•1/4 cup sugar

•5 Tbsp sweetened condensed milk (the original recipe calls for three, but I always add more)

•1 1/2 cups flour

•1 tsp baking powder

•3/4 cup chocolate chips

•1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a baking tray with wax paper.

Cream together butter, sugar and condensed milk until light and fluffy.

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then sift them into the creamed mixture, mixing until combined. Add the chocolate chips.

Roll the mixture into balls, place them on the baking tray and then flatten them with a fork.

Bake for 15 mins or until golden at the edges but still soft.

Leave on the tray for 5 minutes, then transfer to a baking tray to cool (even though they are best eaten warm).

Chapter One

Recipe: Tan Slice

My name is Nora Henderson, and I am currently having a pulmonary embolism.

If you didn’t know, a pulmonary embolism is when a blood clot develops in the body then travels to a lung where it disrupts air flow.

The symptoms are a sudden shortness of breath, chest pain, a feeling of anxiety, lightheadedness, heart palpitations and sweating. If you have deep vein thrombosis you will also have pain, swelling and warmth in your leg.

If not treated, it can cause serious problems, ultimately leading to death.

Death.

Right now, I could be dying.

“Nora, do the muffins have peanuts in them?” a voice asked, interrupting visions of what my funeral might look like.

I thought it would be small but well attended. The flowers would be white. Lilies. Or roses. At the church down by the water, even though I wasn’t a particularly religious person. It was pretty there. A nice place for a funeral.

I blinked my pink, girly, magnificent, orderly kitchen into focus and sharpened my attention on the fresh-faced, blonde-haired Australian who had just asked me a question.

“What?” I asked, my voice scratchy and dry. Likely from the trouble I had breathing. Caused by the blood clot clogging my arteries.

“The muffins,” she said. “I would’ve just lied and said no if the customer in question hadn’t stressed their life-threatening peanut allergy. I don’t want to get sued if they like, keel over and die or something.”

My breathing evened out, my heart slowing now that I had something to focus on.

Fiona was obsessed with being sued. Apparently, you couldn’t sue people in Australia like you could here.

“No, there are no peanuts in the muffins,” I reassured her.

She chewed her lip. “Can you come and tell the customer? I think I kind of shattered my credibility with them. I told them that no one had died from our products… that we know of. It would sound better coming from the person who actually baked the muffins. And liability would shift to you.” She winked before her blue eyes flickered over me. “Plus, you look like you’re spiraling back here. What is it today?”