Well Read, Then Dead (Read'Em and Eat Mystery)

 Nestled in the barrier islands of Florida's Gulf Coast, Fort Myers Beach is home to Mary "Sassy" Cabot and Bridget Mayfield, owners of the bookstore cafe, Read' Em and Eat. But when they're not dishing about books or serving up scones, Sassy and Bridget are keeping tabs on murder. 

Read' Em and Eat is known for it's delicious treats and colorful clientele. There's Miss Augusta Maddox, who enjoys lecturing tourists on the rumors of sunken treasure among the islands, and her cousin Delia Batson, a regular at the Emily Dickinson table who is painfully shy... which makes the news of her murder all the more shocking. 

No one is more distraught than Augusta. She wants Delia's killer found and she's not taking no for an answer. Now Sassy is on the case, and she'd better act fast before there's any more trouble in paradise. 

I was really excited to actually read a cozy mystery about my "hometown" of Ft. Myers, Florida. The book is very well written and has a great story line. I like a lot of the characters and reading it really did make me a bit homesick. However, in the beginning I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of characters that were thrown at you in the first few chapters. I had a hard time keeping people straight and where they fell into the story. Once I got past those chapters though it was pretty easy to follow along. The only other thing I wished the book had was a slow build to the big reveal in the end. There were really no clues on who actually did it and I still had no suspicions even about a third of the way through the book. However, it does get really exciting at the end and you will never realize who really is the one to almost get away with murder. Overall I did like the book and I will be happy to continue the series. 

Death on Eat Street (A Biscuit Bowl Food Truck Mystery)

When she's once again passed over for a promotion at work, Zoe decides to take the big leap and go for her dream. She quits, gives up her fancy digs, and buys a fixer-upper diner in a shady part of town. To keep above water during the renovation, she buys a used food truck to serve the downtown and waterfront of Mobile, Alabama. 

Zoe starts to dish out classic Southern food but her specialty is her deep fried biscuit bowls that blow 
traditional bread bowls away. After a promising start, things begin to go downhill faster than a food truck without brakes. First, someone tries to rob the cash register. Next, Zoe is threatened by the owner of a competing food truck for taking their spot. And when the owner ends up dead inside Zoe's rolling restaurant, Zoe and her sole employee, Ollie, find themselves hopping out of the frying pan and into the fryer. They need to find the real killer... before both of them get burned.

For a first in a series reader I was thoroughly impressed! The book was very easy to read and had a very comfortable pace. I liked that the author clued you in by adding "evidence" of where the plot was headed. This gave you a sense that you were really onto something with your own assumptions but also didn't give too much information away either and still gave you that "whoa, I didn't see that coming" kind of ending as well. The characters were well thought out and had a great personalities and humor behind them. The setting was described perfectly, having been to Mobile Alabama many times, and seeing the places they described in the book first hand, I knew right away that I was going to love this book. If you like good homemade Southern comfort food with a side of "who-done-it" then this is the cozy for you! I will definitely be looking forward to the next book from this series!