(Review) Death by Chocolate

About the book:

Back in Time by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

Nothing in Aurelia Lemon’s life is turning out how she’d planned. She’s unemployed, unattached, and her family bakery is on the verge of closing. To make matters worse, the guy she dumped in high school is doing well and getting rich off of one of her departed mother’s recipes. It would take a miracle to right everything she’s done wrong. Or maybe just a phone call and the chance to go Back in Time.

Sweet Witchery by Cheryl J. Carvajal

Catalena is only one of many dreamers in a small medieval town in Romania. When the witch Ramnusia opens her chocolate shoppe, suddenly dreams turn into reality. The chocolates are divine, but their power is greater than their sweetness. Miracles abound, dreams come true, and Ramnusia’s magic confections become the talk of the town. But if these chocolates can make dreams come true, will they win for Catalena the deepest dream of her heart?

Spellbound by Nikki Jefford

Two months after dying, Graylee Perez wakes up in her identical twin sister, Charlene’s body.

As the daughter of a witch, can anyone blame her mother for attempting to bring her back to life? Only now Gray’s stuck sharing her sister’s body 50/50 in 24 hour shifts.

The race is on for Gray to find a way back into her body before Charlene purges her from existence.

Warlock Raj McKenna is rumored to meddle in the black arts, not to mention he’s after Gray’s invisibility spell and worse – her heart. But Raj might be the only one powerful enough to save Gray from fading away forever.

Bloody Valentine by Lucy Swing

One by one the girls of Hollow High disappear and when Bailey receives a heart-shaped box filled with chocolates she might be next.

Sweet Torture by Kira Saito

Sixteen year old Claudia Bernstein is obsessed with two things: chocolate and Dante Torres. However, being an invisible minion to Upper East Side princess Beatrice Wildenbert isn’t helping her get anywhere with her dream guy.

Everything changes over Christmas break when Dante actually starts noticing her.

But are Dante’s intentions as pure as they seem? When Claudia finds herself in the middle of a cruel prank, she decides to take revenge. But is revenge enough? Or will she finally realize that her own worst enemy is herself?

The Girl with Three Heads by Suz Korb

Kate wakes up on the morning of the Death by Chocolate fundraiser event to discover she has two extra heads resting upon each of her shoulders. She is not pleased about this. She’s even more displeased when she discovers the head on her right shoulder (which looks like Santa Claus, complete with fluffy white beard) is actually Zeus, lord of lightning, or something like that. The head on her left shoulder? Yeah, it’s the head of Hera; goddess-of-looking-like-a-blonde-bombshell and getting on Kate’s nerves by shouting in her ear all the time.

Will Kate ever rid herself of these two extra heads? Will she ever get to experience an actual kiss from a boy without extra-head-situation interruptions? Join Kate as she struggles to survive being flung into the Underworld, as well as eventually landing upon Mount Olympus.

Just because she’s got two extra craniums doesn’t mean either head is an extra set of useful brains.

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When I heard about this book I knew I wanted to read it. Each of the six stories were fantastic and so different. The only thing I noticed as I was reading the book was that I wanted to eat some chocolate. So be prepared because trust me you will want to have some on hand if you are going to read this.

This is an anthology of six short stories that each have a main theme/element of chocolate. I loved how each story was completely different. As you read each short story you have this feeling that hey this is the best and then you read the next one and its the same thing. There is not one short story in this book that I didn’t like. I loved them all.

So when I sat to think about a review I wondered how I was going to do it? Do you talk about the one story you absolutely love? That is impossible because I loved them all. Do you just talk about the story that author who guest post for you today? Hmm I could do that but honestly would that be fair to the other authors? I don’t think so. So instead I will talk about each one.

Bloody Valentine is written by Lucy Swing who is my guest author today so I will start with Lucy. After reading this I quickly realized that I wanted more and I could see it being a longer story. Right from the beginning the story opens up with a nightmare and it sucks you right away. Bailey is suffering from the worst nightmares but they are really a reality because what she sees in her dreams is really happening. The girls in her nightmare are girls that have been disappearing.She wonders if Jude is behind it.What will she do when she discovers the truth?

The Girl with Three Heads had to be one of the funnier stories.  Kate wakes up from her a dream and looks in the mirror to a huge surprise, she has three heads. Those heads belong to Hera and Zeus.  knows she has to get on with her daily life and sets out to do that. When things appear normal  assumes that is all in her head and she just imaged what she saw but when Jason (who she likes) gives her a funny look she begins to question if the other heads are real or not. Of course you can tell this one is centered around the Greek theme. This is another short story that I could see being made into a full lenght book.

Sweet Torture had the characters you love and you hate and for me it was Beatrice because I just hated because she came off as a real bitch. She has no problem leading guys on to get what she wants and she doesn’t care what or who she does to get there. She even makes the guys who want to date her doing all kinds of things to prove themselves to her. I was baffled at how much guys would do this. When would someone say “You know you aren’t worth it.”  Then comes Dante, her next victim so to speak. When Dante accidentally bumps into Claudia who I wonder if she happened to be at the right place at the wrong time because I was wondering if Dante was playing Claudia or not. I thought this could work out into a full novel as well.

Back In Time is the first story in the book and when I read it, I was like I love this story. I mean who doesn’t wish they had a chance to go back in time to perhaps alter one event that could change your whole life? Have you ever wondered if you had done something differently would that have made a huge difference? I have often wondered that but then realize that things happen for a reason.  Aurlie is living in LA and when she gets a text from her friend back at home telling her the bakery is up for sale  hops the next bus out of LA and heads home. During a bus switch she meets what she thinks is a homeless guy who offers her a dead phone. Little does she know that this chance encounter will lead to a life altering decision.

Sweet Witchery is about a mysterious witch who magically appears and opens a chocolate shop. In this little village people are vary cautious of strangers and are slow to approach but the witch slowly lures them in. When an old blind man is offered chocolates this begins the process because a few days later he is able to magically see and before long people are curious about this chocolate shop and the miracles it can perform. These magical chocolates can either be good or bad and thankfully they came to help out  when she need it because her father realizing that no one wanted to marry is daughter has offered her to  Dom who is an abusive landlord of the village.  Catalena wants nothing to do with him and would rather be with some from the village who is a hard working person. What will happen?

Spellbound was the third story about jealousy. Charlene and Graylee are twins and witches. Charlene gets jealous when her boyfriend breaks up with her just a few days before Valentine’s Day and quickly starts dating another girl and this doesn’t go over well with Charlene so she decides that she must act fast and sets her plan in motion to get rid of this girl with poisonous chocolates. What Charlene doesn’t know is that her sister Graylee has taken some and suddenly dies from them. The mother is upset and wants nothing more to have her daughter back so she consults some black magic to get her daughter back but the only thing is she has lied so Graylee ends up sharing the body with her sister and uncovers what her sister has done and sets out to wrong a right.

I really enjoyed these stories and like I said there was a few that I could actually see being made into full lenght novels. If your looking for something fun and different to read with a paranormal touch then I have to suggest you get this. I think its only available as an ebook though.

Thanks Bewitching Book Tours for allowing me to be a part of this tour.

copyright 2010, Cindy (Cindy’s Love Of Books)
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