Assaulted Caramel (An Amish Candy Shop Mystery) by Amanda Flower

Assaulted Caramel by Amanda Flower
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Bailey King has been working hard as an assistant chocolatier at JP Chocolates in New York City and crossing her fingers she is the one that is going to get the promotion to be announced soon. But Bailey gets a phone call from her grandmother with some bad news, her grandfather’s health has gone downhill. Bailey just knows it’s pretty serious since her grandparents are Amish and simply using a phone to contact her is no small thing in the Amish community.

Bailey decides to take a few days and head to Harvest, Ohio to make sure things are alright with her grandparents. Shortly after arriving however Bailey finds herself walking into the kitchen of the Amish candy shop, Swissmen Sweets, that her grandparents own and where Bailey learned her love for chocolate, but instead of chocolate Bailey finds that a local developer that had been pressuring her grandparents to sell has been murdered in their kitchen. Not only is Bailey’s grandfather now a suspect even with his poor health but also Bailey herself so she needs to stay and find out just what really happened in that kitchen.

Assaulted Caramel by Amanda Flower is the first book in the new cozy mystery series An Amish Candy Shop Mystery. As with most cozies that I find myself enjoying this series has it’s own unique setting bringing the main character to the small town charm with her Amish grandparents. Just infusing the Amish ways within the story added it’s own bit of flavor that was hard to not like getting to know a bit about.

The characters in here have a wide range of personalities to get to know but I found them all likable, although I do believe Jethro, a pet pig, might have stolen the show at several points in the book. The author did a good job slowly building the list of suspects as Bailey begins to investigate the small town that kept me wondering just who the murderer would turn out to be in the end. I will certainly be interested in seeing what happens in this small town and with these characters in any future installments to the series.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.