Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich (audio book)

Janet Evanovich has done it again with a new and addictive series.  It has a wonderful set of characters.

Elizabeth (Lizzy) Tucker is a pastry chef with and innate ability, almost magical, to make the most amazing cupcakes.  She is head strong and a bit quirky, which makes her all the more endearing.

 Of course there has to be some hunky males.  First we meet Gerwulf Grimoire, tall, dark and very dangerously sexy.  His name alone gave me pause to decide whether it predicted him be 'bad'.  Next is Diesel, also tall and dark, though he reassures Lizzy that he's the 'good' one. 

To round out the cast we have Clarinda Dazzle (Clara) the owner of Dazzle's, the bakery where Lizzy works her cupcake magic.  There is something special about Clara, something that makes me think witch, and knowing that the story is set in Salem, Massachusetts, it makes me shiver a wee bit.  And finally we have Gloria Binkly (Glo) who works the counter in the bakery.  When she arrives for her shift at the start of the story she is waving around a magic book that she had felt compelled to go into a store and purchase.

I listened to the BBC Audiobooks America version.  6 hours 13 minutes.  Read by Lorelei King.  While it was well read by Ms. King, I felt that I would have enjoyed it more if I had read the book.  Then it would have been up to my imagination to find the perfect, sultry voices for both Wulf and Diesel. 

If you didn't catch the subtle references to magic, well, magic abounds in this book.  Diesel and Wulf are in a race with each other to retrieve seven mysterious stones of power.  They seem to be associated with the seven deadly sins, gluttony being the stone sought in this book.

I totally enjoyed listening to this book.  I wanted it to keep going on to the next stone.  Oh well, I do suppose that Janet needs writing time...


Janet Evanovich's website

Cover photo from St. Martin's Press (click this link to listen to an audio excerpt)