Serving Up Spite Book Review

Serving Up Spite

A Cook-off Mystery #8

By: Devon Delaney

Publish Date: 14 November 2023

Publisher: Beyond the Page Publishing

Cooking, Food and Wine/ Mystery and Thrillers

#ServingUpSpite#NetGalley

I would like to thank both NetGalley and Beyond the Page Publishing for allowing me to read and review this book.

Good Reads Synopsis:

A simple wooden spoon stirs up a tantalizing puzzle in the new Cook-Off Mystery . . .With international cuisine on the menu for her next cook-off, Sherry Oliveri experiments with one dish after another looking for that perfect killer recipe. But her competitive drive gets put on the back burner when her friend Patti calls in her new boyfriend has vanished, and signs of foul play suggest he may have been killed. Then the police begin investigating the disappearance as a murder, and they’ve got Patti pegged as the main suspect. Still, the man’s body has yet to be found, and that in itself has Sherry wondering. Slipping out of her apron and into her sleuthing cap, she learns that the man had serious money problems and was even dating Patti while he was still married. Did he fake his own death to get out of a jam? Determined to find the truth and get her friend off the hook, Sherry follows the clues until they come together like the perfect meal—until one final surprise brings her face-to-face with a killer . . .Includes recipes from Sherry’s kitchen!

Book Review:

I gave this book 4 stars. This is the second book I have read in this series. I still haven’t read the first book, but you really don’t need to read the books in order in order to understand what is happening. The author does a great job in giving you enough information to stay connected to the characters. I really enjoy the friendships and family relationships in this book. I love how Sherry wants to help her friend Patty and how she stands behind her no matter what.

In this book her sister comes for a visit. During a podcast interview Marla, Sherry’s sister gets to know some of the judges for an upcoming cook-off. Sherry meets the judges after her interview and learns a little about them. Sherry has picked her favorite cooking utensil as a wooden spoon and one of the judges talks about the tradition of the wooden spoon from his native land of Iceland.

Unfortunately, this judge later goes missing and her friend Patty is under investigation for his disappearance. Can Sherry help her friend?

I will have to say this book did seem to drag in parts and took a lot longer to get the results than I would have liked but the story was interesting, and I learned about some things about Iceland.