Reviewer: Jillean Wallace
Title: A Taste of the Nightlife - 1st in the Vampire Chef Mystery series
Author: Sarah Zettel
Publisher: Signet
ISBN-13: 978-0-451-23407-0
Release Date: July 2011
Genre/Sub-genre: Paranormal Romantic Mystery
Year/Setting: Present day, Cleveland, OH
Overall Rating: 5.0
Sexual Content Rating: Sensual
Language (Profanity/Slang) Content Rating: Moderate
Violent Content Rating: Moderate
Sarah's Website/Blog: sff.net/people/sarah-zettel/Site/Home.html
Charlotte Caine is an experienced chef in one of the culinary world’s toughest cities. She has just opened her own restaurant with her brother Chet called Nightlife. This is no ordinary restaurant though; it caters to the odder inhabitants of New York City. Nightlife caters to not only humans, but vampires, witches and werewolves to name a few. Chet just happens to be a vampire himself, and as Charlotte begins to realize for herself, Chet and the restaurant are in for their biggest publicity yet.
One of the most influential food critics has decided to grace Charlotte’s restaurant to give his take on a new trend. He dubs her cuisine as "haute noir" and is a vampire himself. Just as all seems to be going well, a drunken man starts an argument with a customer and casts a spell on the unassuming patron. Charlotte quickly takes care of the situation but not before the damage has been seen by the food critic. Just when Charlotte believes she has the situation and her restaurant under control, the drunken man turns up dead in her lobby with fang marks on his neck.
Charlotte’s brother Chet automatically comes under suspicion, especially when he seems to disappear from town. Charlotte is in an uphill battle to prove that her brother didn’t commit the crime while trying to maintain the integrity of her business. She will be forced to team up with an unlikely pair; the very food critic that could make or break her career and a powerful, and handsome, warlock. Time is of the essence to Charlotte to prove her brother’s innocence before he, and possibly Charlotte herself, come to an untimely end.
While this may not have been a first choice of book for me to choose, I was deeply enthralled with it. I love a good mystery and enjoy trying to piece together the puzzle of a story and figure out who the bad guy is before the end. I was very pleased with the twists and turns and while I had an idea who did it, I was still surprised by the events at the end. Charlotte is a lovely character and the passion she has for being a chef is evident with every turn of the page. I am a big fan of cooking shows and enjoy reading about the behind the scenes events that happen. The battle Charlotte faces with her two partners in figuring out the murder is such a dilemma for her. On one side she has a well-respected critic who happens to also be a vampire who hasn’t lost the ability to woo a woman. On the other hand she has this powerful, devastatingly handsome warlock that sets her burners alight. Clearly a normal life cooking is not in the cards for Charlotte. I hope you like this book as much as I did.
Jillean
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