Reviews

The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss, by Krista Davis

aholmes524's review

5.0

The 9th book of the Domestic Diva Series and it was fantastic! Sophie is such a fun character and I love the tips and recipes she gives throughout the book.

xkay_readsx's review against another edition

4.0

Decent mystery with many fun facts about chocolates. This would be good for chocolate lovers and bakers, I'm neither and still enjoyed it.

nitabee's review

3.0

Sophie's working as a planner for the 60th anniversary of a popular local chocolate store, Amore Chocolates, and she's enjoying it until the founder of the company and the family patriarch, Joe Merano, disappears. The family elects to move forward with the event, as it's a big deal, and there are winners of recipe contests in town and the such, and at the bash,

Spoiler

Sophie stumbles across the dead body of a rather horrid man named Arnaud. He's a rival chocolatier who's on the verge of opening a new store in town, and he turns out to be using an alias. He's really Arnie, the man who broke Joe's daughters' hearts (Coco and Kara) by two-timing them with each other when they were young. Kara ran after him when the truth was discovered and though their relationship ended quickly, she's still estranged from the family until this book when she turns up. The mystery is a bit convoluted, as most of the Domestic Diva ones are, and there's no lack of suspects, but it turns out that Coco's lover, Randy, killed Arnie. Randy winds up the second victim, bumped off through Coco's husband Mitch's scheming. Mitch hadn't been in love with Coco for years but stayed with her for her money and the family business, and he killed off Randy because he'd tried to hire Randy to kill Joe. He thought the deed was done, but really Joe had gone into hiding, and of course Randy had no intention of actually killing him, but since he thought Randy could tie him to Joe's death, that was the end of Randy. Why did Randy kill Arnie? Out of love for Coco. Arnie was a disgusting, sickening person who showed no remorse for the way he'd treated Coco and Kara and bragged about sleeping with both sisters "before they looked like cows" while he was at the Amore party

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Nat accidentally breaks Mars' arm when she tosses a box of old bathroom fixtures out the window, and when she continues to try to remodel the bathroom and they lose their water, Mars decides enough is enough and goes to stay with Sophie. Wolf is on the case of Joe's disappearance and then the murders, and since Sophie's involved, he spends some time questioning her. With both Mars and Wolf in Sophie's life, Alex gets jealous and asks her to stop spending time with them, but she refuses, of course. Alex tries to leave her but realizes he cares about her too much and wants to continue the relationship. Nat redeems herself in Mars' eyes at the end by turning their basement into the ultimate man cave for him, and all's well in their lives.

kristenmneal's review

2.0

Not the best one

bwilhoite8's review

4.0

Another great addition to the Diva series. This was one of my favorites in the series.

_kristiew_'s review

4.0

I enjoyed the chocolate aspect and the mystery itself but the forced "love" quadrangle with Sophie/Mars/Wolf and now Alex is already getting old. Why can't she be friends with Mars and Wolf without Alex or anyone else speculating? They are all grown ups and both Mars and Wolf have significant others.

Back to the story, another thing I noticed was every time Sophie served people at home, she had dishes/glassware to match the theme/food/what have you. It had me wondering just how big her kitchen is to hold all of this stuff!

I loved the new character of Nonni and hope she makes an appearance in a future book.

kj80230's review against another edition

3.0

3.5 I really need to go back and start the series from the beginning but it was a great Cozy Mystery.

robynldouglas's review

4.0

Always read these for the food and it didn’t disappoint.

dollycas's review

5.0

Dollycas’s Thoughts

I love this series. Sophie and Natasha are just wonderful characters. Sophie is very soothing and handles things in a very sensible way and Natasha seems to have no common sense whatsoever and poor Mars is caught right in the middle. Add a little murder to the mix along with a jealous boyfriend and chocolate and you have a fantastic story

I love the way Krista Davis writes. Her characters are quite a quirky mix, perfect for a cozy mystery. This time we meet Joe Merano and his family, the owners of Amore’ Chocolates. They have a very complex history and it may be coming back to haunt them. When Joe goes missing and another man is killed in their guest house Nonni immediately says the family is cursed. Well Sophie is on the case and she hopes to find Joe and a killer too.

Nonni is my favorite character this time. She is a very strong, wise and opinionated woman who keeps her family on their toes.

Davis gives us a story with many twists and spins. She drops the clues with the hand of a master leading the reader at a perfect pace. The antics of Natasha will have you laughing out loud and feeling for Mars as he deals with her outlandish ideas. Thankfully Sophie is there to help but Alex doesn’t like it one bit. We are also treated by tips from Sophie and Natasha at the start of each chapter. These bring a few giggles too.

Don’t forget the chocolate, you will be craving it from the first page to the last so be sure to stock up. Krista is nice enough to include a few recipes, Nonni’s Tiramisu and Double Chocolate Bourbon Bread Pudding are just 2 I would love to try.

I highly recommend this book and all the others in this series. Grab it today and enjoy!

mad94's review

4.0

It delivers all it promises. Easy to read, partly nonsense filled, but intriguing mystery. Perfect for what it is