Catch Me If You Candy

A Bakeshop Mystery, Book 17

By: Ellie Alexander

Narrated by: Emily Durante

Halloween has arrived in picturesque Ashland, Oregon, and all of the ghouls and goblins have descended on Main Street for the annual parade. It's a giant street party and Torte is right in the mix.

Jules Capshaw and her team have been baking up autumn delights and trick-or-Torte bags filled with sugar cookie cutouts, spiced cider, and mummy munch. It's the end of the season at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which means that the costumes for the parade are going to be out of this world. The elaborate guises even extend to pets. The grand marshal of this year's parade is no other than a regal pug aptly named King George. Jules is delighted to get to share the experience with Carlos and Ramiro, but things take a dark turn when she discovers a dragon slumped in front of the bakeshop.

Jules is distraught when she realizes the dragon is dead. She's also shaken because a few days before the parade, her mother's Mahjong partner Helen discovered a warning note about a dragon in an antique game set. Jules hopes it's just a random coincidence, but as the clues begin to unfold it becomes evident that there's been a murder on All Hallow's Eve. Can Juliet sift out the truth before the killer comes after her?

©2023 Katherine Dyer-Seeley (P)2023 Tantor

Loved the story, but . . .

I wanted to cringe each time I heard the word "Mahjong." Maybe it's a regional pronunciation of the narrator, but I've never heard it pronounced that way. The emphasis was on the wrong syllable, and it seemed awkward.

Halloween is fun in Ashland

I enjoyed getting a view into the Halloween traditions on Ashland Oregon. The parade sounds fun.
I like the narrator and enjoyed the mystery.

Jumping The Shark

There were many reasons to love this series in the earlier books. However, the author has obviously become bored with her own writing and the series. She is increasingly incorporating regurgitated aimless filler meant to give readers nothing more than a few extra chapters of nothing.
1. She has added kitchen staff that add nothing to the story but insists on devoting a chapter to each book giving each an in depth biography with the exception of the Hispanic front of house manager who is so irrelevant that I honestly can’t remember her name.
2. There is repeated mention of Jax being obsessed with her dog. Granted, she is but no more so than The Professor is about “The Bard”. As the bard says….As the bard says….As the bard say…. I’m sure The Bard would say “Shut Up Already”. It’s ridiculous that the entire town trusts and places on a pedestal a stooge that has nothing to say if The Bard hasn’t previously stated it. It’s easy to google quotes attributed to The Bard and slap down an obtuse quote instead of putting forth the effort to create character dialogue that is pertinent to the arc of the story. Talk about obsession…
3. She is now reciting recipes and attempting to pass them off as content pertinent to the story . Every…Single….Food….Must…Include…A…Detailed….List…Of …Ingredients and Recipe. It’s a literary recipe for a Nothing Burger and a lazy way to fill pages. Tell me you are plagiarizing a cookbook without telling me you are plagiarizing a cookbook.

If the author is bored with her own work, she and the editors should expect the same from readers. She tried to jump the shark and ended up in its “Jaws”.

Story was fine, narration was awful

I actually wondered if this was AI narrated since there was very little inflection and when there was it seemed at odds with the story. The humor of the story was lost with the lack of inflections. Carlos' accent was awful, and what was supposed to sound sexy sounded stalker creepy.

Needs narrator to pronouce Mah jongg correctly

I love Ellie Alexander's books. But I'm only giving this audiobook a 3 because SOMEONE should have caught that the word Mah jongg is repeatedly said wrong.

If you play poker, would you be comfy hearing a book where someone repeatedly said it as "poke-HER"?

This narrator is repeatedly saying "mah JONG" instead of "MAH jong" A few times, probably wouldn't bother me. But this is repeatedly, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, and again throughout the book.