Customer Reviews

The Diva Paints the Town (A Domestic Diva Mystery)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This series has quickly become one of my favorite mystery/cozy series. I think the Diva Books have the best cast of characters out of all the series in this genre. Even the villain, Natasha, is highly entertaining; although she is infuriating, many of the funniest scenes are a result of Natasha's overall ridiculousness. The Home and Garden show is an interesting backdrop for the book, but the best scenes take place in Sophie's wonderful neighborhood. Her neighbors/friends are hilarious! I really enjoyed the mystery and did not have it all figured out until the end. This book also had an added bonus for me, the starring role of Emmaline, the Pomeranian! I own a Pomeranian, so Emmaline was the icing on the cake for this book :)

Once again, I sat down and read this adventure in one sitting! It was such a delight to follow the antics of Sophie and her friends who always get involved in a murder. I want to sit in Sophie's warm kitchen and eat those delicious snacks and meals she whips together!

I can't wait to read the next edition of the Diva's adventures! I have gotten several more copies of this book to give to my bookclub and friends for their birthdays. Thanks for a fun afternoon of escapism!

From a nondiva who loves to read about divas.

Pretty good book. One of Sophie's elderly neighbors dies and leaves behind a mansion and a mysterious bequeath. The Decorator's Guild takes over the house for a "walk", with decorating each room by someone different. Full of decorating tips throughout the book.

"The Diva Paints the Town" is the third installment in the domestic diva mystery series by Krista Davis. I picked the first one up a while back and enjoyed it enough to go on and read the second one. The second one was interesting enough to get the third one and, at this point, I have gone ahead and purchased them all for my Kindle.

This cozy mystery again features Sophie Winston, an event planner living in Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia. As the book opens, her long-time neighbor has just died. Even though he was a recluse and they never had much interaction, he requested that she arrange a dinner gathering for guests he specified. Not only is the guest list exact, nothing about the dinner is left to Sophie - the menu, decorations, and even the arrangement of the furniture is specified. As always, she is running in ten different directions and having difficulty fitting everything in. She is doing the event planning for Rooms and Blooms, a home show for the area and she is just about to get drug into helping with a decorator's show house. You would think that would be enough, but her friend and neighbor goes out with an old flame who turns up dead but then the body mysteriously disappears to Sophie's great surprise.

Just about everyone we met in the first and second installment make return appearances so it is helpful to the reader to have read the previous books (not required, but I think you would enjoy this one more). As with the other books, Natasha, a Martha Stewart type character, plays a prominent role and adds quite a dose of humor to the book. Each chapter begins with a snippet of home-decorating advice which also adds levity to the murder mystery and also serves to further solidify the characters through their own words.

This series continues to be solid and enjoyable. I did think the ending was a bit rushed and confusing which keeps it from being a 5-star for me. I was reading close to the time I was going to sleep so I thought it might be me. I went back and re-read the final chapters when fully alert and it still felt a bit forced. Other than that, the setting is fun, the characters interesting, and the humor is entertaining. Well worth a read for fans of the genre.

This is one of the hardest reviews I've ever had to write. I so badly want to give this book 5 stars, especially after how much I LOVED the first two books, and after all I've bragged about the books to other people and highly recommended them. I loved and enjoyed the first two books so much, 5 stars were not enough. They exceeded 5 stars, but since that's the most we're allowed to give, I had to settle with 5! I looked forward to this 3rd book, with exceeding anticipation and excitement.

However, this 3rd book was a pale comparison to the first and second. It wasn't quite as high of quality, and it didn't keep me entertained. The beginning and middle of the book was slow, but it did pick up some at the end.

Here are some of the things that I did not enjoy:

*Slow, boring beginning and middle (as I mentioned earlier). But I have to give Sophie credit for livening up these slow spots, as I love her character, and where she is involved, makes it a little brighter. And don't get me wrong: when I say 'slow, boring', I don't mean 10 on a scale of 10 - I only mean about 4 or 5 on a scale of 10 - it wasn't THAT slow and boring.

*Too much junk. I got so sick of reading about all the junk in the professor's house. I am not a 'junk' or 'stuff' person. Junk and stuff do not make me happy - in fact, they depress me. And though it is good to have certain furniture pieces and other things, I felt there was entirely too much stuff and junk in that house. It depressed me to hear about them going through it, cleaning it out, etc.

*Too many characters. Some of the characters were built up pretty good, and some got built up towards the end. But some were not developed very good.

*Too many animals. I know, I am stepping on toes by saying this, because I know that most people are animal lovers. But I am not. But there were so many animals in this book, I feel that even an animal lover should have gotten too much of it.

The book in itself only deserves 3 stars, but the reason I am giving it 4 stars is because of the cliff hangers and the advice columns. I looked forward to each and every cliff hanger and each and every advice column. In fact, sometimes, even though I was a little on the bored side, I'd continue reading just to get to the cliff hanger. (Some of the cliff hangers in this book are not as strong as in the other books, but I won't hold that against it, because there doesn't have to be any cliff hangers at all - I am just happy to have gotten what I did.)

Now that I've told you about this particular book, I will say this about the series: Sophie is the main character, and I love her. The series takes place in Virginia. You get that 'old' feel, with all the old houses. Very lovely indeed (sans the junk). Sophie is a good cook and a good decorator. Sophie and her frenemy Natasha both have advice columns. Sophie's advice is always more practical than Natasha's, and I love Sophie's column so much better. Whenever the advice is from Sophie, I can't wait to read it! Natasha's advice is more complicated.

Even though this book wasn't quite as good as the first two books, I am by no means going to quit reading the series. Hopefully the books will pick back up.

Sophie's in the middle of organizing decorating show when her elderly next door neighbor dies. He's a recluse that no one seems to know much about except that he was once an amazing teacher and his home is a decorator's dream. When Natasha, Sophie's frenemy, becomes involved, she steamrolls her way into turning the mansion into a show home. While several decorators use their talents in various rooms, tempers flare over both styles and colors used. Plus a mysterious will from the mansion's owner sets tongues wagging. Did the professor cover up a huge crime?


When Sophie's neighbor confesses to killing an old flame, Sophie calls in the police, only to discover the body has simply disappeared. They think she's crazy but Sophie knows what she saw. Now Nina's getting phone calls from the deceased's phone and she's scared someone saw her. She's not about to become the next victim so she asks Sophie to help, but how exactly does one investigate without a body?

My Thoughts: This book is third in a series of adult cozy mysteries. I enjoy this series and this book is no different. It's cute, sassy, funny, and I never see what's coming next. I admit to loving Natasha on paper because she's so crazy and her relationship with Sophie makes the book.

This book was very entertaining. I have liked the whole series (and I have read everyone of them so far). I really think that if you have not read the first books in the series (maybe in order), this would not be as amusing. You really need to know and understand the myriad of characters to really enjoy the book. As far as the story goes, a recluse of a neighbor dies and Sophie gets roped into putting on a bequest party for some of the neighbor's old students (he was a teacher). That is only part of the story as one of the ex-students winds up murdered, there are a couple of affairs going on, a female cop gets stabbed to death, and in the background are all the crazy people in the neighborhood, Sophie's on and off relationship with her cop boyfriend named Wolf, and of course the adventures of the animals including the dead recluse's dog which inherits everything. When I write this out, it does not seem as interesting or fun as it really is but don't let my poor description deter you. The writing is good, descriptive. The situations are silly and out-there. All in all, I love this series and this book does not disappoint at all.

Well, imagine my surprise that I actually liked this book. I have to admit that after the last one, Diva Takes the Cake, I wasn't all too fond of Krista Davis; but hoping that this book would redeem the series, I took the plunge and was delightfully surprised that Ms. Davis overcame her need to overly describe each and every nuance of the rooms and settings that the reader was introduced to.

Once again, Sophie Winston has over committed herself and her small event planning business. She is the head of Rooms and Blooms, the Old Town, Virginia's annual home and garden show. But right in the middle of this even, her reclusive neighbor dies leaving a request that Sophie prepare a very specific meal for his benefactors. OK, that is strange, but no stranger then all the others things that she has been hired for and since the economy took a turn, she cannot turn down a paying job. Tasked with a specific meal, room arrangement plans, packages containing keys, puzzle pieces, Sophie's mind goes into overdrive immediately.

But this is just too much secrecy for Sophie and when the bodies start piling up she knows she is in way over her head and with her boyfriend Wolf having to lay low because of his own ties, Sophie and her band of over the top friends must work this one out on their own.

Add to this her nemesis Natasha suddenly having to turn Mordecai's home into a show piece for the home tour, Sophie is definitely in way over her head. But there is romance in the air and that is always enticing.

I enjoyed this fast paced read all the way until the very end which I felt was a bit rushed and jammed together. I actually had to reread the last couple of chapters to cement how each character tied the ending together. Though good and it did eventually did make sense, I suggest that you slow down and put the pieces together one at a time and decided for yourself which parts are necessary for the story and which parts just confused the ending.

While I enjoyed this book, it took me longer to read than the other installments of the series, mainly because I kept losing interest due to all the characters. I found it very confusing at times trying to keep them all straight.

Looking forward to the next installment.

I was such a fan of book #1 and #2, so I could not wait to read #3. I just so like this author! However, this one did not "do it" for me. I put it down, and would try again,another day, but I just could not "embrace it" at all! I was getting confused, with all the characters, and jumping around.I love Natasha,Humphrey, and Sophie, of course, but my head started to spin, with Mordeci's ex-students,and their "stories". I could laugh-out-loud with the first two, but not with this one. Just disappointed.I will continue on with this author, for sure,but book #3 just wasn't for me! Sorry!