Asking for Truffle
A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
A sleuthing chocolatier is the only thing standing between an eccentric seaside town and the deadly plot to destroy it in this cozy culinary mystery for fans of Joanne Fluke
When Charity Penn receives a letter saying she won a trip to Camellia Beach, South Carolina complete with free cooking lessons at the town’s seaside chocolate shop, The Chocolate Box, she’s immediately skeptical. She never entered any contest. Her former prep school friend offers to look into the phony prize—only to end up drowned in a vat of chocolate.
Struck with guilt, Penn heads to the southern beach town to investigate why he was killed. But as wary as she is of the locals, she finds herself lured into their eccentric vibe, letting her defenses melt away and even learning the art of crafting delicious chocolates. That is, until delight turns bittersweet as she steps straight into the midst of a deadly plot to destroy the seaside town. Now, only Penn’s quick thinking and a mysterious cask of rare chocolate can save the town she’s learning to love.
Rich and decadent, Asking for Truffle, the first in a new cozy series by Dorothy St. James, is sure to be a delectable read for fans of JoAnna Carl and Joanne Fluke.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Don't dare call moody un-foodie chocoholic Charity Penn, the heroine of this overly busy but compulsively readable series launch from St. James (Oak and Dagger and two other White House Gardener mysteries), anything but Penn. "Charity" was chosen by her rich, icy grandmother Cristobel Penn, reluctant custodian of a college-age son's unplanned baby. Cut to blustery Madison, Wis., where Penn has won cooking lessons at a Camellia Beach, S.C., chocolate shop in a contest she never entered. Since Penn's hacker-surfer pal Craig "Skinny" McGee happens to be headed to a surfing event an hour's drive from Camellia Beach, he agrees to investigate the mysterious contest. Soon after arriving in South Carolina, Skinny drowns in a chocolate vat in the shop where Charity "won" lessons. When the local police say that they found drugs in his jeans, Penn snaps and heads to Camellia. Will she solve the murder? Learn her unknown mother's identity? It's a circus with too many rings, but readers will cheer Penn every step of the way.
