In the lull between Christmas and New Year's, ten high-achieving ladies are gathered at the expensive Castle Spa in Cumbria, England, seeking to rejuvenate themselves with Botox, aromatherapy, and all-around pampering. They lounge around in the Jacuzzi, sipping champagne and telling each other the stories of their lives-from a trophy wife's spell in a Greek prison to a brain surgeon's experience with twins and mistaken identity to a stepmother's reverse-Cinderella...

Professional wedding cake decorator and amateur sleuth Piper Donavan is on cake creating assignment at a West Coast luxury spa for the wealthy and famous--where nip and tuck and murder are offered in equal measures.

May 1816: Jane Austen is feeling unwell, with an uneasy stomach, constant fatigue, rashes, fevers and aches. She attributes her poor condition to the stress of family burdens, which even the drafting of her latest manuscript-about a baronet's daughter nursing a broken heart for a daring naval captain-cannot alleviate. Her apothecary recommends a trial of the curative waters at Cheltenham Spa, in Gloucestershire. Jane decides to use some of the profits...