Retro Reading: The Diva Takes the Cake by Krista Davis
Those Wedding Bell Blues, err, Murder
It's funny how things dawn on you and while I was a few pages into The Diva Takes the Cake it reminded me that in the first installment of the Domestic Diva Mysteries, Sophie Winston's sister, Hannah, thought it would be a good idea to have a murder mystery themed wedding.
Well, Hannah gets her "wish" in the second installment of Krista Davis' series.
Nearly six months after the Thanksgiving murders, Hannah is excited about her up coming nuptials to Craig Beacham, or is she? That's the question when Craig's first wife Emily shows up dead in (probably the best character ever written) Natasha's garden.
Sophie has been busy planning Hannah's wedding these last few months and here comes Natasha with her own set of rules and regulations regarding the wedding. While Sophie and Natasha have always been rivals, Hannah somehow feels much more comfortable with Natasha's ideas (afterall she's been planning with her behind Sophie's back) and Sophie isn't too happy about the plans.
During the days leading up to the wedding everyone becomes a suspect in Emily's murder.
Craig's family (although not on the guest list) arrive in town as does Hannah's second ex-husband Tucker. Is it a coincidence that all of these people arrive at the same time? Actually not, since the couple had registered on a website and when one thing leads to another, everyone knows the date and location of the wedding.
Not only is Emily a victim in this book but as Hannah has second doubts about marrying Craig, his uncle is murdered the day of the wedding (which due to a Natasha disaster at the hotel) the wedding is moved to Sophie's house, where the body is discovered in the shed.
As in the first installment of the series, each chapter starts out with wedding advice from either Sophie or Natasha, the characters are constantly eating and drinking (if you're trying to lose weight then this series isn't for you!) and once again the book contains a few pages of recipes at the end.
I'm not sure how many novels Davis has planned for Sophie, but I would love to have an entire one devoted to Natasha. Words cannot describe the ultimate diva (and she can do no wrong) that you can't wait to know what she's going to do next.
To give you an example, the self absorbed Natasha is requested by Sophie to pull a bag of peas out of the freezer to help with the swelling of her ankle. Natasha gives her the roll of the eye and once she sees Sophie's freezer she nearly freaks out since it's not organized in the proper order. As the police are on their way Natasha is busy organizing the said freezer.
Davis has been an excellent writer of such memorable characters that I can never wait to start the most current of the series and see what the rivals are up to.
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