Book ~ "The Look of Love" (2012) Mary Jane Clark

From Goodreads ~ Piper Donovan accepts when the owner of Elysium, an exclusive spa and plastic surgery center, offers her an all-expenses-paid trip to Los Angeles to create a dazzling and unique wedding cake. The job also gives Piper the time and distance she needs to sort out her feelings for handsome FBI agent, Jack Lombardi. 

The ultra-luxurious spa caters to the rich and famous in need of a little “refreshing” - a nip here, a tuck there, a little Botox, a little detox. Nestled in the Hollywood Hills, Elysium seems picture-perfect: the grounds, the staff, even the guests. 

But no sooner does Piper arrive than a guest is brutally murdered in one of the private bungalows. Someone it seems wants to make sure Elysium’s beautiful director, Jillian Abernathy, never gets to walk down the aisle. Piper soon discovers that beneath the glamorous surface of this idyllic oasis lies an ugly truth - and a cold-blooded plan for murder. 

Jack and Piper have been friends for a while and he would like to take things further.  Piper has been hurt before and doesn't want to risk their friendship.  To give them some space, Piper accepts a job in L.A. to decorate Jillian and Ben's wedding cake.  Because she's also an actress, Piper asks her agent to line up some auditions.

Jillian is the director of the exclusive spa, Elysium, which her father, a famous plastic surgeon, owns.  When Piper arrives, she discovers she's not going to just have the pleasant relaxing time away at the spa decorating a cake ... guests are murdered, she becomes involved with a reporter who is investigating something that is happening funny at the spa, she befriends a woman who is traumatized by failed plastic surgery and more.  And all during this, she has to keep her overprotective father back home reassured that she's okay and she really really wants to contact Jack (and he really really wants to contact her).

This is the third book I've read by this author and also the third I've read in her Wedding Cake Mystery series (I've read the first and fourth in the series).  They all work as stand alones.  I liked the writing style and the short and snappy chapters.  There are lots of characters who could have been the murderer and you don't find out until the end.

At the end of the book, there is a recipe for Piper's mom's Icing on the Cupcake Cream-Cheese Frosting (her mom, Terri, owns a bakeshop in New Jersey and Piper helps out).

I liked this book and look forward to reading others by this author.