Death Gone A-Rye by Winnie Archer – Blog Tour & Excerpt

Synopsis from Goodreads:

In the Northern California seaside town of Santa Sofia, a killer is trying to get a rise out of baker’s apprentice Ivy Culpepper . . .

Vincent van Dough focaccia is being touted on Instagram as the best thing since sliced bread. By strategically placing chives, olives, and yellow peppers to look like poppies and sunflowers, bakers create a mouthwatering masterpiece in the style of the great postimpressionist painter. At Yeast of Eden, where bread making has always been an art, they’re baking their own version for the school district’s Spring Fling.

But one person won’t be tasting the Mexican bakery’s latest specialty. Ambitious school board president Nessa Renchrik has been murdered. Like the rest of this close-knit community, Ivy is shocked. But she’s just as surprised to discover her beau—restaurateur Miguel Baptista—had his own fling with Nessa back in the day and now the police have this half-baked notion he might have killed her. It’s up to Ivy, her boss Olaya Solis, and eighty-six-years-young Penelope Branford to separate the wheat from the chaff to determine who the real culprit is . . .

INCLUDES RECIPES!

Death Gone A-Rye is another great installment in the Bread Shop Mystery series. When Ivy’s better half is accused of murder, she and her bakery friends have to find the killer and clear his name. There were enough suspects to keep me guessing (incorrectly most of the time) and with Ivy’s friend on the police force out of town, there was some additional tension with the authorities to keep it interesting. This was a great story with wonderful characters and I swear, you can almost smell the bread baking! 🙂

This is the sixth book in the series. I haven’t read all of them but had no trouble keeping up with what was what and who was who, so I think you could even jump in here if you haven’t read any of the other books in the series and not feel at all lost.

Excerpt:

I went back to the top of the search page and clicked on the first entry, which was the Santa Sofia Daily’s post about Nessa’s death.

Vanessa Renchrik, 42, a longtime member of the Santa Sofia Board of Education, was found dead earlier today in the school district’s boardroom. Mrs. Renchrik has served as Secretary, Vice President, and was currently President of the school board. She was a visible member of the community and has led the district through tumultuous times during her tenure, including leading the district through layoffs, budget cuts, tax increases. She is survived by her husband, Cliff, and their two children. The sheriff’s department’s criminal investigation division is pursuing a series of leads.

Ah, so her first name was actually Vanessa. Nessa for short. It went on to give the information about the celebration of life service that would be held later in the week. I marked the time and date in my calendar before logging on to Twitter. I didn’t have a personal account, but I did run the bread shop’s @yeastofedenSS account. It was a new account and had only 150 followers, but I was slowly working to build it up, along with the bread shop’s Instagram account. That was much more successful. The photo of the Vincent van Dough focaccias Olaya had made for the wedding was racking up the likes. Instagram was where it was at for a baker.

I typed in Nessa’s Twitter handle and her feed came up. It was instantly obvious that she was not an active tweeter. One tweet, posted two days prior, said: No decision I make is based on emotions.

I sat up straighter and grabbed a sheet of paper from my nightstand and jotted down the date and time of the text, as well as what Nessa had said in it, followed by a few thoughts that had instantly come to mind. What decision was she talking about, or was it a blanket statement?

No one was tagged on the post, but it felt like a subtweet.

But to whom, and about what?

About the Author

The indefatigable Winnie Archer is a middle school teacher by day and a writer by night. Born in a beach town in California, she now lives in Colorado. She fantasizes about spending summers writing in quaint, cozy locales, has a love/hate relationship with both yoga and chocolate, adores pumpkin spice lattes, is devoted to her five kids and husband, and can’t believe she’s lucky enough to be living the life of her dreams. Visit her online at WinnieArcher.com.

Author Links

Kensington: https://www.kensingtonbooks.com/9781496724410/dough-or-die/

Website: https://melissabourbon.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaBourbonWinnieArcherBooks/

Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Kobo