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SOPHIE BRENT
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
THANK YOU!
SLAY PAIRS WITH ROSE
Book THREE in the Kelly’s Deli Murder Mystery series!
This witty and feel-good culinary cozy mystery features a deli-owning female sleuth, great Italian food and wine, real friends, personal loss, and re-invention.
No cliff-hangers, swearing, intimate or graphic scenes.
“This book will delight fans of TV shows like ‘Midsomer Murders’ and ‘Murder She Wrote’, who love reading cozy mysteries such as the Agatha Raisin and Peridale Café series.”
Gordon Ramsey meets The Thursday Murder Club.
Erin Kelly was thrilled to be asked to make the wedding cake for her friend Zoe’s cousin.
But then the maid of honour goes missing, there is a fire at the hotel and the sumptuous cake goes up in smoke.
Murder has come once again to the village of Kingsmede, and Erin is caught in the middle.
Running an Italian deli in an English country village has never been so deadly!
Chapter One
By the time she was twelve, Erin Kelly had walked down the aisle as a bridesmaid or flower girl more times that she could remember. But the best bit, the part that had stayed with her, was sitting at her kitchen table, watching her mother make the best wedding cakes in Kingsmede.
It didn’t matter if the bride wanted iced fruit cake, chocolate mousse multi-layered towers, or anything in between. Isabella Kelly could transform any wedding cake into a delicious, photo-perfect, jaw-dropping creation that made wedding guests gasp in astonishment.
No pressure then. All Erin had to do was create a wedding cake fit for the celebrity wedding of the year and at the same time prove to every potential bride in Kingsmede that Kelly’s Deli was still the place to come to when they wanted a special cake for their big day. That was all.
Closing her eyes, she inhaled a slow calming breath of the fresh air coming in through the window.
I have the situation totally under control. The wedding is not until tomorrow afternoon.
This cake is going to be perfect.
I can make sugar roses in any colour that Fiona likes.
I will be transformed like Cinderella from a humble deli-owner into a wedding caterer, just in time for the opening of my new bistro.
Swallowing down a moment of panic, Erin studied the photo of the vintage lace pattern on her laptop screen for another few minutes, then turned back to the rolled panel of white fondant icing on her cutting board. With the tip of her scalpel, Erin started work on cutting the lace pattern from the long thin layer of fondant, leaving behind a delicate network that was almost too fine to handle.
With total concentration, she lifted the complete panel onto a cornflour dusted marble roller and painstakingly pieced the ribbon of edible lace around the sides of the second tier of Fiona Hanson’s wedding cake. Using shaping tools and dots of royal icing, Erin adjusted the position of the lacework until the panel fitted perfectly onto the cake, which had already been covered in a thin layer of smooth champagne coloured fondant.
Erin turned the cake on the board, looking for errors in the pattern or missing pieces of lace, adjusting and shaping, piping and smoothing, until she was satisfied that the side panel was a perfect match to the elaborate lace pattern she had already completed for the top of the cake.
Only then did she stretch back in her chair and reach for the water bottle that she had packed with ice cubes earlier that morning. Erin took a long drink and pressed the cool bottle to the back of her neck.
Finally! Both layers of the wedding cakes were decorated.
It was just her luck that the air conditioning in her deli had broken down during the hottest week in August. The service company had promised to come out to Kingsmede sometime next week. Next week! She needed help now, not next week.
Her friend Prisha had borrowed a portable air conditioning unit from her parents so that the shop area of the deli could be kept cool, but it was over thirty degrees outside, and the weather forecast for that weekend predicted even hotter glorious August sunshine. Brilliant for Fiona Hanson’s wedding, but not so brilliant for baking and icing cakes.
Erin had finally got to bed around two that morning, after mixing and preparing all of the fondant and butter-cream icing in the relatively cool and quiet of her kitchen. Then she had worked on the sugar roses and flower decorations, so that they had a chance to dry out and would hold their shape on top of the cake.
The local florist had created a wonderful bride’s bouquet for Fiona, and she had matched it. The sprays of sugar jasmine flowers, pastel shades of hydrangea and pale pink rose blossoms looked stunning set against the champagne-coloured, hand-made fondant icing on the wedding cake.
Erin stepped over to the kitchen sink, hung her baker’s apron on a peg and rinsed her hands and wrists under the cold water tap for a few minutes to wash away any sticky icing or corn flour.
The kitchen windows were wide open to try and catch some of the breeze coming from the trees that lined Kingsmede village green. From her viewpoint, she could see families having picnics on the grass and children running around having fun in the bright sunshine.
It was one of those magical Friday afternoons that were so precious in the summer months
