The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss

The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss is the eighth book in Krista Davis’s Domestic Diva cozy mystery series, the 2015 outing where Old Town Alexandria event planner Sophie Winston is helping run a chocolate festival hosted by the Bauer family, a multi-generation chocolatier dynasty. When Joe Merano, would-be Bauer heir-by-marriage, turns up dead in a chocolate-fountain disaster, Sophie does what Sophie does: pours a cocoa, asks the wrong people the right questions, and accidentally walks into the family secret.

Davis is a steady cozy operator, and this entry is comfortable in the way the genre asks. The Old Town setting is well realized (the brick sidewalks, the King Street wine shops, the late-spring weather), and the Bauer chocolate factory is the kind of single-business setting cozies live on. The mystery is fair-play if a touch obvious by the four-fifths mark, and the Sophie / Mars / Wolf love-triangle continues to be the series’ best running engine. Several genuinely good recipes (a chocolate hazelnut tart and a salted-caramel sauce) are tucked into the back matter, which fans of Joanne Fluke or Diane Mott Davidson will appreciate.

Recommended for Domestic Diva readers and anyone looking for books like The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss in the food-festival cozy subgenre. Three stars and a comfortable comfort read.