G. P. Gottlieb

With a murder investigation edging close to home and all the balls Alene is juggling at once, CHARRED was an absolute page-turner.

Charred is the third book in author G.P. Gottlieb’s’ culinary-themed cozy mystery series, Whipped and Sipped. With a plethora of engaging characters, enticing vegan dishes and desserts, and its replay of that iconic spring of fear, protests, and confusion, this latest story was unputdownable and sent me back in time as I tried to determine who the killer was.

Alene is the owner of the successful restaurant and manages a large and varied staff of part-timers with a firm hand in a velvet glove. She must deal with so many personalities as she keeps everyone focused on their mutual goals. Ruthie is the yin to her yang, and together they are a great team.

Besides the murder victims found on Ruthie’s husband’s projects, Alene struggles with withholding knowledge of the first crime scene, via the early morning foray with Kofi and Kasey, from her beau, Detective Frank Shaw. She finds herself in quite a dilemma, having promised Kasey and Kofi to stay mum while knowing from her own experiences with her ex-husband, Neal, that keeping secrets is hazardous to building and maintaining a trusting, loving relationship.

Additionally, Alene’s Uncle Finn has contacted her father after an absence of over 22 years. Finn, a convicted bank robber, had spent his time in prison, returned home to his wife and child, and then mysteriously went missing. Alene’s father, Cal, his younger brother, is understandably conflicted over his actions and subsequent abandonment, so Finn has appealed to Alene to arrange their reconciliation.

With a murder investigation edging closer and closer to home and all the balls Alene is juggling at once, the story was an absolute page-turner. The author also includes several great recipes at the end of the book for some of the dishes mentioned in the story. I recommend CHARRED to cozy mystery readers who enjoy culinary-themed stories, a Chicago setting, or a trip back to the summer of 2020.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours.… (mer)

Smothered by G.P. Gottlieb is the second book in the Whipped and Sipped Mysteries. Gottlieb provides the reader with a cast of characters at the beginning of the book, which I highly recommend you read. There are a lot of characters in the first three chapters or so and I found myself reading very slowly and checking the character list to make sure I understood who was who. I was able to pick up reading speed after a bit and the characters were easier to remember who everyone was.

Gottlieb does an excellent job portraying a single mother with three kids and an ageing father with medical conditions. I fell a lot of people my age and older (even younger) will find a kinship with Alene and her day to day struggles to keep her life running sort of smoothly… and then you throw in trying to solve and murder mystery, and Wow! Never a dull moment.

Towards the end when you have that a-ha moment as to why the book is titled the way it is, was fun. And the final murder reveal was a twist and diferent then any cozy mystery endings that I can remember reading… which is also fun.

If you’re looking for a cozy series with lots of characters, like a classic Agatha Christie novel, you should give the Whipped and Sipped Mysteries a try, with Battered being the first in the series.… (mer)