Dark Chocolate Demise by Jenn McKinlay is the seventh installment in the Cupcake Bakery Mystery series and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I'll admit that the subject matter drew me to the series. After all, who doesn't like cupcakes?! However, it's the characters that have kept me reading all this time. I absolutely love Mel, Angie, Tate, Joe, Marty, Oz, and the rest. The shenanigans that Angie and Mel get into are just hilarious and I'm always excited to see what they get up to next!

Normally, I'm NOT a fan of zombies and will generally avoid books that have anything to do with zombies, but I just love this series too much to stay away. The mystery was fantastic and I had no idea who was the real culprit until the end. Throw in the cliff-hanger ending and WOW - I just can't wait for the next installment! ( )

When Fairy Tale Cupcakes caters a Zombie event, a woman dressed just like Angie ends up dead. The believe a mobster may be after her as a way to get to Joe's role as prosecutor in a case, especially since threats were made in the past. Mel, Angie, and Tate, of course, do a lot of stupid things as seems to be the norm in most cozies. Unfortunately most of the plot was beyond plausibility, and the author may be in danger of losing her fan base if she continues to make what began as a cozy series more of a noir or thriller genre. I could not wait for the book to end, and I doubt I'll be in a rush to check out the next one. ( )

I moved this one up my ethereal list because it was the 'fish-or-cut-bait' book for me, and based on friends' reviews, I was expecting a 'cut-bait' outcome and figured I'd just get it over with.

I don't know, though. It's definitely a very average read but it wasn't as god-awful irritating as I expected it to be, based on some of the recent books in this series (and her other series as well).

In Sugar and Iced the author ended with a cliffhanger that was so melodramatic it made me want to throw the book into a shredder and be done with it. This one picks up a few months afterwards and fortunately, the plot wasn't nearly as patently ridiculous as the cliffhanger made it sound. The author finally stops dicking around with the romances too, which is a welcome relief to all of us that found the triangles stupid and worthless. (I do like Manny though, and hope he sticks around.) I saw some hints of the writing I used to thoroughly enjoy in the dialog and the characters remain as likeable as they ever were.

Unfortunately, the mystery was rather transparent, both Mel and Angie (mostly Angie, to be fair) decide acting like adolescents is a prudent course of action for the entire book, and the author seems to suffer from (another) massive logic fail. Either that or she really believes her readers are incurably stupid: "The murderer wasn't trying to kill me. I'll prove it: I'll sneak out and go to this party and if no one tries to shoot me, then obviously, I wasn't the target."

Finishing the book, I can't say whether I'll read the next one or drop the entire series in my go-away box. I'll let it sit there awhile and see how I feel later on. ( )

I really should have hated this because it was essentially a long whinge by Mel about Joe & Tate's attempts to tell Angie what to do. But I didn't because sometimes I just need to read trashy romance mystery! ( )

4.5/5

For my thoughts:
https://msbridgetnapturalreader.blogspot.com/2016/10/dark-chocolate-demise-cupca... ( )