Sunday, April 25, 2010

Review #60: Cooking up Murder by Miranda Bliss


Title: Cooking up Murder

Author: Miranda Bliss
Series: Cooking Class Mystery #1
Publisher: Berkley Signet Crime
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: Own copy
ISBN: 0-425-21291-2
Price/Pages: $6.99/233
Challenges: 2010 Cozy Mystery Challenge

My Review and Description:

I discovered this series from just good old fashioned cover love. I was shelving away at my part-time bookstore job and this one was on my cart. I am such a sucker for cozy mysteries that I easily fall in love with the silly themes and titles they have, whether they are food, animal, or holiday related.

Cooking up Murder is a really quirky, fun, simple cozy. Eve and Annie are two best friends who can't cook to save their lives. Why do they decide to take a gourmet cooking class? Call it a quick decision made on the heals of good ol' heartbreak. Annie's husband left her for a new tartlet and she is left with zilch for self esteem. Her boisterous, bubbly, beautiful blonde best friend, Eve, pushes her into moving on with her life.

So they find themselves at Tres Bonne Cuisine Cooking School with a scrumptious instructor that comes fully loaded with a Scottish accent. They figure they'll learn how to bake a potato, maybe toss a salad or two. They didn't expect to find murder! One that involves some scary international gun smugglers!

Like most cozy mysteries, you find a character or two who are ordinary folks who get stuck in quite extraordinary circumstances; like tripping over dead bodies, walking in on murders, etc. Even though most of the situations make me laugh a little, I still love reading them. Probably because I am such a crime show nut, that I imagine myself to be an amateur sleuth.

Oh who am I kidding? If I found a dead body, I would be scared shitless. (pardon my language!) I just like watching it on Law and Order.

Rating: 3 stars/ 6 stars
Cooking up Murder is not anything exceptional but it was fun. With cozies, I have to like to characters and the location to really get into it. The crime itself doesn't really matter. Annie and Eve are pretty normal gals with normal jobs, completely relatable and fun. The location is the Arlington, VA/Washington DC area which is really fun to read about.
I would recommend this one for fans of cozies. No real complaints here!

Challenge: This is the first book I read for the 2010 Cozy Mystery Challenge.

Happy reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

6 comments:

Michelle (Red Headed Book Child) said...

The Cozy Mystery Challenge is hosted by Kris at Not Enough Books but you can sign up at http://www.cozymysterychallenge.blogspot.com/.

Forgot to mention it in my review because I am a space cadet. !

Stacy at The Novel Life said...

hi michelle!
check out your sunday serenade at my blog!!!
http://anovelsource.blogspot.com/2010/04/sunday-serenade_25.html

WonderBunny said...

Sounds like a good cozy. I'm going to add it on to my huge tbr stack. :) Thanks and great review!

Tales of Whimsy said...

Adorable review. I couldn't agree more with you on cozies! This sounds way cute :)

Anonymous said...

I've seen this series in the bookstore, but I think yours is the first review I've read. Really cute covers on these. Sounds good and sometimes a nice cozy is just the ticket. Thanks for sharing!!

Christine said...

I love the covers and titles to cozy mysteries, too! :)