Book 106, 2025

[chez_jae]

The Diva Takes the Cake by Krista Davis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


View all my reviews

Finished my work book at lunch today. It was The Diva Takes the Cake by Krista Davis, and it’s the second installment in the “Domestic Diva” series of cozy mysteries. The main character is Sophie Winston.

Sophie is busy helping her sister, Hannah, get ready for her third marriage. Sophie doesn’t care for the current groom, Craig, but she wants to see her sister happy. Everyone descends on Sophie’s home for the wedding weekend, and everything is going smoothly...until Craig’s ex-wife is found murdered in a neighboring backyard. Sophie is convinced Craig did it, but Hannah won’t hear anything negative about her fiancé. Now it’s up to Sophie to find out who the killer is before her sister makes the worst mistake of her life.

Very entertaining. Since I was reading this on my lunch breaks at work, I appreciated the short chapters. Characters were three-dimensional and relatable, and the plot moved quickly and sensibly. I also liked that the author sort of set this book up in the first one. What I didn’t like was how Hannah basically let Sophie’s nemesis, Natasha, take over after Sophie had put so much time and effort into planning everything. I didn’t like that Hannah was a complete snot to Sophie for most of the book. Nor did I appreciate how cold Wolf, the detective, acted toward Sophie. Of course, it didn’t help that each time she had anything to report about the case she called him directly instead of calling the police. It gave him the impression that she was clingy. Worst of all, when Sophie was attacked, no one seemed to believe her. I mean, she had bruises on bruises! At that point, I would have lined up my family and friends and gone down the line, bitch-slapping every one of them. Sophie’s mother needs to stop being a meddlesome twit, too.

Favorite lines:
♦ If it had been up to me, I would have canceled the wedding so fast that Craig’s comb-over would have flapped in the resulting breeze.
♦ “Cats don’t chew shoes like dogs do.”
♦ I could only imagine what they were saying about the fact that we’d served dinner after the murder.
♦ “The man is like a bowling pin—smooth, bald, and dull.”

A delightful story (for the most part). Four stars

Comments

[oracne]

I love your reviews!

[chez_jae]

:D

Thanks much!

[felaine]

I found the secondary characters in that series made me want 'them' to be the murder victims.
Subject change: the Halloween postcard you sent arrived today. Thank you.

[chez_jae]

Good grief; I promise I sent it BEFORE Halloween.

[felaine]

I saw it was dated October 25th.
Oops.
S'okay, it fits with fall decor;)