The Chocolate Bridal Bash (A Chocoholic Mystery) [Hardcover]

Joanna Carl (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Signet Book; Book Club Edition edition (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739471414
• ISBN-13: 978-0739471418
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #742,806 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

JoAnna Carl is the pseudonym for a multipublished mystery writer. She spent more than twenty-five years in the newspaper business.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mystery Old, Murder New, August 16, 2006

By 

Mark Baker (Santa Clarita, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Chocolate Bridal Bash (Chocoholic Mysteries, No. 6) (Mass Market Paperback)

Lee McKinney and Joe Woodyard have finally set a date for their wedding. The only problem is getting Lee's mother, Sally, to come. While trying to understand why her mother doesn't want to come, Lee unearths a family secret. Her mother originally left Warner Pier on what would have been her wedding day.

This is a chapter in her mother's life that Lee knew nothing about. Further investigating turns up that Sally's finacee was found dead in his car on their wedding day. His death was ruled a suicide.

Despite warnings that what happened is in the past, Lee's curiosity gets the better of her. She begins to spend time digging in the old newspapers, trying to make sense of events that took place before she was even born. Then Lee and Joe stumble over a very recent dead body. Whatever was having thirty plus years ago, someone still wants it to stay buried. But just what happened on that fateful night? Will Sally be in danger if she comes to the wedding?

This book is easily my favorite in the series. The action starts quickly and the pace never lags. While I can usually figure out the ending early, this one had me going until the very end. While I did put the pieces together a little before Lee, it was only by a few pages.

With the focus on the past, many of the characters from previous books are reduced to cameos. Giving the recurring characters more page time would have just slowed down the story, something I am glad didn't happen. The cast of new characters is engaging, and they more then made up for the reduced roll the regulars had.

About the only problem with the book is Lee's tongue tangles. While they had been diminishing in the last few installments, here they are back in force. While a few sprinkled throughout the book make me chuckle, here they began to get annoying.

I couldn't put this book down but raced through it to see how the story ended. Any fan of the series will love the latest tasty treat.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Series, August 24, 2006

By 

A Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Chocolate Bridal Bash (Chocoholic Mysteries, No. 6) (Mass Market Paperback)

I enjoyed this installment of the series much better than the last few, mainly because Lee's involvement didn't seem that contrived. I just wish she had based her involvement more on her mother's history than on "curiousity."

The tongue tangling gimmick, however, has got to go. It's getting to the point where it's annoying and takes away from the story. With all the times it occurred, and then Lee called more attention to it by saying "I mean..." and restating what she'd been trying to say in its entirety, coupled with the other person's reaction, it started to seem like the author was cashing in on the gimmick just to fill a word count.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Too many slips of the tongue!!, September 12, 2006

By 

C. Sullivan (Westerville, OH United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Chocolate Bridal Bash (Chocoholic Mysteries, No. 6) (Mass Market Paperback)

If you have read other titles in this series, and you think Lee's slips of the tongue are "charming", you'll be delighted with this book. If, like me, you view them as very annoying breaks in the narrative, run for the hills. The tongue tangles are just over the top this time around, MANY more than in previous books. I enjoyed the earlier books despite the slips, but there are just too many to ignore in this one.