’d wait until after Halloween to go there. Even though it was still October, snow would be flying soon here in northern Michigan, a fact that the locals were excited about. The fall rush was just about over. Snowfall meant a new wave of tourists would be heading up our way, ready to play in our winter wonderland and spend their cash. Without tourists, our village would be toast.

I put the cookies on the counter and went back to the fridge to retrieve the buttercream frosting. Then, using a pastry knife, I smoothed a thick layer of the silky orange cream onto one of the cookies and sunk my teeth into it.

ACK!

I spit the cookie out into my hand. It tasted absolutely horrid, and what’s worse, I had no idea why. Was it the cookie? The frosting? Where did I go wrong? I tossed the cookie in the trash and jogged over to the sink to wash my hands and rinse out my mouth. My problems were much bigger than using a bread machine. Adele was right. No wonder my bakery was in trouble.

That good, huh? Nick’s voice purred unnaturally close to my ear. Even from the afterlife, that man could make my heart go pitter-patter.

I don’t know what’s happened, but I’ve lost my touch, I confessed, dabbing my mouth dry on a tea towel. It’s only a matter of time before even Ellen abandons me.

I nibbled on another cookie and found it to be the most flavorless piece of cardboard ever. It looked like it had been both the cookie and the frosting. I chucked the rest of the cookies into the trash and looked around at the assortment of baked goods in their various states, praying I didn’t ruin them all.

Come now, love, it can’t be that bad.

I furrowed my brow as my mind tried to calculate just how bad it was. There was no denying that demand was down—way down. I already didn’t have to bake half of my usual assortment since no one had bought a cupcake in a week. A week! Who could resist the temptation of a cupcake? Even the mental image had my mouth watering. This was worse than I thought.

But then I remembered Adele. My baking troubles were going to