Jo Anna Carl The Chocolate Bridal Bash

The Chocolate Bridal Bash

Jo Anna Carl

Signet, August 2006, $6.99, 240 pp.

ISBN 045121918S

The happiest times Lee MicKinney has ever known have all taken place in the Michigan summer tourist town of Warner Pier. She is working as the general manager for Ten Hugs Chocolate and lives in her house which might not be a mansion but feels just like home. She is soon getting married to Joe who loves her and means the world to her. Perhaps her problem is her mother who insists and entreats in the same sentence that the wedding occur somewhere else.

Nellie tells Lee that her mother left town the night before her wedding and her fianc Bill was found dead hors later, an apparent suicide. Wanting to learn more about this unknown chapter in her mother's life, she starts investigating with some help from Joe. Her mother wanted to make sure that Sheriff Van Hoosier was out of office and had no power before coming for a visit so they go to the nursing home where he is living. They find him dead, the victim of a blow to the head and strangulation. When Lee's mother arrives for a visit she is almost kidnapped. Clearly someone has secrets to keep that involved Lee's mother and her dead former fianc and that person is more than willing to keep killing anyone who gets in his way.

This is a very entertaining and stylish mystery filled with romance and chocolate trivia. Reading this on an empty stomach is hazardous to the waistline because the chocolate descriptions are the kiss of death so sensuously enticing that readers will crave the need instantly. Lee is very likeable without being too sweet and her brains and beauty make her a powerhouse to be reckoned with as anyone who gets in her way finds out.

Harriet Klausner