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Book Review of Asking for Truffle (Southern Chocolate Shop, Bk 1)

Asking for Truffle (Southern Chocolate Shop, Bk 1)
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Asking for Truffle is the debut in the A Southern Chocolate Shop Mystery series featuring Charity Penn. Penn, as she prefers to be called, is living in Madison, Wisconsin with Granny Mae, her biological grandmother's one time housekeeper when she receives a note that she's won a trip to Camellia Beach, South Carolina and free cooking lessons in a chocolate shop.

Immediately suspicious of the prize as she didn't enter a contest, Penn asks her best friend Craig "Skinny" McGee to investigate who sent her the note. Skinny leaves an excited yet cryptic message on her cell phone saying that she needs to come to Camellia Beach and that is the last Penn hears from him, as he's discovered dead in a vat of chocolate the next day.

Determined to find out what happened to her friend and discover who sent her the mysterious prize, Penn sets out across country with her Papillon, Stella. Quickly she finds herself caught up in a week long class at The Chocolate Box, owned by Mabel Maybank and her assistant Bertie Bays, and not long after Penn discovers that things around the candy shop aren't as sweet as they seem.

A terrific debut with well rounded and interesting characters that will draw you in from page one. The main murders are solved but several subplots are not by the end of the book and you'll most definitely want to pick up the next installment in the series to follow the adventures of Penn and Stella.