My canine daughter Gracie—my American Eskimo and best friend—is better than any alarm clock. She wakes me up by seven o’clock most days. Good thing I’m a morning person.

Hi! I’m Teddie St. John, cozy mystery author and baker in the small town of Lake Potawatomi, Wisconsin. My best (human) friend Char Jorgensen, who owns The Corner Bookstore, calls me a bookish baker. Char and I have been friends since grade school, along with our pal Sharon Hansen, the third member of our best friends’ trio. A teacher dubbed us “The Three Musketeers” in school and it stuck.

I live in a cozy 1950s bungalow with a colorful kitchen full of vintage, quirky kitsch. (A far cry from my designer mom’s modern, minimalist gray, stainless kitchen in her mother-in-law cottage located behind my house.) I love baking in my kitschy kitchen. Next to writing and reading, baking is my favorite thing. It’s a great stress reliever. Some people do yoga, practice meditation, or see a therapist; I bake. My baked goods never last long though; my friends inhale my cookies, muffins, and cakes as fast as I can bake them. I supply cookies for my Musketeer pal Sharon’s guests at our local B and B, The Lake House, which Sharon owns with her husband Jim.

After I take Gracie on her morning walk, often, I’ll head over to Andersen’s Bakery for a cheese Danish and some writing time. I still can’t believe I get to do what I love for a living! For years I worked in local government, but when I found out I had breast cancer, I changed my life. Confronting your own mortality will do that. After recovering from my mastectomy and chemotherapy, I decided it was time to follow my writing dreams. And I’m grateful every day to be living that dream.

Today I’m taking platters of cookies over to The Corner Bookstore, where Char’s hosting a book signing for a New York Times best-selling suspense author. From England no less. A hot author who bears a slight resemblance to Colin Firth. What could be better than that? What could go wrong?

Murder Most Sweet is the first book in the NEW “Bookish Baker” cozy mystery series, releasing September 8, 2020.

Everyone in Lake Potawatomi, Wisconsin, knows Teddie St. John. Tall, curly-haired Teddie is a superb baker, a bohemian bon vivant, a grateful breast cancer survivor and a mystery writer. Teddie is walking her American Eskimo Gracie, when her four-legged friend finds Teddie’s missing silk scarf. Only problem: the scarf is tied tightly around the neck of a beautiful blond woman, the fiancée of a touring British author.

Before you can say “Wisconsin kringle,” Teddie becomes a murder suspect. Everyone in town knew the distinctive scarf was hers. When a second murder shocks the community, Teddie stands accused of two murders. With the help of her Three Musketeers friends, can Teddie clear her name and deliver a killer’s just desserts?

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Meet the author
Laura Jensen Walker has loved mysteries ever since she read Trixie Belden in the fourth grade in her Danish-founded hometown of Racine, Wisconsin, America’s kringle capital. A former newspaper reporter and the author of several chick-lit novels and humorous non-fiction books, including Thanks for the Mammogram! Laura lives in Northern California with her Renaissance-man husband and their canine daughter, Mellie. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Murder Most Sweet is her first mystery.

Visit Laura’s website at laurajensenwalker.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.