In a cute new culinary cozy from USA Today bestselling author Sarah Fox, budding chocolatier Becca Ransom must solve a murder before she meets a sticky end. Winter has arrived in Larch Haven, Vermont, bringing with it holiday cheer, lots of snow, and freezing temperatures. Becca Ransom is squeezing in time to skate on the frozen canals and drink hot chocolate by a roaring fire while also whipping up new creations for her family’s chocolate shop and experimenting with holiday flavors like eggnog, gingerbread, and peppermint. At the same time, Becca is preparing for the Baking Spirits Bright holiday baking competition, a popular annual event. She’s planning to enter an edible model of Larch Haven, with a mountain backdrop made of cake, gingerbread cottages, and chocolate gondolas on sugar-glass canals. Professional bakers and a local food blogger are also participating in the event and they aren’t about to go down without a fight. The competition quickly heats to a boiling point, with flaring tempers and mysterious happenings. When one of the entrants is found dead, stabbed with Becca’s chocolate chipper, Becca tries to salvage the season by finding the killer. But the heat is on, and Becca is in danger of getting burned. Sarah Fox is the bestselling author of several cozy mystery series. She lives in British Columbia with her two cats and her adorable English Springer Spaniel. Chapter One There was no place more magical than Larch Haven, Vermont, in wintertime. The canals that wound their way through the small town had frozen solid, providing a network of skating trails, and a thick layer of snow covered the cute cottages and the timber-frame buildings. With Christmas approaching, the postcard-perfect town had become even more magical, with twinkle lights strung along the main cobblestone walkways and all of the old-fashioned lampposts wrapped with red and white ribbons so they looked like peppermint sticks. I loved my adorable stone cottage at all times of the year, but with snow on the roof, multicolored lights lining the windows, and a wreath on the front door, it looked like it belonged in the middle of a snow globe. Every time I arrived home to my cottage and my two cats, a warm glow lit up inside of me. I felt the same way whenever I entered my family's chocolate shop, True Confections. Moving back to my hometown in Vermont after living in Los Angeles for several years had definitely been a good decision. "Ready?" my best friend Dizzy Bautista asked. I finished tying up my skates. "Ready." We left our snow boots in the shelter of my small boathouse and took our first strokes along the ice. The wind swirled around us, carrying the occasional snowflake with it and stinging my cheeks, but I didn't mind. We were on our way to get hot chocolate. "There's something I want to show you," Dizzy said as we skated along the curving canal. We glided beneath a stone bridge and then out into full daylight again. Dizzy pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of her jacket. "A stack of these were dropped off at the library. I grabbed this one for you." I accepted the slightly crumpled paper and unfolded it with my gloved hands. It was a black-and-white flyer. While keeping one eye on the path ahead of us, I read the bold print at the top of the flyer. "'Third annual Baking Spirits Bright competition.'" "Haven't you always wanted to take part?" Dizzy asked, almost brimming with excitement. "Not exactly," I said. "I've never even heard of it before." At this time last year I'd been in Florida, visiting my parents. For the two Christmases before that, I'd been in Los Angeles. "Okay, but now that you have, you should definitely enter." "I'm a chocolatier, not a baker," I reminded her. After moving home, I'd trained as a chocolatier so I could work in my family's shop. Now I spent my days making bonbons, truffles, and chocolate versions of the gondolas that were always on the canals whenever the water wasn't frozen. Although I sometimes missed my first career as an actor, I loved working at True Confections. "But you're a good baker too," Dizzy said. "And you can showcase your chocolate skills during the competition." "Okay, but this would be baking with an audience. Do you remember what happened in tenth grade cooking class?" I almost shuddered at the memory. Dizzy and I had been partners for a project where we had to do a cooking demonstration for the class. Somehow, I'd managed to set the ends of my hair on fire. If not for Dizzy dousing me with a pot of water, I probably would have lost more than the three inches of hair that I'd had to have trimmed off. "That was fifteen years ago," Dizzy pointed out. "And I can still smell my hair burning like it was yesterday." She rolled her eyes. "Becca, you've cooked and baked eleventy billion times since then without incident." "But not with an audience." Dizzy nudged my arm with her elbow. "You've acted on shows watched by millions of people." "Tha