Tuesday, March 5, 2019

Death By Dumplinb by Vivien Chen


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3 Stars

As soon as I saw this cover I was all like . . . .



And also I love the occasional cozy mystery so I knew I had to check it out. Then I did what I do best and let my library checkout expire not just once, but nearly three times before finally reading it. In my defense, these types of books are definitely “right place/right time” reads for me. Yesterday not only was I suffering from . . . .



But it was also NEGATIVE TWENTY-FIVE DEGREES OUTSIDE. WTF? Today is Fat Tuesday. How the eff am I supposed to swing my tatas around for beads if my nurps instantly freeze and fall off upon removing my shirt (and in case my children should happen upon this, Mommy is joking – even your daddy doesn’t get to see her nurps so strangers sure aren’t going to).

Anywho, the above amounted to the perfect day for something light.

Meet Lana. She’s a recently single 27-year old who became such after running into her boyfriend Christmas shopping . . . . while he was accompanied by his other girlfriend. She also has found herself working at her parent’s restaurant due to her former employer taking her “take this job and shove it” recommendation to heart. On about page 5 you hear in passing that one of the characters really has it coming to him and by the 5% mark he’s a stiff. Unfortunately the cause of death just so happens to be a severe allergic reaction to shellfish in some dumplings from, you guessed it, Ho-Lee Noodles – the family business . . . .



This had everything a cozy mystery is supposed to have – the “maybe you can go back home again” trope, a bazillion characters who all reside/work in a tightknit little community, MC/family/friends as the lead suspects which equates to the butting in of noses where they don’t belong, and a potential love interest (or two) for future books in the series.

Really the only problem I had with this debut was my own since the Ho-Lee family owned a Chinese noodle shop that my brain wanted to turn into a Thai noodle shop thanks to . . . . .



I know, I know . . . .



3 Stars is about as good as these get for me, so Vivien Chen has definitely made her mark and there’s a chance when it comes to book 2 (and 3 and 4) in this series, one day I may say . . . . .



After all, they are about Chinese food . . . .

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