Book Review: Fondue or Die by Korina Moss

     Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from St Martin's Press via #netgalley, for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it. All opinions are my own.

In Korina Moss's Fondue or Die, the lazy, hazy, dairy days of summer are coming to a close in the Sonoma Valley. . . and so is someone’s life.

Synopsis:

The small town of Yarrow Glen’s neighbor, Lockwood, hosts an annual Labor Day weekend bash: Dairy Days. And Willa Bauer and her cheese shop, Curds & Whey, refuse to miss out on the fun. Willa is thrilled to celebrate her favorite thing—she is a cheesemonger after all—and this festival goes all out: butter sculptures, goat races, cheese wheel relays, even a Miss Dairy pageant. Too bad the pageant runner, Nadine, is treating Dairy Days prep like it’s fondue or die and is putting everyone around her on edge. When Willa finds Nadine’s dead body under years’ worth of ceramic milk jugs, the police aren’t sure whether the death was an accident. But fingers are pointing at Willa’s employee, Mrs. Schultz, who steps in to help the pageant after Nadine’s death. Someone wanted Nadine out of the whey, and Willa is going to find out who.

Review:

This is book 5 of the series, but the first I have read. It's an enjoyable cozy, and if you've ever had to help put on a pageant or festival, everything in the story will ring true and familiar. Add in an unexpected death to festival craziness and pageant mom drama, and you have the beginnings of neat little mystery. Willa is a likable lead, and her sleuthing is a natural result of occurrences that happen to her and her friends in the book. It was enjoyable getting to know the characters, and I'll probably go back and read the previous 4 books.

About the Author:

KORINA MOSS is the author of the Cheese Shop Mystery series (Minotaur Books) set in the Sonoma Valley, including the Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel, Cheddar Off Dead. Her books have been featured in PARADE Magazine, Women’s World, AARP, and Fresh Fiction.