“The Golden Spoon” - Jessa Maxwell

 🥧I really wanted to enjoy this one! Touted as a “Great British Bakeoff meets Clue,” I thought “what’s not to love?!”. The mystery is dangled tantalizingly before the reader in the first chapter, and then for some reason, it is set aside in favor of minutia that hardly seems relevant.

🥧 A GBB-style baking competition is filmed at a sprawling Vermont estate. I felt this was promising: a remote, Gothic-style manse, a limited cast of suspects present, a dark and stormy night … TGS had all the makings of an Americanized English country house murder mystery.

🥧 The story is told from POV of show’s host, Betsy Martin, and from that of the 6 competitors. The audiobook has a large ensemble cast.

🥧 TGS started out with a smattering of background and then to my delight, dove straight into the action (read: dead body). Sadly, the ensuing chapters detailing the hopes/dreams/backstory of the contestants, was a snooze. I read on earnestly assuming Maxwell was planting important Easter eggs.

🥧 Yet another chapter filled with the excruciating details of Stella’s hyper-emotional reactions to literally everything, and I gave up. I had hoped we’d make our way back to what started as an interesting case with a mansion full of secrets and ambitions, but I couldn’t take it anymore.

🥧 I will say that Maxwell expertly captures the milieu of baking competition tv shows, but I came for mystery not pastry. The slow pace comprising of mostly inconsequentially microscopic levels of detail about the contestants, made for a novel that just wasn’t engaging for me.