Customer Reviews

The Chocolate Jewel Case

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was really looking forward to this installment of the Chocoholic Mystery series. The town of Warner Pier has been experiencing a rash of break-in thefts. Lee McKinney-Woodward, newly married, doesn't have a lot of time to spend worrying about the burglaries. She has a house full of guests, and her new husband, Joe Woodward, is busy with his boat making business. Joe's father has been dead over twenty years, but a man claiming he is Joe's father shows up on lee's doorstep. Before she can break this news to her new husband, she has another scary experience. Lee and Joe are tied up at a dinner party while their host is relieved of some very expensive jewelry, Lee decides to investigate. I knew who the culprit in this mystery was from very early in the book, and the twists and turns added by the author were interesting but did not add to the mystery. Many of the characters who are usually so much fun in the series (Lee's Aunt, Lee's best friend, etc.) were absent from this book. Not my favorite in this series. You could probably pick this up at a discount(used) or at the library for free if you really must read it.

Lee and Joe Woodyard have a house full of guests. Just what every newlywed dreams of, right? There are the two teens working at TenHuis Chocolade, Joe's two mysterious friends, and Joe's aunt. All this in an old house that only has one bathroom.

But housing issues aren't the only thing on Lee's mind. There has been a string of robberies in town recently. Since it's the start of the summer season, many of the summer people are returning to find their cabins have been robbed. Jewels and antiques are the prime targets.

Lee's been pretty busy making sure her guests are provided for and running TenHuis Chocolade since Aunt Nettie is in Europe on her own honeymoon. But then fate takes over and Lee is forced to care about the robberies. And there's the strange man who shows up claiming to be Joe's dad, who died 30 years ago. And the body found floating in the lake. What is going on?

The books in this series have always been light and fun, but this book turns out to be too light. The plot seems to be meandering all over the place. While it does come together in the final third, the lack of focus early on hurt the book.

The story doesn't suffer from a lack of characters. Even so, I spotted the villain earlier then I should have. And the number of characters means that series regulars like Aunt Nettie and Lee's best friend are noticeably absent. The characters that are here are fun, however.

The chocolate chats this go around spotlight a few non-fiction books on chocolate. They sound tempting. Still, this is one "feature" that I wouldn't miss if they took them out.

This is one of the weaker entries in the series, yet it is still fun enough to please fans.

I have been a fan of these Chocolate mysteries since Chocolate Cat Caper, and have usually enjoyed the mysteries, even when the chocolate trivia and Lee's tongue twisters were slowing the story progress down. This book was a real challenge to finish for me. It took me almost a week, when I can generally finish a book of this caliber in a day or two. Lee was unbearable to read and her tongue twisters were beyond belief. If the author dropped this annoying habit, it would not be missed by many readers. Also, the constant complaints about the heat actually distracted me from the story quite often. Lee seemed to be in an awful mood for the entire book, stomping around everywhere, as it was described. Also, the author had a habit of ending all of Lee's sentences with exclaimation points, giving the impression that everything she was saying was by yelling or shouting. Combined with the stomping, this just enforced the impression of anger. Lee also took lots of time away from the shop, and if the heat wave was so terrible and the a/c was broken, I think that as acting manager in her aunt's absence, she should have been at work a heck of a lot more. The book just pushed the bounds of believability, even for this type of book.

I will maybe try the next in the series, but if there are no real improvements, and the return of some of the core characters, I may have to rethink. I would recommned this book only to true fans of the series.

I've enjoyed this series up until now, but this one was so bad I'm not sure I'll continue.

First, the author has got to get rid of the stupid tongue-tangling gimmick. It's been annoying since the beginning of the series, but it now seems so forced that it's ridiculous.

Lee has never been my favorite main character in a cozy series, but in this book, she was downright unbearable. It seemed like he was angry, annoyed and ticked off through the entire book. Every little thing that anyone did, there she was, stomping around, nosing into their business and determining how she would question them about something or other. She was downright unlikeable, and I couldn't help wondering why on earth Joe would've wanted to marry someone like her.

And speaking of marriage -- we get it, Lee married Joe. We got it in the first chapter. We didn't need to be beat over the head with that, or the fact that they're living in Lee's house, at least once a page.

Besides all this, the plot was very thin, with too many things going on that were too easy to figure out. And there were far too many characters that were brought in for this one story, forcing out the characters that we usually see who really do add something to the story.

All in all, a very big disappointment.

The Chocolate Jewel Case is the seventh book in Joanna Carl's mystery series called Chocoholic Mysteries. You can find the author's website at http://www.joannacarl.com.

I really enjoy this series of little mystery books set in a little Lake Michigan resort town somewhere near Holland (I always think of a combination of Saugatuk, Douglas, and Grand Haven with a touch of Manistee thrown in). The stories are pretty enjoyable, and they are short enough to read in a couple of days, even when you are busy (I believe they are all under 250 pages).

The main character is Lee, a woman raised in Texas who moves to Michigan to live with her aunt and help her aunt run a gourmet chocolate shop, following Lee's divorce. So Lee is out getting a second chance at life, and tries to make the most of that chance. And - she solves mysteries when they arise at the shop or in the small town.

In this particular book, Lee has been married to her second husband for some three months. They are living in the long time family farm house, about 100 years old, old fashioned, and rather small.

And - most horribly for a pair of newlyweds - they have no privacy, because they have been inundated by long term house guests. There is an older aunt in one spare room, and two teenaged girls in the other. They have a guy staying on their porch. They have another guy staying in the yard in an old camper. Only one bathroom. They are having a bad heat wave, with very high humidity, and no air conditioning. The house has no soundproofing, so if anyone in the house moves or talks, everyone knows it. There is even only one television, and everyone wants to watch different things.

And then the mystery begins with a man who has been dead and buried for decades knocking on the front door. And then it goes on to include murder and jewel thieves! All sorts of crazy stuff happens - and most of it a lot of fun for the reader!

I have enjoyed reading the chocoholic mysteries and await the next one. However, I think there were simply too many coincidences in this novel. When the loose threads came together at the end of the last chapter, I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. I do hope the next novel in the series will have a more believable ending.

This series has gone downhill. Too bad, really, because it had a lot of promise.

This particular entry hits the reader over the head constantly with the fact that it's hot in Warner Pier. And there doesn't seem to be any reason for the long descriptions of the weather other than to take up room on the page. We are supposed to believe that Lee has to suffer with the heat and may lose her business because her central air goes out and they only have casement windows so they can't put in window units. Well, you know what? We don't have central air and we don't have window units. For YEARS they've been making rolling AC units you just take from room to room with you. Is everyone in Warner Pier too backward to know about such a thing? What kind of business owner doesn't know exactly where to lay her hands on something so vital to her business?

Plus, Lee's verbal tick is really, really annoying.

JoAnna Carl has created a chronological series of cozy mysteries based around a small group of people in a tourist town in Michigan. The stories center around a small chocolate shop and its owner, Aunt Nettie, and her niece and business manager, Lee. When the series started, Nettie was a new widow and Lee a new divorcee. This book is number seven and both women are newly married. In this story, Lee and her new husband are remodeling the old family home which Nettie gave to them as a wedding present. It is mid-summer, the house is torn up, and they have five houseguests, three of whom Lee doesn't really know. There is a rash of local break-ins and thefts of antiques and jewelry. Lee and Joe are at a neighbor's house for dinner when the crime wave hits them. From the beginning, it appears that one or more of their houseguests are involved. Lee is frustrated because she knows so little about her houseguests and she is determined to figure out who the people living in her house really are. This is not the best book in the series, but if you are floowing the series, I think you will find it pleasant reading.

I love these books and order each one as they come out. Fun and easy to read series.

In this volume, Lee is in her third month of marriage to Joe and has a house full of guests. Why would any newlyweds put up with this? Especially since this is a very old house that has only one bathroom and anyone can hear anything that takes place in it?

If that's not enough, Lee is taking care of the chocolate business on her own as her aunt is off in Europe enjoying her own honeymoon. This takes out two of the main characters in this series (Aunt Nettie of course, as well as her new husband who'se the chief of police). For some unknown reason, other characters that typically make appearances in this seris are not there. No explanation given.

On the other hand, there has been a rash of burglaries in town - right after a certain neighbor showed up! Hmm, imagine that. Of course, that neighbor happens to have been hit first, so he is out patrolling the neighborhood with his dog every day - besides, he is a gossip monger.

Then Lee and Joe go to visit neighbors that have just shown up for the first time in many years, and immediately they get involved in an armed robbery. A bit earlier than that, Lee is approached by someone who claims he is Joe's father. But, Joe's father died 30 years before! More and more strange behaviors surround Lee - who seems like a huge magnet for trouble, until she starts noticing the links between the various people and their professions and figures out the whole chain of crimes.

The plot was rather thin in this book as it was easy to understand who was doing what on the side almost from the beginning of the book. The mastermind behind the whole series of crimes stuck out like a sore thumb almost from the beginning of the book and it was only a matter of time before that was confirmed.

What bothered me most though, was that Lee decides that she will solve the crime and she does. Even though there are at least two police forces operating in the area, as well as private detectives and others. The last scene, where Lee gets personally involved in bringing down the master mind was totally unnecessary and even more unbelievable than most.

This is not on the list of good books in this series. Let's hope its a momentary aberration and not the signal of a good series going bad.

Sigh.