Retro Reading: Let Them Eat Stake by Sarah Zettel

Sometimes it's good to see a series end. Well, in this case, I don't know if I'd want to call it a series but more of a follow up. Why there was a follow up I'm not sure.

It's supposed to be the wedding of the decade as Chef Charlotte Caine is asked to cater the nuptials of Deanna Maddox (a witch) and Gabriel Renault (a vampire) as New York City's society of daybloods and nightbloods come together. I know, they sound like rival street gangs and not of the singing West Side Story kind.

Charlotte was on the short list to cater the wedding, but was asked following the departure of celebrity chef, Oscar Simmons at nearly the last minute. Charlotte has a week to prepare for everything including multiple week long parties leading up to the wedding and shortly after accepting the job, Oscar is found dead in his office at his upscale restaurant.

But Charlotte thinks Oscar's death is a little fishy and after some snooping around discovers that he was murdered. Having just solved a murder a few months earlier, Charlotte puts on her Nancy Drew cap and decides that she needs to find the true killer behind his death.

With witches and vampires galore trying to find the killer is going to keep Charlotte going around the clock up until the day/night of the wedding.

You know when you dedicate time to finish a book with about 50 or so pages left? Well, what should have been about an hour turned into three. I couldn't wait to finish this and get back to binge watching something. Anything.

Throughout the book, I didn't feel like there were enough clues or suspects and I hate the Agatha Christie approach of mysteries. Thankfully we did spend some time with the killer, but not enough to get any real sort of motive.

The vampire questions really aren't answered as to how they and the living live and work together (along with werewolves and other paranormal creatures) but this fantasy and really should have been marketed within that realm.

Since Zettel is more of a fantasy writer, maybe these two books would appeal to those readers, but for the average person looking for a "supernatural" mystery, this isn't it since something is definitely missing.