In Cold Chocolate

August 1, 2018
When Charity Penn, owner of the Chocolate Box in seaside Camellia Beach, South Carolina, hears shots fired during an anticipated sea-turtle hatching, she and the other volunteers race to the scene and find lothario Cassidy Jones dead and hotheaded Jody Dalton standing there holding two guns. Jody insists she only shot out the lights on a nearby house to protect the hatchlings, but the authorities believe she killed Jones. After Jody's young son, Gavin, pleads with Penn to get his mother out of jail before school starts, Penn feels obligated to make some inquiries. As she questions island residents, she is threatened but persists, setting a trap for the killer. Raised by her disapproving paternal grandmother after her mother abandoned her, Penn has both trust and self-esteem issues that she is beginning to overcome, and she must also deal with relatives contesting her inheritance of her maternal grandmother's chocolate business. Penn is an endearing and perhaps surprisingly complex series lead, and this cozy mystery also draws appeal from its vividly rendered Low Country setting and the frame story involving running a chocolate business.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)