Author: Gayle Trent
Genre: Southern (Cozy) Mystery
ISBN: 978-0-9802453-6-3
Format: Paperback, 260 pages
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books, an imprint of Belle Books
Awards: Murder Takes the Cake was a semi-finalist in Amazon.com's Breakthrough Novel Award Contest
Reviewed by Vixen's Daily ReadsMurder Takes the Cake is a fast read and starts and ends with a "What the .....?" The bang starts when Daphne of Daphne's Delectable Cakes brings what she hopes is the cake to win Yodel Watson's approval. Instead she finds the body of Mrs Watson on her couch...the dead body of Mrs Watson.
Daphne calls 911 and her life as she knows it is changed and not for the better. Her credibility is suspect as are her cakes. This is not good since she has moved back to her hometown of Brea Ridge, Virginia to rebuild her life after a failed marriage and a dead-end job.
There was a lot of action that occurred in a small amount of time, but that didn't seem to bother me as it might have in another book. Cozies have to move fast, only so many pages to git'r'dun. I liked all of the nice characters and laughed at the funny ones. There were some shady characters too, that received my dislike. I absolutely was startled to find out whodunnit at the end and it was not one of those lame-o choices so the author could hurry and finish up.
I could identify with Daphne's relationship with her family. I think this was the part I liked best. Daphne has a cautious and teeth gritting relationship with her mother, a loving warm one with her father and her sister.
And the cake baking and decorating!!! I didn't get the recipes in the copy I reviewed, so will get the book just for those. This is one of my criteria for a cozy, it makes me want to learn how to do the activity that's the basis of the character and story... This one makes me want to learn how to decorate cakes.
Four frosted beans!
-----
To find out more about the Gayle Trent and Murder Takes the Cake, please visit: http://www.gayletrent.com
-----
The New Book Review is blogged by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, founder of Authors' Coalition (www.authorscoalitionandredenginepress.com). It is a free service offered to those who want to encourage the reading of books they love. That includes authors who want to share their favorite reviews and reviewers who'd like to see their reviews get more exposure and readers who want to shout out praise of books they've loved. Please see submission guidelines on the left of this page. Reviews and essays are indexed by author names, reviewer names, and review sites. Writers will find the index handy for gleaning the names of small publishers.
