REVIEW: Bleeding Tarts

Bleeding Tarts
Author: Kirsten Weiss

Valentine Harris is a baker who does a bit of amateur sleuthing on the side. She's a bit stressed lately because she recently expanded her pie shop and it's been a bit difficult juggling finances. To bring in a bit of money, she's providing the pies for an eating contest at an area tourist attraction. Bar X is a fake ghost town and Valentine wants a contract with them. Supplying pies for the tourists would bring in some much needed steady income for Pie Town. As she is delivering the pies for the event, things get a bit dicey. Sharp Shooters are practicing for an event at the ghost town, and a stray bullet slings through one of the pie boxes she's carrying. Valentine is hardly recovered from the explosion of cherry filling and pie crust when she sees a dead man on the ground. The Bar X bartender has been shot dead. Calling the police covered in bright red cherry pie filling makes her a suspect at first, but soon Valentine is on the case, doing whatever she can to identify the killer. Baiting a killer is dangerous though. If she's not careful, it won't be just the pie and the bartender that have a couple extra holes in them.

Bleeding Tarts is the second book in the Pie Town cozy mystery series. It isn't necessary to have read the first book, The Quiche and the Dead, to enjoy this mystery. A bit of the character background is continued from the first book, but there is enough background info included in the second book to make it easy to just jump in and read.

I enjoy this series. It has a nice mix of humor, background theme and mystery. There are recipes included at the end of the mystery as well. Pie recipes of course! Not all are dessert pies though. One is savory and involves cheese...definite yum there. :)

The mystery in this newest addition to the series moves along at a nice pace. The murder happens pretty quickly in chapter one, so there isn't a lot of waiting for the dirty deed to be done. The setting of a fake ghost town with every sort of tourist trap trick is very entertaining and fun. I thought it was hilarious when Valentine gets shot right in the pie....and then the police think she's covered in blood when it's actually cherry pie filling. :) The rest of the book was just as cute and fun. Definitely a great cozy!

A 3rd book in the series, Pie Hard, is coming out in February 2019.

**I voluntarily read an advance readers copy of this book from Kensington via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**