Murder’s No Votive Confidence (Nantucket Candle Maker Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Kensington (June 25, 2019)

Synopsis

Nantucket candle store owner Stella Wright specializes in creating unique candles for every occasion. But someone sets the stage for murder when a Memorial Day celebration becomes a wedding to die for . . .

Jessica Sterling’s candlelight-themed nuptials promises to be the perfect kick-off to the summer’s first official holiday weekend. Stella’s thrilled to have been chosen to provide the decorative centerpiece for the wedding ceremony: a two-foot-tall scented unity candle—a symbol of the happy couple’s love. But it looks like the bride-to-be’s uncle won’t be walking his niece down the aisle after he’s found dead. The murder weapon is Stella’s seemingly indestructible candle, now split in two.

When a beloved local bartender is arrested, Stella’s sure a visiting police captain running the case made a rush to justice. With superstitious brides-to-be canceling orders and sales waxing and waning at her store, the Wick & Flame owner decides to do some sleuthing of her own. Abetted by a charming reporter and challenged by the town’s sexiest cop, Stella’s determined to shine a light on the truth and uncover a killer who’s snuffing out her own flame.

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Review

Candles, an Island, and Murder – oh my!

I love reading cozies that have the protagonist in a career that is crafty and one that is intriguing.  Enter Stella and her candlemaking business.  She makes unique candles with handcrafted scents and seems to know what sort of scent would be best for various people.  I’d love to know what she would suggest for me.  She even teaches classes on candlemaking and I would have liked the book to have explored that just a little bit more, or added more details regarding the two classes that were taught in this book.

This mystery has a fair amount of characters but most of them are tied to a wedding that is taking place.  I think we meet about 7 characters that were townsfolk.  That helps when trying to figure out who might be the killer since it is most likely tied to the wedding and its guests.  Speaking of the murder – while I didn’t figure out the killer, I thought the author did a good job of throwing suspicion on various characters so that when the killer was revealed it was quite a surprise to me.  I might have suspected this character but didn’t know how deep the hatred ran and why.

There is also a potential love triangle between Stella, Andy, and Peter.  Andy has a girlfriend but I don’t think she is right for him.  Peter is the new journalist in town and seems interesting but you wonder how much is him or his career choice.  If I had to choose, I’m #TeamAndy because they just seem like they fit together plus they have been friends forever.  But we shall see how the author decides to work this out in future books.

I think this is going to be a good new series and we give this book 4 paws up.

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