Onyx reviews: The Golden Spoon by Jessa Maxwell

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 02/04/2023

The elevator pitch writes itself: death and deceit during a baking competition held in a tent on the grounds of an estate. This isn't The Great British Baking Show (GBB), though, where a dozen amateur bakers congenially vie against each other to become the champion after weeks of bakes while becoming lifelong friends.

Bake Week has been running for a decade on a streaming channel, having been created by cookbook author Betsy Martin—known as America's Grandmother, it's hard not to think of her as Betty Crocker—on whose Vermont estate the tent is erected each summer. The competition runs for a mere five days without break, and the contestants remain in the manor with no contact with the outside world, residing in one wing while the other is reserved for Martin, who desperately needs her proceeds from the show to maintain the crumbling mansion.

To shake up the show this year, the producers have introduced a co-host for the first time, one Archie Morris —think Gordon Ramsey—the host of another, less congenial cooking show. Martin isn't happy that she's losing control of her creation and is suspicious that the show's coordinator, Melanie Blair, is conspiring to push her out.

The winner will be awarded the Golden Spoon and will get a publishing contract for a cookbook, so the stakes are decent. Unlike GBB, the contestants have no opportunity to practice their bakes in advance, nor are they given recipes for a technical challenge. They are asked to create a particular kind of dish each day with no guidance whatsoever, just a pantry and fridge full of possible ingredients.

The bakes are described in sufficient detail to make a reader's mouth water but not, unfortunately, with enough information for someone to recreate them in their own kitchen. Additionally, readers get to see what GBB viewers don't—the logistics of moving cameras around the tent, the way the contestants are instructed to behave, and how bakers sometimes have to be coddled into performing for the camera when they would much rather be attending to their dishes. There are no goofy co-presenters joking around in the background. This is serious baking business.

Maybe it's because of the show's rapid shooting schedule that the contestants don't have much time to grow fond of each other as they do on GBB. Tensions could also come from the fact that someone seems to be sabotaging the bakers, tinkering with ingredients, oven settings or freezer doors. Is it one of the bakers, or someone else looking to add some spice to the show?

Each of the six bakers and Betsy Martin get to tell their stories as events proceed, although it's clear there are some carefully held secrets among some of them. Why did the journalist lose her job? What does the retired RN know about the Martin family history? Why is a wealthy CEO competing in a baking challenge? Is Morris serious about his role as co-presenter, or does he have an ulterior motive? And, most importantly, who dies? Because the book's preamble makes it clear that at least one person won't survive the week, although for most of the book everyone who isn't eliminated from Bake Week lives to breathe another day.

Besides the drama in the tent, there is plenty of activity each evening in Martin's manor, which has mysterious passages, hidden chambers and closed-off floors. Although the bakers are officially banned from entering Martin's wing, they find ways to explore anyway, motivated by curiosity and, in at least one case, a desire to solve a decades-old mystery.

This is a debut novel (Maxwell is the pseudonym of children's book author Jessica Olien), but the author has produced an enjoyable cozy with a baker's half-dozen well-drawn, distinctive characters and a suitably twisty plot. The novel has already been optioned as a series on Hulu. Think: Only Murders in the Tent.