Final Sentence
Daryl Wood Gerber

Genre:
Mystery
Rating:

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!

In need of a change, Jenna Hart leaves the high-pressure world of advertising to help her aunt, Vera, open a culinary bookshop and café. Back with her family in Crystal Cove, California, Jenna seems to have all the right ingredients for a fresh start—until someone adds a dash of murder.

As a marketing expert, Jenna wants to make sure the grand opening of the Cookbook Nook draws a crowd, and no one is better at getting attention than her old college roommate, celebrity chef Desiree Divine. But when Desiree arrives in quiet Crystal Cove to do a cookbook signing, the diva stirs up more trouble than business…especially when she turns up dead.

Known for stealing husbands and burning bridges, Desiree left behind plenty of suspects—including Jenna. Though the celebrity’s life always appeared to be an open book, Jenna will have to read between the lines in order to clear her name, and catch a killer before another body is served cold.

Includes recipes!

Review

Two years after being widowed, Jenna Hart returns from San Francisco to the small town of Crystal Cove, California to help make her Aunt Vera’s dream of opening a cookbook shop and café a reality. Vera is thrilled when Jenna’s old college roommate, celebrity chef Desiree Divine, agrees to do a cookbook signing for the Cookbook Nook’s grand opening. Desiree can be hard to get along with, but Jenna likes and admires Desiree, in spite of her flaws. However, local gossip leads many in the town, including the police chief, to believe Desiree and Jenna’s relationship was more of a rivalry than a friendship. Desiree has made many enemies, but when the culinary diva is murdered, Jenna becomes the prime suspect.  Since it doesn’t look like the police chief Cinnamon Pritchett is looking too hard for other suspects, Jenna takes it upon herself to find out who really killed Desiree.

I like Jenna as a main character and enjoy the scenes with her and her aunt. It’s mentioned a few times her aunt may be psychic, but I don’t think that aspect of the book was really played out to its potential. This is the first book in the series, so Vera’s abilities may be expanded in future books, but didn’t add much to this book. The tension between Jenna and her father doesn’t ring true for me, either, so I hope more explanations are given in future books or the two patch up their differences and move on. Jenna’s father seems like a loving man, so would he really hold it against his daughter for leaving town after her mom dies, to deal with the aftermath of her husband’s death? Their estrangement seems forced and bogs down the story as a whole.

Katie, who does the cooking for Jenna and Vera’s café, is said to be Jenna’s best friend from high school. I don’t know if it’s written this way on purpose since Jenna has been a way for a while, but most of the time, the two women act like they hardly know each other. They don’t seem like former best friends at all. Their conversations are stilted and they seem uneasy around each other. On the other hand, when Jenna is with Bailey, her friend from the advertising agency where Jenna used to work, the two women have an easy camaraderie that makes them believable as good friends. I think Jenna and Bailey make a good pair, but I’m still undecided about Katie.

I didn’t care for Cinnamon at all. Even though Jenna’s own father sings Cinnamon’s praises for almost the whole book, she doesn’t seem like a good person or a good cop. Jenna does more legwork on the case than Cinnamon by far and Cinnamon readily accepts gossip being spread by her trouble-making mom as evidence. Cinnamon can’t help how bitter her mother is, but she doesn’t have to believe all the hateful information she spews.

The cookbook shop is a clever idea for a series, and I enjoy the references to actual cookbooks, from the traditional like “The Joy of Cooking” to those by real life celebrity chefs like Guy Fieri. The name-dropping of various cookbooks is done smoothly and is well-integrated into the story. Without spoiling anything, cookbooks aren’t just a gimmick; they play a major role in foiling the killer. In fact, the cookbook angle is so done so well, it helps make up for some of the things I don’t like about the book. For those who don’t have one of the cookbooks mentioned handy, there are a few cookie recipes at the end of the story. It takes a little while to get into the story, but I think this new series has potential. Author Daryl Wood Gerber also writes The Cheese Shop mysteries under the pseudonym Avery Adams.

Fans of that series or of Lorna Barrett’s Booktown mysteries may enjoy reading Final Sentence.

Reviewed by Christine K.