Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates: A Chocolate Covered Mystery by Kathy Aarons

    The entire time I read Death Is Like a Box of Chocolates I felt I read it before. Yet, by the end of the book, I still couldn’t figure out for certain whether I had or not. Not that it really mattered. Whether I read this book or not, I enjoyed reading it this time.

    Chocolatier Michelle Serrano is thrilled to have the renovations done on her book and chocolate shop. Her best friend Erica runs the book side of things, while she runs the chocolate. It is a great situation. The two friends can work together and still do what they each love.

    With the shop up and running, Michelle and Erica are working with other local business owners to put together a Memorial Day Weekend festival. It will include the first ever West Riverdale Arts Festival and a Great Fudge Cook-Off. The festival is a lot of work, which always manages to grow when Mayor Gwen Ficks comes around. She loves adding things to the festival plan.

    The list of things to do becomes even longer when Michelle finds photographer Denise Coburn dead in her shop. To make matters worse, it looks Denise may have been killed by one of Michelle’s chocolates. Michelle becomes a suspect and her shop has to close as the police investigate whether the poison in the chocolate was on purpose or an accident. This means Michelle has to clear her entire stock and start over. And fast.

    Fortunately, Michelle is able to get back into her shop to work pretty quickly. The murder isn’t solved, though, which leads Michelle and Erica to try and solve it themselves. This gets them into trouble, but it doesn’t stop them. Michelle is a suspect, and Denise was a friend. A friend, it turns out, neither one knew a lot about.       

Chocolate Raspberry Dessert/Artwork by Kate Dorsey

    This may sound like an odd thing to say, but I found I liked the side characters better than the main ones. Erica was too manipulative, and Michelle was too set in her ways. Neither one is terrible. I just liked other characters better.

    Some of the characters I liked were Leo, Michelle’s war veteran brother. Then there was Bobby, a police officer working on the case. He has a romantic history with Erica. And Ben, AKA Bean, Erica’s journalist brother.

    Ben can be a little full of himself, but I still liked him. Michelle does too. She is very attracted to Ben. Which is probably a little bit awkward since he is her best friend’s brother. With that hitch in mind, it will be interesting to see where Michelle and Ben’s relationship goes.