Title: Death of a Kitchen Diva
Author: Lee Hollis
Publisher: Kensington Books
Genre: Cozy mystery
Pages: 327
My Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤

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Death of a Kitchen Diva

Hayley Powell takes over the food column at the local newspaper. She isn’t sure if she’ll succeed, since she’s an office manager, not a writer. But to her surprise, the column becomes a huge success and everyone loves it. Well, everyone except one person: Karin Appelbaum. Karin is also a food writer, and she sees Hayley as competition. Then one day, Karin is found dead, murdered. All the evidence points to Hayley. Now she must do her own investigation to uncover who really killed Karin and clear her name.

Review

I love reading romance, but every now and then you just have to switch it up. I picked up Death of a Kitchen Diva because the cover looked fun and the title sounded just as fun.

There were quite a few things I enjoyed about this book. At first, I wanted to compare it to other thrillers (like Freida McFadden’s books), but you really shouldn’t do that. This book deserves its own category: cozy mystery. You’re still trying to figure out who killed Karin, but the story gives off lots of cozy vibes. I think that’s partly because of the recipes sprinkled throughout the book. Since Hayley writes a food column, she shares recipes and you can actually find them included in the story. That was such a fun touch!

It also felt like the perfect book for the moment. It was raining while I was reading it, and the cozy vibes fit those rainy days perfectly. The small-town setting, where everyone basically knows each other, made it feel even cozier.

The characters were likable enough, though Hayley wasn’t exactly the smartest for doing her own investigation. It only made her look more guilty. And the police? Definitely not the most competent force I’ve ever read about. They were sloppy. Hayley discovered a lot about Karin’s life that the police didn’t even seem aware of. It felt like they didn’t really care about the murder and barely lifted a finger to find the real killer.

I’ll admit, I was 100% convinced someone else was the murderer. I can’t tell you who without spoiling the story, but I was so sure it was him/her. A part of me was disappointed it wasn’t (probably because I didn’t like that character), but another part of me enjoyed the twist.

Overall, I think this was a super cozy mystery and I really liked it. I settled on 4 stars/hearts. I first thought about 3.5, but that felt too low, so I rounded up to 4. I especially appreciated that the author included recipes, I might even try some in the future! Death of a Kitchen Diva is only the first book in the Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails Mystery Series, and guess what? There are more than 20 books in the series. I’ll definitely be picking up a few more.

The post Death of a Kitchen Diva – Lee Hollis | Book Review first appeared on A happy life.