{"id":6982,"date":"2026-04-20T04:33:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=6982"},"modified":"2026-04-20T04:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:33:12","slug":"sarah-graves-death-by-chocolate-ladyfingers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/sarah-graves-death-by-chocolate-ladyfingers\/","title":{"rendered":"Sarah Graves: Death by Chocolate Ladyfingers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Death by Chocolate #9<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In Sarah Graves’ Death by Chocolate series, Jacobia \u201cJake\u201d Tiptree runs the Chocolate Moose bakery in Eastport, Maine. Her partner and friend Ellie White have a reputation for serving up baked goods to die for, and finding out what people died for. Death by Chocolate Ladyfingers<\/em> takes place in the summer amidst several town celebrations, including a class reunion, which provides Jake and Ellie with plenty of catering opportunities.<\/p>\n

Class reunions tend to bring up more than memories of good times with friends — they also bring up old flames, grudges, and resentments. However, most high school angst does not result in a body. Cindy Munson is found murdered at the reunion\u2019s masquerade dance. The primary suspect ends up being her ex-husband and grown high school bully, Terry Lawson. Given that Cindy\u2019s body was found in Terry\u2019s car, the local authorities do not see this as a difficult solve. However, a six-year-old daughter of Terry and Cindy, Ivy, is now caught up in a strange town with no one to look after her and no foster families readily available to take her in. As a former foster care kid herself, Jake feels compelled to help Ivy avoid the trauma of being drawn into the system and takes her in. Determined to figure out the truth so Ivy can either be reunited with her father, or protected from him, Jake and Ellie begin to investigate, which can be a little tricky when you also have a small child you are responsible for. There aren\u2019t a lot of options for amateur sleuth childcare. Luckily, Jake\u2019s parents come home early and are able to help take over some of the watch.<\/p>\n

I recommend Death by Chocolate Ladyfingers<\/em> for anyone who enjoys a protagonist who wears her flaws on her sleeve and makes no apologies for her investigative style. Jake ends up flat on her rear, face down on the ground, and often tumbling over, as she isn\u2019t afraid to get her hands dirty in her search for the truth. Granted, that grit also gets her into some really difficult situations, situations involving angry fire ants and creepy crawly critters falling on her head. I should also warn readers that there are some rather graphic depictions of violence, primarily towards the end of the book. If that is not something you are looking for in a cozy I would recommend either skipping this particular book, or just the confrontational scenes at the end. Sarah Graves introduces characters and settings so any new reader can enjoy this as their first book, and longtime readers of the Death by Chocolate series will find this a fast paced and exciting addition. There is some emotional depth and internal conflict that Jake must face when interacting with Ivy that might be appreciated more having read the previous books, but it’s not completely necessary. Sarah Graves gets her emotional points across in this well written mystery.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0– Carla Schantz<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Death by Chocolate #9 In Sarah Graves’ Death by Chocolate series, Jacobia \u201cJake\u201d Tiptree runs the Chocolate Moose bakery in Eastport, Maine. Her partner and friend Ellie White have a reputation for serving up baked goods to die for, and finding out what people died for. Death by Chocolate Ladyfingers takes place in the summer … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1057,949,2459,328,2458,2457,1533,2456],"class_list":["post-6982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-amateur-sleuth","tag-carla-schantz","tag-class-reunions","tag-cozy","tag-death-by-chocolate-ladyfingers","tag-death-by-chocolate-series","tag-kensington-cozies","tag-sarah-graves"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6984,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6982\/revisions\/6984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}