Piece of Cake Mysteries Books in Order

The Piece of Cake books have the feel of a return-home cozy, with a little more romantic baggage and social irritation than some of A.R. Winters's later series. They begin with Dessert, Diamonds and Deadly Secrets, where Mindy Macbay moves back to her hometown of Santa Verona and quickly finds herself dealing with anonymous threats, old grudges, and murder.

Mindy is not stepping into a calm homecoming.

That is part of what makes the series fun. Santa Verona is familiar terrain for her, but not necessarily comfortable terrain. Old flames, high-school enemies, and local history all keep getting folded into the cases. Instead of a sleuth building a life from scratch, as in the Kylie Berry books, you have somebody trying to navigate a place that already knows exactly who she used to be.

Beth Miller becomes Mindy's main partner in sleuthing, and that friendship is one of the series's anchors. Together they work through murders tied to café owners, socialites, suspicious poisonings, and people from Mindy's personal past. Titles like Carrot Cake and Cryptic Clues, Danger, Deceit and Dark Chocolate Cake, and Lawyers, Liars and Lemon Tarts make it clear that Winters is leaning into culinary wordplay while keeping the cases personal and fairly brisk.

There is a little more friction here than in some of her softer small-town series. Mindy is often investigating around people who actively annoy her, and that gives the books a sharper, chattier energy. At the same time, the mysteries stay accessible and firmly cozy. The violence stays off-page, the humor is intact, and the food keeps the whole thing from getting too sour.

If you like amateur-sleuth series where the heroine has to solve the crime and survive the town's opinions about her, this is a solid choice. It feels like an earlier, punchier branch of Winters's work, but you can already see the elements she would keep using later: food, warm friendships, awkward romance, and a woman who would really rather not be in danger again, but is going to investigate anyway.