A Wytch's Book Review Blog

Chocolate Covered Death (Wine & Dine Mysteries #2) by Gemma Halliday

In order to boost her struggling family winery's reputation, Emmy Oak throws a Wine and Chocolate party for the Sonoma Valley elite--featuring her delicious drinks alongside her friend Leah's decadently chocolaty desserts. But when Leah's ex-husband's new trophy wife turns up dead after the party, the police paint Leah in the role of main suspect and the only thing anyone in town can talk about is the murder at the Chocolate Bar.

In order to save face and her friend, Emmy finds herself infiltrating high society and sorting among the catty and cantankerous for her killer. Did the victim's rare-wine brokering business have anything to do with it? Or was it the hot new golf pro at the club or the frenemy with a jealous streak? Or maybe her husband found a less messy way than divorce to end their short and unhappy marriage? Emmy isn't sure, but she knows a mysterious man in a cowboy had has something to do with it, and the deeper she digs, the more trouble seems to follow her. Between crashing the country club, dodging danger, and trying to stay one step ahead of the sexy Detective Christopher Grant, Emmy has her work cut out for her to catch a killer...before hers is the next death by chocolate!

Emmy Oak is still trying to save the family vineyard, this time she and a new friend Leah have come up with the idea of a dessert and wine evening, held at Leah's bakery/cafe, it all seems to be going well until Leah spots her ex-husband's new trophy wife, Leah ducks into the kitchen leaving Emmy and her best friend Eva to hold down the fort in the front.  Other than that it seems to have been a successful evening, until Emmy stumbles across the trophy wife dead by a dumpster.  Now with everything pointing towards Leah as the killer Emmy and Eva need to channel their inner Cagney and Lacey and find the true killer before Leah's next cooking gig is in prison!

Marshmallow Malice (Amish Candy Shop Mystery #5) by Amanda Flower

With Juliet Brody and Reverend Brook tying the knot in Ohio's Amish Country's most anticipated nuptials of the year, Bailey King is determined to do everything in her power to make the event a sweet success. Except midsummer heat waves and outdoor ceremonies don't mix, and an exasperated Bailey soon finds herself struggling to fulfill bridesmaid duties and keep her stunning marshmallow-frosted wedding cake from becoming a gooey disaster. Then much to everyone's shock, the entire ceremony crumbles when a guest drops dead, and the cause isn't sunstroke . . .

Turns out, the uninvited victim came equipped with lots of dirt on the devout reverend's hidden past. As Reverend Brook tops the murder suspect list on what should have been the happiest day of his life, Bailey and her sheriff's deputy boyfriend vow to clear his name. Can the duo boil down a series of baffling clues before Juliet considers her marriage a bad mistake--or the killer whips up another deadly surprise?

I keep thinking there is no way this series can improve and yet Amanda Flower proves me wrong time after time! With this one Juliet and the Reverend are finally tying the knot and Bailey has been tasked with not only being the Maid of Honour (which involves looking after Jethro the Pot Bellied pig) but Swissman Sweets are making the wedding cake - and Juliet wants Marshmallow icing, on one of the most humid days of the year! Still things go reasonably okay (and thank you Cass for coming from New York to help out with the wedding and the shop - best friends are great!), until an inebriated woman tries to stop the wedding, oh and then Jethro starts to eat the cake and knocks it over!  That should be it, but the following day the drunken woman is found dead on the steps of the church, now Bailey and Cass need to put their thinking caps on and find a killer so that Juliet and her new husband can have their happy ever after time.

Death in an Elegant City (Murder on Location #4) by Sara Rosett

Location scout Kate Sharp is thrilled to be part of a scouting trip to the historic city of Bath, England to research the location for a Jane Austen documentary. But before Kate gets a chance to stroll the elegant boulevards where Austen once lived, murder cuts the sightseeing short. Now Kate must rearrange her itinerary and find the killer before she and the production are shut down permanently.

Kate Sharp and her boyfriend Alex are location scouts and this time they (and some other people) are headed to Bath to do another series based on the works of Jane Austen, Elise the Producer can be rather sharp but knows how to get stuff done, her assistant Paul is fairly laid back, the driver and general Gopher Felix can be grumpy, but the worst person of all is Cyrus the Director, who seems to think he is the Bee's Knees and has a habit of finding out interesting facts about people and making not so subtle digs about them.  However nobody expects Cyrus to wind up dead no more than 4 hours after they arrive in Bath.  Now with the rest of the team in the local police viewfinder, Elise wants Kate to start digging and find out the truth, .... but then there is another murder and things get worse!

Knitty Gritty Murder (A Knit & Nibble Mystery #7) by Peggy Ehrhart

Most times of the year, the tight-knit community gardens in quaint Arborville, New Jersey, overflow with seasonal vegetables and herbs. But who planted the dead body? Farm-to-table enthusiast Jenny Miller had a cookbook in the works when she was suddenly found strangled by a circular knitting needle in her own plot. Now, the pressure is on Pamela and her neighbor Bettina as they weave together clues in search of the person who kept Jenny's renowned heirloom plants--and budding career--from growing. With suspects and victims cropping up like weeds, it'll take a whole lot more than green thumbs and creative minds this spring to entangle the crafty culprit...

Pamela and Bettina get caught up in another murder, this time they think they will be staying out of it (after all it was a member of the Community Garden club called Jenny that was killed) but when they find out that the murder weapon is a circular knitting needle they get drawn in.  There appears to be a lot of potential suspects, however a lot of the time Pamela and Bettina were thinking that if the suspect was killed Jenny would have been the prime suspect so why was she killed? Then there is another murder, with the same murder weapon used and now all knitters as well as gardeners are in the firing line.  Can Pamela and Bettina knit the clues together before someone else ends up dead?