Buffalo West Wing by Julie Hyzy (review #104)

Buffalo West Wing- Julie Hyzy

A White House Chef Mystery #4

*Read for A-Z Mystery Author Challenge

I've been feeling in a cozy state of mind lately. I blame in on all the darn snow and recently finishing The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, a book far, far from cozy. I stumbled across this book from Lori at Dollycas's Thoughts and actually solicited the publicist to review. I think I have done that two other times in my blog career here. I wanted something new and I was curious about the review opportunities for Cozies. It also gave me the perfect book to review to start off the new year and my first challenge. So, here we are.

I had never read The White House Chef mystery series before but I have heard from Jenny at Take Me Away that they are pretty good.

I am a little weird about jumping in on series but I decided to throw that to the wind. In this case, I didn't feel like I was missing too much, though it made me curious about a few things.

Olivia Paras is the main gal in this series. She is also the Executive Chef for the First Family at the White House. She is straight-forward, damn good at what she does and overly cautious of the goings on at the White House. Her strict house rules and observant nature have certainly helped some sticky situations but have also thrown her into some dangerous ones as well.

This time, there is a new family in the White House, and she is doing everything she can to have a great first meal planned for them. A suspicious box of chicken wings shows up in her kitchen addressed to the kids and no one knows where it came from.

She hides it and refuses to give it to the kids because of it's unknown delivery source. This causes an upset with the First lady and a rocky start with the First Kids. How can you deny my children?!!!!!

Little did she know that they were poisoned and aimed to hurt the children. Hmmm....

Rating: 4/6 Recommended

Olivia is definitely a fun character to read, a little bossy, a little socially awkward, honest and a good friend. With most cozies it seems the main character has a habit of stumbling on to something bad and this was no different but I found it to be rather enjoyable. I liked the Washington D.C setting combined with the bustling about of the White House. That certainly gave it a unique feel.

Olivia had a past relationship in the previous books and that is mentioned in this one. That is the only area I really felt I was missing a bit of back story.

Author Website:

Julie Hyzy

State of the Onion #1, Hail to the Chef #2 and Eggsecutive Orders #3 round out the series.

Happy Reading and as always, thanks for stopping by!

red headed book child

*Thank you to Dana at Kay Publicity for sending me a review copy.