First line: Dear Sophie, My neighborhood goes all out for Halloween.
From the back cover: This Halloween, a murderer is up to mischief.
Domestic diva Sophie Winston is getting into the holiday spirit, and her decorations for a community haunted house are so good, it’s scary. Not to be outdone, rival domestic diva Natasha is throwing a spooktacular Halloween party at her house. But when Sophie arrives, she discovers one of Natasha’s guests dead in a hair-raising Halloween display, and a pale, fanged partygoer fleeing the scene.
The cause of death is not immediately apparent, but the victim does have two puncture wounds on his neck. While Sophie’s boyfriend, homicide detective Wolf, investigates, rumors start flying faster than witches on broomsticks. Could the killer be a real vampire – the same on rumored to have lived in Sophie’s haunted house back when it was a boardinghouse? Good thing a domestic diva never runs out of garlic…
My thoughts: This is the fifth book in Krista Davis’s Domestic Diva series and it was great. Set during the Halloween season, it is filled with spooky happenings, vampires and ghosts. Sophie has been charged with organizing and overseeing the community Haunted House. Not to be left out, Natasha, Sophie’s nemesis, hosts a Halloween Party to put everything else to shame. The problem is that during the party, someone ends up dead…and it appears as if a vampire has gotten to him. The story is weaved so that the murder happens almost right from the beginning of the story and then the rest is about how Sophie and all of her kooky friends helps her solve the crime. There is a seance and an old tale of a vampire that the book suggests is still around to cause mischief.
I love all the clever ideas about decorating for Halloween that Krista Davis introduces at the beginning of each chapter. She does this just like a “self-help” column in a newspaper. The catchy titles of the “people” writing in for advice to either Sophie or Natasha are fun to read as are the towns where these people reside who write the questions are fun and clever.
I really hope this isn’t the last of the Domestic Diva series…this is one of my favorite cozy series. Do you like to read cozy mysteries? If so, what is your favorite -I am always looking for new ones to try so please share!
(I purchased this book.)
