Scottie Ramone Cozy Mystery Bundle (Books 1-5)

Book 1: Heads Will Cinnamon Roll

For amateur sleuth Scottie Ramone, the only thing better than a hot, fresh cinnamon roll is an intriguing new mystery to solve!

Scottie recently made some life-changing decisions. (One might even call them rash.) She’s turned her whole world upside down and desperately wants to set it upright. After wallowing for a good month in her grandmother’s cottage in Ripple Creek, the small mountain town where she spent most of her childhood, Scottie sets off, determined to leave the past behind and fulfill her dream of starting a bakery.

In the midst of planning her new business, Scottie learns how to tamp down feelings for her childhood crush, meets new, interesting friends and stumbles upon a murder. It’s not the first time Scottie’s found herself at a murder scene and, once again, she’s intrigued. Now, the question is—was this a case of mistaken identity or did the killer know exactly what they were doing?

"Wake up, Neverland Hall is let at last." The irritatingly cheery voice pierced through my dream in which I was baking the world's largest sourdough, but when I took it out of the oven it was a block of cheese. I yanked the quilt over my head as bright, also irritating, sunlight poured into the room.

"If you're trying to get me to believe that I just woke up at Pemberley, and Mr. Darcy is waiting for me in the breakfast room, it's not working," I mumbled through the cover before snatching it off my face. Nana was standing over the bed with her hands placed firmly on her hips, a gesture that would have looked far sterner if not for the pink striped apron with the smiling cow face. "And, for your information, it's Netherfield, not Neverland."

Nana tilted her head. Her long gray braid fell to the side with it. "Are you sure?"

"Positive." I turned away from her.

"No, I think you're wrong."

"Not going to have that debate at this hour in the morning." I pulled my pillow over my head.

"Then who lives in Neverland if not Mr. Bingley?"

I lifted the pillow just high enough to speak out from under it. "Peter Pan."

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter because it's neither Netherfield nor Neverland. It's Gramby Estate. Movers dropped storage containers there yesterday." I was under a pillow and making it more than clear that I had no intention of getting out of bed, but that didn't stop Nana from going right on with her conversation.

"Nana, I just want to sleep a few more hours, a few more days, maybe a few years." A month earlier, I'd been getting the final fitting on my wedding dress, a simple yet ridiculously expensive confection of lace, silk and tiny glass beads. After a harrowing few days where Nana went missing after her neighbor's shocking murder, I searched frantically for my one true family member only to find her in an old childhood hiding place. My future husband-to-be hadn't been the least bit supportive during my time of need, which made me question our entire relationship. In a matter of forty-eight short hours, I broke off the wedding, quit my pastry chef job in a Michelin Star restaurant, purchased an abandoned bakery, sight unseen, and moved back to my hometown of Ripple Creek. Through my flurry of rash decisions I had to convince myself that I was not moving back solely because my childhood crush (crush is almost too gentle of a word for how I once felt about Dalton Braddock) had moved back too. He was engaged, after all, and I was no longer thirteen and allowing my volatile hormones to make decisions for me. Or was I?

The mattress on the rollaway bed moved down a few inches. "Up and at 'em, Button," Nana said with a little less cheer. She placed her hand on my shoulder. "You'll see. It'll all work out."

"That was a good line to use when I was twelve, and I spilled orange juice on my history report." I tossed the pillow aside. She was using her secret smile, the one that she only used for me. It was a sly, little grin that deepened the lines on the right side of her mouth. Anyone else might have interpreted it as a smirk, but I knew what it meant— 'Scottie Ramone, it's you and me against the world, and the world doesn't have a chance'.

"This is no different than the orange juice disaster. And, as I recall, you still got an A, orange stain and all. You just need to get up, take a shower and start your feet moving toward opening a new bakery. And brush out that rat's nest on your head." She gave me a 'nice chat, now get up' pat on my hip and stood from the bed.

"I'm not ten years old. I'm a grown woman. If I want to wear a rat's nest on my head, I'll darn well wear one."

"You're a grown woman acting like a ten-year-old. By the way, I'm making waffles," she said as she reached the doorway.

"Waffles?"

"Yep."

"You should have led with that."