Monday, May 11, 2015

Book Review: Wedding Cake by Josi S. Kilpack

Title: Wedding Cake (A Culinary Mystery #12)
Author: Josi S. Kilpack
Enjoyment Rating: ****
Source: Digital Copy
Content Alert: Some violence

In the cozy foodie mystery/Mormon Lit world, the marriage between Sadie and Pete has been as eagerly anticipated as that of Jim and Pam or Luke and Laura. Sadie Hoffmiller was annoying and meddlesome way back when Kilpack started it all with Lemon Tart, but she's grown on us, and we were rooting for her and her fiance, the former detective with whom she had all of those run-ins early in the series. Wedding Cake is, in many ways, a satisfying ending ending to a series that spanned more than 2,400 pages and half a decade. Kilpack nods to the key players in past mysteries (it actually reminds me a little bit of what Matthew Weiner is doing as he wraps up Mad Men right now). But the book has to be more than a retrospective of past cases, and Kilpack digs deeper into a story from Sadie's past when a stalker reappears and tries to ruin Sadie's big day.

I haven't read every book in the series, but I've read enough to be excited for Wedding Cake, and in many ways it was the perfect end to Sadie's story. The books really grew on me over the years, especially as I grew to have more of an appreciation for the cozy mystery genre, and I loved watching Sadie grow and change as a character over the course of the novels. The book was ultimately more violent than I had expected, and the wedding scene in particular was pretty shocking, but the book as a whole definitely met my expectations, and I wiped away a little tear as I read the last recipe and closed the book.

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