Author: Amanda M. Lee
Publisher: Amanda M. Lee
Series: A Two Broomsticks Gas & Grill Witch Cozy Mystery
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Cozy Mystery
Rating: 4 Stars

Sinfully Delicious is a Cozy Mystery that follows our main character, Stormy Morgan, as she tries to settle back into her hometown of Shadow Hills, Michigan after having left it for several years. We learn quickly that she left Shadow Hills for college and to become a writer, which she was successful with for the first book.

With the failure of her second book, her publisher canceled her contract and with no prospects at the moment, and little to her name or cash in her bank account, she finds herself back in her hometown.

Overall, Sinfully Delicious was a cute start to a new series. I haven’t read any of Amanda Lee’s books before now, so this is my entrance into her as an author as well and overall I do like what I see. I can confirm I’m already eight chapters into the second book for this series, because I liked it enough to want to continue and see where this story goes with the main character Stormy, as well as her grandfather and her ex.

Spoilers weaved in and out of my review ahead, so read at your discretion.

Stormy is an interesting character, and while she does come off a little whiny at life and her lot in it with having to find herself back in her hometown, living above her family’s restaurant by the grace of her grandfather’s working with her on the rent to lease the place, if you really think about it wouldn’t you be a little whiny if you were in her shoes too? No one expects to make it, break it, and find themselves back at home after college. I will say, I would have liked to see her pull her bootstraps up a little bit more than she did as a whole with being an adult that’s almost thirty, but to be fair and realistic, I’ve seen this attitude first hand so I can’t say it’s not wrong or inaccurate with how people are sometimes either.

Her grandfather is possibly one of my favorite characters in the book. Especially with his disappearing acts whenever Hunter, local cop and Stormy’s ex-boyfriend, comes around to try and talk to him. Especially when he pops back up after Hunter leaves like he’d been at the counter cooking the entire time she’d been looking for him and Hunter was there.

I do have to say I wasn’t thrilled with Hunter as a whole, more with how he was using his current girlfriend throughout the book. It’s both said about him from a friend, as well as he does more or less outright say he knew that it was never going to work with Monica, but he kept her around because he wanted to have a wall or shield against having Stormy come back so he could have a super easy way of keeping Stormy at arm’s length. Which is 100% not fair to Monica to be strung along for almost a month just because he was scared of how it might go between him and his ex-girlfriend. While I didn’t like Monica, I do sympathize with her a little because she was, in effect, a pawn to Hunter when she thought he actually cared about her.

Sinfully Delicious is sold as a Witch Cozy Mystery, and while like I did say I’m into book 2 already, the first book doesn’t do a lot for bringing in the paranormal to the book to tag the first book a witch book. We slowly learn, with Stormy, that she has powers that she accidentally unlocked one night while playing with a Ouija board. By the end of the book it’s clear she has powers and comes from a witch line on her grandfather’s side – and honestly with the way her grandfather seems to be able to pop in and out of sight at the drop of a hat I wouldn’t be surprised if later on in the series we find out that he does have at least a small bit of magic he keeps to himself. But as a whole I wish for a WITCH cozy mystery there’d been a little more WITCH to it.

As well, while there is a death and a mystery, I did find myself feeling like the mystery aspect of it took a large backseat to the romance aspect with the push and pull of Stormy and Hunter as they tried to navigate their feelings for each other.

Maybe I’m just used to the cozy mysteries where the main character has her nose in EVERYTHING when it comes to trying to sniff out the who dun it, with the story focusing on the mystery and the romance being the secondary plot so having it almost flipped left me a little disappointed with the mystery as a whole. But it felt like the wrap-up of the mystery was a little rushed in this book. As a whole, the mystery was wrapped up decently well and it all made sense to the story and plot, it just felt a little like we realized we had gotten to the end of the book and needed to wrap it up so let’s get on that, kind of ending.

But at the end of the day, it’s also a cozy mystery, and it was a cute and cozy read.