Jake and Ellie have been running the Chocolate Moose for several years and suddenly across the street a rival chocolatier has opened up a shop. He has been slurring the Chocolate Moose merchandise as inferior and stealing customers. N9ot surprising he turns up dead but was is surprising the murder weapon belonged to Ellie. Jake has to work hard to find the real killer and clear her friend.

Just plain yummy! ( )

This 6th book in the Death by Chocolate series is another solid installment. I like the characters in all six of the books, Jake and Ellie, the co-owners of The Chocolate Moose in Eastport, Maine, and their families and friends are terrific characters.

However, in this book, the plot seemed to be unnecessarily convoluted, though not so much so to stop me from continuing with the series.

I enjoy this series and would recommend it to cozy fans.

(I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via Net Galley, in exchange for a fair and honest review.) ( )

I received an advance copy from NetGalley.

This is the 6th book in the Death by Chocolate series, set in a small Maine town where lead character Jacobia "Jake" Tiptree runs a bakery with her dear friend Ellie and contends with a lot of family drama, too. As the book starts out, a jerk has opened a rival shop across the street and badmouthed their business. After some unpleasant confrontations about his practices, the guy, of course, ends up dead—by Ellie’s gun. Jake needs to get her friend off the hook, fast.

I had no problem getting into the groove of the mystery. The setting and characters engaged me from page 1, and I wanted to find out whodunnit. What did frustrate me, though, was how Jake kept doing things that verged on stupid and made her friend look even more guilty. Some behavior like that is part of being an amateur detective but it needs to be handled with care, and the sheer foolhardiness of the characters began to annoy me. I finished the book, though, and I liked how the complicated pieces came together in the end. ( )

Maine, island-life, family-dynamics, family, friendship, small-business, small-town, baker, family-drama, amateur-sleuth, situational-humor, recipes, verbal-humor, law-enforcement, murder, murder-investigation,*****

She used to work for the mob?! And she recognizes the bully from those days?
The murder victim is no surprise (the kind of character you love to hate). But even if you (or me) have not read the earlier books in series you just know that the apparent killer certainly is not guilty, and the group of friends will work hard to prove it.
There is a lot of family issues as the ongoing fun that snakes in and out of the sleuthing. The whole book is just too much fun!
I requested and received an EARC from Kensington Books via NetGalley. Thank you! ( )