The Chocolate Puppy Puzzle

Hollywood comes to Michigan when a film producer decides to turn a local author's romance novel into a blockbuster. Although the movie mogul's chocolate labrador is charming, Lee McKinney thinks the producer's talk is a bunch of sweet nothings-and she grows even more suspicious when she stumbles upon a dead body.

The lakeside town of Warner Pier, Michigan, is tickled pinker than a strawberry truffle. Flashy Aubrey Andrew Armstrong has just swept into town, dropping celebrity names and claiming he's a Hollywood producer. For his next project, he'll make a movie based on a local author's romance novel-right there "on location," as they say in Tinsel Town. Armstrong makes older ladies blush and giggle like school girls. He's promised the members of the high school drama club bit parts in the movie. And Monte, his chocolate lab and constant companion, is quite the charmer. But sensible Lee McKinney, business manager of TenHuis Chocolade, would bet her last chocolate coin that Mr. Armstrong is a doggone phony

Lee Woodyard is the manager and chief chocolatier of the popular chocolate shop TenHuis Chocolade, located in the idyllic Lake Michigan resort of Warner Pier. But don't be fooled into thinking she is a mere chocolate shop master with only cocoa on her mind. Oh no. Lee is also an enthusiastic amateur sleuth. When she's not making chocolate, she is solving crime.It's a good job, then, that plenty of crime finds its way to Warner Pier. In The Chocolate Clown Corpse, the town's most hated clown meets a bitter end. And it's up to Lee to unmask a killer in disguise.

The much anticipated Winter Arts festival is here, and as treasurer of Winterfest, Lee is up to her elbows in mix-ups behind the scenes. When the art show's guest juror shows up drunk, Lee lets him sleep it off, only to find out later that someone's put the visiting dignitary into a permanent state of repose. Lee and Joe were the last people spotted near the crime scene. In a seriously sticky situation, it's up to them to find the real killer before someone else comes to a bitter end...

Caught up in a whirl of champagne and china patterns, bride-to-be Lee McKinney has butted heads with her future mother-in-law over every detail of the wedding bash. The last thing she needs is trouble with her own mother. But this is bigger than the hot versus cold hors d’oeuvres debate: Sally McKinney doesn’t even want to be at the wedding if it takes place in Warner Pier, her hometown. Irked that her mom might be MIA on the Big Day, Lee heads to her aunt’s chocolate shop, TenHuis Chocolade, for advice. There, the bride is shocked to learn that years earlier, her mother ran away on what would have been her own wedding day—hours before her fiancé was found dead, an apparent suicide. Now, to smooth things over with her mother—and ease her own way down the aisle—Lee must untangle a mystery older than she is....

In this eighteenth mystery in the national bestselling Chocoholic series, a gang of crooks with a wicked sweet tooth wreaks havoc on the resort town of Warner Pier, and it's up to Lee Woodyard to rout the hungry rascals. A frantic late-night phone call from her right-hand woman Dolly Jolly brings Lee Woodyard to the scene of a break-in at the Warner Pier jewelry store next door to TenHuis Chocolade. To her shock, the suspect being held at gunpoint by police is Dolly's boyfriend, Mike Westerly, who was recently hired as a night watchman specifically to prevent break-ins. Dolly hopes Lee can help straighten out the crazy misunderstanding. Even crazier? The thieves took nothing of value from the jewelry store, only swiping some snacks. It's another in a series of break-ins by burglars the media has dubbed the Cookie Monsters. They've been hitting shops selling everything from sunglasses to shoes but stealing only sweets: lollipops, cookies, even chewing gum! It all seems pretty funny--until the discovery of a dead body. With her friends and community in danger, Lee must stop one very sour killer before someone else comes to a bitter end.

When Lee hires a free-spirited employee with a tie-dyed, troubled past, she discovers that even the counterculture can conceal a killer.... As much as the chocolate concoctions at TenHuis Chocolade can tantalize people’s tongues, Lee’s newest hire is more likely to make them wag. Forsythia “Sissy” Smith is the granddaughter of Warner Pier’s resident hippie, but the fact that Sissy is a third-generation flower child is the least of Lee’s concerns. The previous winter, Sissy’s husband, Buzz, was found dead, and even though her alibi was airtight, the gossips are still pointing their fingers at her. Then the chief gossip is found dead, with Sissy on the scene. Was she lured there? Or is she the killer? Lee has a sneaking suspicion that someone is out to keep a dark secret from coming to light. And they would have no problem killing a certain clever chocolatier who might uncover the truth.... With Tasty Chocolate Trivia!

Tenth in the national bestselling Chocoholic mystery series...sweet! Ever since Young Blackbeard became the biggest movie of the decade, everyone has caught pirate fever, including the residents of Warner Pier. TenHuis Chocolade is raking in the booty and selling out of chocolate treasure chests, pirate hats and ships. When Lee McKinney Woodyard and her husband Joe take their boat out on Lake Michigan, they're stunned when a mischievous band of pirates hops on board. Lee's is the first boat boarded that summer, and the town couldn't be more amused by the mysterious buccaneers. But when a body washes up on shore, the pirates' antics stop being so entertaining. Now Lee has to figure out the truth behind the Warner Pier Pirates, before someone else winds up walking the plank....