annieb123's Review of Six Sweets Under (A True Confections Mystery, #1)

by Sarah Fox

In a cute new culinary cozy from USA Today bestselling author Sarah Fox, budding chocolatier Becca Ransom must solve a murder before she meets a sticky end.

Former actress Becca Ransom lived her dream in Hollywood for seven years before returning to her hometown of Larch Haven, known as the Venice of North America. The Vermont town has canals instead of roads, gondolas instead of cars, and charming cottages plucked from the pages of a fairy tale. It’s also where Becca is pursuing her newest passion as a chocolatier at True Confections, the chocolate shop owned by her grandparents, Lolly and Pops.

While Becca’s testing new flavors and reconnecting with old friends, the town is gearing up for the annual Gondola Races, popular with both residents and tourists, with one exception. Local curmudgeon Archie Smith wants nothing more than to keep tourists away from Larch Haven. He’s determined to derail this year’s event and does his best to stir up trouble for the organizers, including Becca’s grandfather.

Following a heated argument with Pops, Archie is found floating face-down in the canal, and Pops finds himself in hot water as one of the top suspects. Becca’s determined to clear her grandfather’s name, but when the case heats up, she could be facing a sticky end.

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

Six Sweets Under is the first book in a new shopfront cozy by Sarah Fox. Released 7th Feb 2023 by Penguin Random House on their Berkley imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in mass market paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.

This is an engaging and fun series starter with former-actress-returned-to-her-smalltown-roots Becca Ransom, who is helping her grandparents as a chocolatier in their shop, True Confections. When a local curmudgeon is found dead after a very public disagreement with Becca's grandfather, she is drawn into getting to the bottom of the scandal to clear her family name.

The book is full of the light puns and humorous dialogue readers expect from small town cozies. It's populated by eccentric characters alongside more realistic and relatable secondary characters. The author does a superlative job with the setting, which plays an integral part in the mystery.

The mystery is self contained in this volume and it works well as an introduction and standalone. There are some unexplained foreshadowed developments in the very last pages which strongly hint at the next volume, but they don't detract from the denouement and resolution of this story.

Four stars. Definitely one for fans of small-town shopfront light cozies.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Reading updates

30 April, 2023: Started reading

30 April, 2023: Finished reading

30 April, 2023: Reviewed