Assaulted Caramel

Amish Candy Shop Mystery Series, Book 1

By: Amanda Flower

Narrated by: Rebecca Mitchell

Bailey King is living the sweet life as assistant chocolatier at world-famous JP Chocolates in New York City. But just when Bailey's up for a life-changing promotion, her grandmother calls with news that her grandfather's heart condition has worsened. Bailey rushes to Harvest, Ohio, where her grandparents still run Swissmen Sweets, the Amish candy shop where she was first introduced to delicious fudge, truffles, and other assorted delights.

She finds her grandfather is doing better than she feared. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for a local Englisch developer, whom Bailey finds dead in the candy shop kitchen - with Jebediah King's chocolate knife buried in his chest. Now the police are sweet on her grandfather as the prime suspect. Despite the sincere efforts of a yummy deputy with chocolate-brown eyes, Bailey takes it on herself to clear Jebediah. But as a cunning killer tries to fudge the truth, Bailey may be headed straight into a whole batch of trouble....

©2017 Amanda Flower (P)2017 Tantor

Love this intro to the series

I really enjoyed this book. It was the first one I read in the series. I am a delivery driver and I deliver packages to Amish communities so it was really interesting and I liked learning more about their way of life. I thought the relationships the main character has with everyone are really great, nothing too corny or scripted. none of this story was very far-fetched for me, which I liked. it seemed very realistic. I liked the inclusion of some slang Amish terms. And I liked having a main character I was finally rooting for and really enjoyed the end of the book where everything seemed to come together even though the main character had gone through so many hard things. I'm really glad I found the series and will definitely be listening to the rest of the books.

Pretty good story.

The story is pretty good and moves along well enough but I could not get past the narrator. She sounds like an AI generated voice and to me was very annoying to listen to.

Enjoyed it!

We visited Holmes County, Ohio, for a few days this past summer and enjoyed it so much! Amanda Flower did a wonderful job of transporting me back there among the many cheese and chocolate shops along with the beautiful countryside where so many Amish call home. The narrator actually reminded of some of the people with whom we spoke while there. I plan to follow this series!

Unique take on the cozy

Having just moved to Ohio and being in the state of loving cozies for their coziness, I knew this was my next read. I’m delighted to say it was really good. The Amish aspect was well done and the pronunciation of Amish lilt was spot on (from my guess anyway). Sometimes the narrator did have that reading voice that doesn’t keep you engaged and sometimes she kept on with the Amish inflection even though the story had moved on to a non Amish character, but the majority of her reading was fine. The MC was smart and funny. I liked the chocolatier angle and the candy shop and The side characters were interesting. I’d put this one up with Dewberry Farms series as one of my top favorite cozies!

Unfortunate Narration

I adore Amanda Flower books, but the candy shop series is not for me due to the very robotic reader. I shall have to settle for paperback for Amish candy shop books.