Baker and entrepreneur Jules Capshaw doesn’t have time to feel ill–not when her best friend Lance’s new production company, the Fair Verona Players, is about to debut its very first performance in just a matter of days. Their updated take on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew will premiere on the grounds of Uva, the winery Jules owns with her husband, Carlos. In addition, Jules’s bakeshop, Torte, is catering the play’s opening night, so she’s got a lot on her plate–even before dealing with the backstage shenanigans of an overdramatic cast and crew.

Fortunately for everyone, the first performance is a hit, with lead actor Jimmy Paxton stealing the show as Petruchio. It nearly makes up for how awful he’s been to almost everyone around him, as Jules has witnessed firsthand in between the infrequent but troubling bouts of dizziness that have recently started plaguing her. The dizziness has become debilitating enough that she’s not exactly thrilled to have to climb the stairs down to Uva’s wine cellar to get a bottle for a difficult patron after the performance. Things go from bad to much, much worse, though, when she gets to the bottom to find Jimmy dead with a corkscrew stabbed through his neck.

The immediate question is who could have hated Jimmy enough to murder him? Sure, he was a full-blown diva who wasn’t above weaponizing his charm to win over anyone who might prove useful to him before discarding them the instant they weren’t. But that hardly seems like a motive for murder–does it? As Jules helps her friends in Ashland’s police force figure out who killed Jimmy and why, she’ll also have to investigate why she’s been feeling so run down, even as she has to cope with unexpected curveballs in both her professional and personal lives.

I love catching up with Jules and her family and friends so much! Her Oregon town’s philosophy of community policing, as led by her stepdad, makes her involvement in apprehending murderers all the more convincing. I also loved how that same stepdad–fondly known to all as The Professor–urged her to take a step back from her punishing work schedule and make more time for herself, especially with her body giving her ample signals that she needs more rest. This felt like a particularly thoughtful and uplifting installment of the long-running Bakeshop Mystery series, and I’m looking forward to enjoying many more.

There were six recipes included here, all for drinks and dishes deliciously described in the text. I felt like baking up something sweet but not too complicated, so I decided on this one:

Strawberry Scones

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour

¼ cup sugar, plus extra for dusting

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes

½ cup chopped fresh strawberries

½ cup heavy cream

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, ¼ cup sugar, baking powder and salt until well combined. Add the cold cubed butter to the dry ingredients. Using a pastry cutter or your fingers, work the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Gently fold in the chopped strawberries.

Whisk together the heavy cream, egg, and vanilla extract in a separate small bowl until smooth.

Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it.

Use a spatula or wooden spoon to gently mix until the dough just comes together. Place the dough on a floured surface and pat it into a circle (about 1 inch thick).

Cut the circle into 8 wedges. Place the scones on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Lightly brush the tops of the scones with melted butter and sprinkle them with granulated sugar. Bake the scones for 15-18 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked through.

Serve warm.

Fresh strawberries in these scones make them so good! The scones themselves are delicious and fluffy, and while they can absolutely be enjoyed on their own, I very much appreciated them with more of the leftover sliced strawberries as well as with freshly whipped cream. Served that way, they honestly tasted a bit like one of my favorite desserts: a real southern strawberry shortcake with all the fixings. The preparation is also quite easy, making this a relatively quick treat to whip up.

Next week, we travel south down the coast to investigate the murder of a disrespectful guest in a series debut while baking up a delicious meal. Do join me!

See also: Cooking the Books: Murder at the Rusty Anchor by Maddie Day