The Diva Takes the Cake

Domestic Diva, Book 2

By: Krista Davis

Narrated by: Hillary Huber

Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Sophie Winston's sister, Hannah, is getting married - again! And if you ask Sophie, her future brother-in-law is no prince. But is he a killer? That's the question on everyone's mind when his ex-wife is found hanging from a pergola. This is one event Sophie and her sister hadn't planned on.

As hidden family secrets begin to come to light, Sophie finds the list of suspects is almost as long as the list of wedding guests. Will the real killer be seated on the groom's side or the bride's? Or will he be standing at the altar? Either way Sophie must solve the murder in time to stop her sister from making the biggest - and possibly the last - mistake of her life.

©2009 Cristina Ryplansky (P)2015 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A mouth-watering mix of murder, mirth, and mayhem." (Mary Jane Maffini)

Fun mental escape

I begin my day on the treadmill listening to books via Audible. So the stories have to be entertaining and the narrator has to have a voice I don't find irritating. * not a morning person *
The Diva stories are a good mixture of mystery, whimsy and romance. The narrator reads with good pacing, and she doesn't overdo the male voices. I plan to listen to all of the books in this series.

Sophie vs. Natasha

Slow to start, but once it picked up it was great. I also felt there were too many characters. Even so, we enjoyed the book and will go to the next. lf it could go wrong it did.! It was a good story!

Love the characters

I am absolutely fascinated by the characters in this series of books. This book was even more intriguing than the first because of the complexity of the story. I love the beginning of each chapter with the Natasha and Sophie advice.

Another great book

love the characters and storyline. would recommend to this book. On to the next book.

This Diva has a new favorite

This series is awesome- bravo bravo I enjoy books that when read I see the characters. Also, I enjoy the culinary arts so this was a plus. Upon hearing the narrator I can see the expressions on the characters faces good job.

From a Southern Latina Diva

A great sequel to an initial mid- level book

Sophie Winston's sister, Hannah, is getting married for the third time in The Diva Takes the Cake by Krista Davis. As an event planner, Sophie gets handed the job of organizing the event, though she has never liked Craig, the doctor Hannah is about to marry. Then, two days before the wedding, Sophie runs into a woman dressed in sexy clothing and stiletto heels staring at Sophie's house who claims to be an old friend of Craig. So Sophie invites the woman to the dessert party they are holding for out of town guests. A few minutes later, Hannah storms into Sophie's house announcing that the wedding is off because she has just learned that Craig was married before and never told her anything about this fact.

Sophie has a rival named Natasha, who sees herself as a real diva of event planning and the domestic world. Both women write advice columns, but they take very different approaches toward the advice, with Natasha giving high maintenance advice and Sophie giving more practical messages. A couple years earlier, Natasha stole Sophie's then- husband, Mars, who now lives with Natasha down the street from Sophie. When Sophie goes to Natasha's backyard to pick up a topiary for the party that night, she finds the woman who claimed to be Craig's old friend hanging by the neck and dead. The woman turns out to be Emily, Craig's ex-wife. And the only one around who knows her is Craig. Could Hannah be preparing to marry a murderer?

Things get even crazier when Sophie discovers that Hannah has changed all her plans two days before the wedding to follow Natasha's advice against all the plans Hannah made with Sophie. Suddenly, she changes the location, the colors, and decorations, and she expects Sophie to help her personal rival with all the details. Further, with everyone but Hannah certain that Craig murdered his ex-wife, her family and friends do what they can to find evidence against Craig and stop the wedding. And in the meantime, this case pushes apart Sophie and the man who was supposed to be her date and whom she wants to have a real relationship with, Detective Wolf.

The Diva Takes the Cake proved to be very interesting, with a great mystery plot. I loved the fun twists and turns and all the humor from the crazy antics of the details of the wedding.

The major characters in the book have strong personalities that I mostly enjoyed. Sophie comes across as logical and determined to save her sister from marrying a man she is certain oud s murderer. Hannah goes back and forth between despairing at the halt of her wedding and melting into Craig's arms every time he reappears, forcefully demanding that everyone support her plans to hold it no matter what. And Natasha is the kind of woman you feel conflicted about, seeing her as trying to take over everything from Sophie but also having good intentions many times too. But there were so many characters in this book that I found myself losing track of them and getting confused.

One detail I really liked about this book is the way each chapter begins with a letter from the advice columns of either the practical Sophie or the stuffy, snobbish Natasha. It is fun to see the different types of wedding advice given by the two different women, with Natasha's advice creating strong demands of personalized, high maintenance jobs upon the ones asking advice and Sophie's advice trying to help her correspondents cope with real life. This is humorous and helps to illustrate the characters all the more than the rest of the book. It's also interesting that most of the pieces of advice recommend websites that will help the readers locate decorations, rings, and all other types of wedding materials. I checked out one of the links and found that it was a legitimate website, so I assume the rest are, or at least were at the time of writing.

Hillary Huber performs the audio edition of this book. She does great accents for guests from different regions of the country and does good voices for each character. I like her inflections as she narrates the book.

I really enjoyed The Diva Takes the Cake. I didn't go as much for the previous book, but this book kept me listening intently. I also really liked the conclusion to the book, which was really satisfying. I definitely intend to get the next book in the series. Despite my annoyance with the excessive characters that caused confusion, I give the book five stars.

Love this Krista Davis series and Hillary Huber

If you could sum up The Diva Takes the Cake in three words, what would they be?

Great story, great narrating! Tons of characters, fun and mystery!

What about Hillary Huber’s performance did you like?

Love her voice and her character voice changes!

Fun books

This series is fun. I am enjoying the characters and mysteries. I plan to listen to more!

Best modern mystery series!

This Diva series by Krista Davis is the best modern day mystery series! I just love it! And the narrator is great too!

Enjoyable but not compelling

It is annoying that Sophie lets Natasha get away with her antics over and over. I would love for Natasha to be “one-upped”.
With someone rummaging in her home and murderers on the loose….seems there would be more suspense!
Overall I like the characters and will read another.