Description
Together in one volume: the first three mysteries featuring Lee McKinney and the TenHuis Chocolade store of Warner Pier, Michigan—plus the short story that started it all…
The Chocolate Kidnapping Clue
With her parents going through a messy divorce, a mopey teenage Lee is spending the summer working in her aunt and uncle's chocolate shop. When a wealthy customer is kidnapped she quickly discovers an unsuspected talent for sleuthing.
The Chocolate Cat Caper
When a high-profile defense lawyer dies after eating a cat-shaped chocolate laced with cyanide, it’s up to Lee to find out who tampered with the recipe—before she ends up behind not-so-chocolate bars.
The Chocolate Bear Burglary
A burglary at the shop leads to missing antique chocolate molds and a dead friend—and the main suspect in the murder is Lee’s troubled teenage stepson. Lee sets out to clear his name, but awakening long-hibernating family secrets might be more than this daring crime solver can bear.
The Chocolate Frog Frame-Up
The first customer to buy one of the store’s new chocolate croakers is the town crank, Hershel Perkins—just after getting into an altercation with Lee’s boyfriend Joe. When he soon goes missing, it looks like Joe is being framed for murder—and Lee must jump to his defense…
About the Author
JOANNA CARL is the pseudonym for the multi-published mystery writerEve K. Sandstrom. The author writes about the shores of Lake Michigan and has been reviewed in Michigan newspapers as a “regional writer.” She has also written about Southwest Oklahoma and once won an award for the best book of the year with an Oklahoma setting.Eve K. Sandstrom is an Oklahoman to the teeth: she was born there, as were five previous generations of her mother’s family. Both her grandfathers and her father were in the oil business, once the backbone of Oklahoma’s economy. One grandmother was born in the Choctaw Nation, and Eve is a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. Eve and seven other members of her immediate family are graduates of the University of Oklahoma. Eve even knows the second verse of “Boomer Sooner.”Eve wrote two mystery series: the “Down Home” books, set on a ranch in Southwest Oklahoma, and the Nell Matthews mysteries, semi-hard-boiled books laid in a mid-size city on the Southern Plains.But Eve married a great guy whose family owned a cottage on the west coast of Lake Michigan, not far from the Michigan towns of Fennville, Saugatuck, and Douglas. Every summer for more than forty years she, her husband and various combinations of children and grandchildren have trekked to the community of Pier Cove for vacations that lasted from two weeks to three months.The area features gorgeous beaches, lush orchards, thick woods, and beautiful Victorian houses. Eve grew to love it. So when her editor asked her to come up with a new, “cozy” mystery series, Eve set it in a West Michigan resort town, scrambling up Saugatuck, Douglas, South Haven, Holland, Manistee, Ludington and Muskegon with her own ideas of what a resort ought to be to create Warner Pier.As further background, she plunked her heroine into a business which produces and sells luscious, luxurious, European-style bonbons, truffles and molded chocolates. Most small towns couldn’t support a business like this, but the resorts of West Michigan – with their wealthy “summer people” – can. The “Chocoholic Mysteries” were on their way.Eve’s editor requested that she use a pen name for the new series, and Eve picked the middle names of her three children, Betsy Jo, Ruth Anna, and John Carl. “JoAnna Carl” was born. So that’s how JoAnna/Eve became a regional author in two widely separated regions.JoAnna/Eve earned a degree in journalism at the University of Oklahoma and also studied with Carolyn G. Hart and Jack Bickham in the OU Creative Writing Program. She spent more than twenty-five years in the newspaper business, working as a reporter, editor, and columnist at The Lawton Constitution in Lawton, Oklahoma. She took an early retirement to write fiction full-time.She and her husband, David F. Sandstrom, have three grandchildren, whom they love introducing to the lore of their two homes – Oklahoma and Michigan.She spent 25 years in the newspaper business as a reporter, feature writer, editor, and columnist, most recently at the Lawton Constitution. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of OK and also studied in the O.U. Professional Writing program. She lives in Oklahoma but summers in Michigan where the Chocoholic Mystery series is set. She has one daughter who is a CPA and another who works for a chocolate company and provides yummy insider information on the chocolate business.
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