Charity Penn is settling into the small town of Camellia Beach where
she recently inherited a boutique chocolate shop called the Chocolate
Box. She's excited to join her new best friend and the rest of the turtle
watch team to observe the egg hatchings when gunshots disrupt the
night. Worse yet, the woman holding the gun over the dead body of
Cassidy Jones is Jody Dalton, a woman who despises Penn, both for
her interest in Jody's ex-husband as well as her refusal to sell the land
The Chocolate Box sits upon. Penn should stay out of it but how can
she resist when Jody's ten-year-old son begs her to help get his mom
out of jail?
I couldn't resist reading a book set in my home state of South Carolina!
Dorothy St. John's richly detailed descriptions of the Lowcountry made
me long to visit, as she captivated both the images and the sounds so
vividly. I love that the issue of turtle nests and their eggs were
included, particularly since witnessing the baby turtles making their
way to the ocean is on my bucket list.
IN COLD CHOCOLATE is the third
book in the Southern Chocolate
Shop mystery series. The mystery stands on its own merits
and Dorothy St. James provides a lot of the back story for new readers.
However, I found myself repeatedly wishing I'd read the first two books
in the series so I could better understand and sympathize over the
drama surrounding Penn's heritage. Penn appears to have taken some
major steps towards changing her life in the book and I wish I'd been
along for the ride to fully appreciate those changes.
IN COLD CHOCOLATE digs deep
into the family dramas of Camellia Beach as even Penn is not immune
to the scrutiny of others. Dorothy St. James weaves a richly layered
tale of chocolate, intrigue, and greed. I look forward to reading the
earlier books in the Southern
Chocolate Shop series as well as to seeing where Dorothy St.
James takes things next.
In Dorothy St. James’s third delectable Southern
Chocolate Shop mystery, a new batch of chocolate and
troubles of the heart cause a string of disasters for the
Chocolate Box’s new owner, Charity Penn.
The vintage seaside town of Camellia Beach, South Carolina
seems like the perfect place for romance with its quiet
beach and its decadent chocolate shop that serves the
world’s richest dark chocolates. The Chocolate Box’s owner,
Charity Penn, falls even further under the island’s moonlit
spell as she joins Althea Bays and the rest of the turtle
watch team to witness a new generation of baby sea turtles
hatch and make their way into the wide ocean.
Before the babies arrive, gunshots ring out in the night.
Cassidy Jones, the local Casanova, is found dead in the sand
with his lover Jody Dalton—the same woman who has vowed to
destroy the Chocolate Box—holding the gun. It’s an obvious
crime of passion, or so everyone believes. But when Jody’s
young son pleads with Penn to bring his mother back to him,
she can’t say no. She dives headfirst into a chocolate swirl
of truth and lies, and must pick through an assortment of
likely (and sometimes unsavory) suspects before it’s too
late for Penn and for those she loves in Dorothy St. James’s
third rich installment of the Southern Chocolate Shop
mysteries, In Cold Chocolate.
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