Spellbound Sweets
by Connie Shelton
Series: Samantha Sweet #5
Series Rating:
Published by Secret Staircase Books on October 9, 2017
Genres: Cozy Culinary Holiday Paranormal Mystery
Pages: 105
Format: Kindle
Goodreads
Get Your Copy at: Amazon
Samantha Sweet Halloween Novella
It’s Halloween, one of the busiest seasons of the year for Samantha Sweet and the crew at her pastry shop, Sweet’s Sweets. After baking a zillion pumpkin cookies, ghostly cupcakes, and an all-black cake for a young witch’s wedding, the gang is looking forward to a gala costume party at the neighborhood bookshop. But when one of the guests is murdered and a rare book vanishes—practically in front of their eyes—the evening takes a whole different turn and Sam finds herself in the midst of another mystery.
BONUS: Includes 10 recipes from the author’s personal collection.
Can Sam Sweet and her husband find a killer among a bunch of costume partygoers?
Spellbound Sweets by Connie Shelton was an excellent little novella. Spellbound Sweets is the first book that I have read in this series. I loved all of the characters and the recipes in the back all sound so good. The story also had me trying to figure out who did it too.
The Main Character
Spellbound Sweets main character is Samantha Sweet. She owns the bakery Sweet’s Sweets and does a pretty good job. She is fifty-four years old, has a caring husband and is having a great life. Her daughter works next door to the bakery. Sam attends the Halloween costume party, and it will be one party that she won’t forget. She helps her husband solve this crime along with working at her full-time bakery. Sam seems like a pretty cool character and seems to have a knack for helping solve these crimes. I can’t find anything that I dislike about her.
The Love Interest
Sam’s love interest is, of course, her husband, Beau. Beau is a pretty interesting character. He’s the town’s sheriff, and he doesn’t like dressing up for Halloween. Luckily for him, he has to work on Halloween, but he still ends up at the costume party at the local bookstore. He is very supportive of Sam and knows that he can’t keep her away from this case and just lets her help him. I can’t find anything that I dislike about him.
The Villain
The villain for this book is another someone that I can’t say, but I do have to tell you that I was a bit surprised when both Sam and I figured it out. All I can say is that it’s one of the partygoers and it’s a bit of a doozy regarding some of the things that they found out in this book.
Five Stars
Spellbound Sweets by Connie Shelton was a great novella. I am delighted that I was able to read this book. This book was a great introduction to this series, and I will be adding the others to my ever-growing TBR list. I loved everything about it and like I said before the recipes in the back sound so good. I am giving this book a five-star rating, and I will recommend this to anyone that likes cozy mysteries with some pretty delicious recipes in the back of the book. Look for my #bookishrecipe post coming out shortly. I am baking the Chocolate Nut Drops.
Here’s the full list of recipes in this book: Millionaire Pie, Chocolate Nut Drops, Easy Flan, Bizcochitos (a traditional New Mexico Christmas cookie), Samantha Sweet’s Red Velvet Cake, Coca Cola Cake, Brownies, Classic English Toffee, Cake Mix Cookies, and Sugared Walnuts.
Anyway, until the next time enjoy this review brought to you by
About Connie Shelton
It began in 1985 when I started writing my first novel, without much clue how to go about it. Two years and 500 pages later, when I finally typed ‘The End,’ I felt a huge rush of excitement. That book took third place in the Southwest Writers competition and began making the rounds of publishers. I simply started writing my second, and then my third books.
After publishing ten of my Charlie Parker mysteries, I decided to branch out with a new cozy mystery series and I created the character of Samantha Sweet. One of the ways in which I earned a little extra pocket money during my high school years was to bake and decorate cakes–hence, a career for Samantha based on my own experiences.
In 2009 I switched publishers and was off on a new adventure, seeing all of my books made available for Kindle as e-books were just beginning to take off in the book world. It’s been an exciting time in publishing–high points for me were reaching #1 on Amazon a few times and the Top 50 on the USA Today bestseller list. I’m loving the way e-books allow me to personally connect with readers all over the world via my newsletter and my website at connieshelton.com.
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Besides writing the Charlie Parker and Samantha Sweet mysteries, Connie is an award-winning essayist. Her work has been published in both small and major anthologies, including Chicken Soup For the Writer’s Soul, and her short stories have won several prizes. She has also been a commercial hot air balloon pilot and holds the women’s world altitude record for size AX-4 balloons. She has been featured in Who’s Who and The World Who’s Who of Women.
She and her husband live in northern New Mexico with their two dogs, Daisy and Missy, who became stars of their own series of children’s books.
The above was taken from the Author’s Amazon Page.
Reading this book contributed to these challenges:
- 2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge
- 2018 Witches & Witchcraft Reading Challenge
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