Collect The Diva Paints The Town (A Domestic Diva Mystery, #3) Narrated By Krista Davis Issued As Textbook
Diva, Sophie Winston, is roped into helping with Rooms and Blooms, Old Town Alexandria's annual home and garden show.
She can't wait for it to be over so she can put her feet up and have a romantic date with her detective boyfriend, Wolf.
Then she learns that when her reclusive neighbor, Moredecai died recently, he left instructions for Sophie to throw him a bequest party, Having to battle her rival, Natasha and other local decorators who are redecorating Moredecai's house for the Design Guild contest, Sophie is not too eager but feels guilty for not helping Moredecai while he was alive.
Sophie's best friend and neighbor, Nina searching for Moredecai's dog, Emmaline, has run into an old flame, Kurt Finkle, a wellknown kitchen design specialist, dated Nina for a time back in college, He's back in town and while Nina's husband is away on a business cruise with one of HIS old flames, . . However, when Nina's catchup date didn't go as planned, she left Kurt for dead on the living room floor of Moredecai's house, When the ladies search for Kurt, he is nowhere to be found, until the next morning when Sophie discovers Kurt inside the window seat.
Howver, when she calls the police, a new female officer arrives on the scene to find absolutely nothing and accuses Sophie of wasting police time.
Then Tara is killed at Rooms and Blooms and Sophie becomes the primary suspect! Wolf is off the case, being a suspect himself, and wants to see justice done.
As the clues for Moredeai's bequest become more clear, someone else ends up hurt, To those who recieved the bequest, it sure looks like their former professor was up to something inviting them all to his home in an effort to recreate the past.
When Emmaline turns up, she uncovers a surprising secret that puts a new spin on the case, What exactly happened all those years ago
Like all the other books in this series, there is a LOT going on and a huge cast of characters.
This time, all the activity seems mostly connected, The plot has more twists and turns than I can remember and I never put the clues together to figure anything out, I only had an inkling of who the murderer might be because I was close to the end and Sophie was alone! I did not guess the entire reveal.
That was quite a surprise, I liked this story better than the previous two, The Domestic Diva tips were actually largely helpful except for when Sophie and Natasha assume everyone can sew and has time to sew.
They also assume everyone can afford to redecorate and not just aquire a mishmash of old and cheap furniture from family and big box stores.
I loved the animal companions, They added muchneeeded humor to the story and really made it sing, even if Hank was unnecessary to the plot, He's my favorite character, stealing every scene he's in!
Sophie is slightly more likable in this book, She's open about her own weight issues but is still a bit sizeist, She dresses like an old lady for asomething in elastic waist pants, Natasha needs to take her in hand, It's hard to believe they're the same age, Natasha acts like a spoiled brat but refrains from being too overly obnoxious, This time people are on to her and trying to thwart her, Mars isn't in the story much, Poor awkward Humphrey seems over his crush on Sophie but has a new woman in mind, Sophie can't imagine any woman wanting to date poor Humphrey but I think the right woman would, He's sweet even though he's socially awkward, Unfortunately Humphrey seems attractred to strong women who would chew him up and spit him out, Nina is stressed because her husband is off on a cruise with an old flame and Nina is worried he'll cheat on her.
She's also trying to find a home for a very talkative parrot named Hank and search for Emmaline, Oh and she fears she killed a man! Nina is not the most sympathetic of characters normally but here I have the utmost sympathy for her and would have done the same thing.
I think I would be freaked out too, however, I wouldn't have put myself in the situation that was misinterpreted,
Bernie is on hand to help with the home renovations, I'm surprised he's sticking
around but he seems to have found a home and a community in Alexandria, He's charming and uaffected for an upper class British man, I think he's happy having a job and putting down roots for the first time, Wolf is paranoid. He's taken vacation time rather than a desk job so he can figure out what happened to the young woman he was trying to mentor.
He's protective of Sophie and doesn't want to see her arrested for something he knows she didn't do but she's smart enough to work around the sleazy Detective Kenner.
Sophie's jealousy of Tara doesn't make her endearing though, Tara sounds like she was a young woman with big dreams that got in the way of reality, She had a series case of Wolf envy and wanted to not be him, per se, but be the female version of him while being with Wolf romantically.
Tara was a very sad person who needed professional help, She did seem to be on to something about Kurt's disappearance that probably got her killed, What a shame. She may have looked like Barbie and not been very nice to Sophie but they got off on the wrong foot, With more time, I think Tara could have relaxed and gotten help for her delusions to become a valuable ally for Sophie and Wolf.
I don't understand why Detective Kenner is still on the force, He's not at all bright and leaps to conclusions, He'd like nothing more than to see Sophie behind bars and makes up stories to justify stalking her to catch her doing something wrong.
What a creep!
Designer Iris Ledbetter is a young upandcoming designer from a nearby town, She seems nice enough and is close to her grandmother, Bedelia Ledbetter is a hoot, She's a crusty old lady who loves to throw shade at her rival and gossip about others, The same with Francie, one of Sophie's neighbors, She tells it like it is and has no patience for Bedelia's gossip about Moredeci killing his wife, Francie insists Bedelia tries to make herself seem better than everyone else and brags about having money she does not actually have, I like these two old ladies, Their banter is hilarious. I appreciate Francie telling it like it is but I wouldn't want to get on her bad side,
Camille DuPont is a wealthy heiress who runs an antiques business with her husband Nolan, Nolan is spoiled, selfish and lazy, He's happy to mooch of Camille's money, She seems like a devoted enough wife, It seems someone is not happy with Nolan though, Where is he slipping off to and why does he reappear after the work is done Kurt Finkel of Finkel Kitchen and Bath is a nasty dude.
He's a serial womanizer and doesn't understand appropriate behavior, He's famous in design circles so I guess he thinks that gives him a free pass to behave badly He must think all women want to sleep with him to behave like that.
Even so, he didn't deserve to be killed, If a corpse suddenly disappears should we assume he is NOT dead If not then where is he Probably escaping his irate wife.
Earl, short for Earline, has come to find out where her husband is, She's aware he's probably off with some hussy and accuses Sophie of having an affair with Kurt and points to Natasha as exactly his type.
Earl causes trouble for Sophie with the police yet Wolf doesn't seem to know Kurt is supposedly dead or missing, Did Earl try to pin the blame on Sophie when it was Earl who killed her husband for his cheating ways Let's let the parrot, Hank, sing about it for that sounds like the plot of a country music song! Earl is nasty so if Kurt is alive, I think they deserve each other.
Another suspect in either the murder or waiting to become a victim is Posey Powell, A former student of Mordecai's, she was at his house on the fatal day Sophie has been charged with recreating, Posey is one tough lady, She's extremely opinionated, strongminded and knows how to work a nail gun, She had the murder weapon! Did she kill Tara for getting too close to figuring out what happened to Kurt Unfortunately for Humphrey, he seems attracted to her! Mike Osmanski seems nice enough.
Another former graduate student, he's eager to claim Mordecai's bequest, He seems the nicest among all the former students, Ted Wilcox, the last of the former students, seems to think the treasure hunt is kind of a joke and doesn't seem worried a killer is on the loose picking off his former classmates one by one.
Will he be next Beth Ford, Natasha's new assistant, seems rather jumpy and nervous, I thought she must be very young but she has two kids in college! Beth is terrified of Natasha but can't speak her mind.
She seems shy and sweet, a good match for Humphrey, Sophie seems to think so too but I don't quite trust her, She's so nervous about something, she has to know more about the mystery than she lets on,
The recipes contain alcohol and spicestwo things I don't enjoy, so unfortunately that won't bump up my rating at all, I'm not totally sold on this series but I have two more on my TBR pile so I'll read them and maybe skip ahead a few more.
I saw some good recipes online so I might like the books too,
I started listening to the audio book in the car while stuck in traffic, The narrator tried different voices for some of the characters and put on a strong phony southern drawl for Nina, That helped me hear Nina in my head when I switched to the ebook, I didn't think the narrator did a great job with male voices though and Sophie, Mars, Natasha and everyone have a neutral accent and not a northern Virginia accent, the "accent we all share" according to Sophie.
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