Hot and Sour Suspects in the 8th Noodle House cozy by Vivien Chien. I always get a smile on my face when reading about Lana Lee and the messes she manages to find herself in. She's a quirky Asian American woman running her family's noodle shop in a suburb of Cleveland. But she has a knack of finding her way into the middle of police investigations much to the chagrin of her boyfriend, a detective in the Fairview PD. This case is even messier than normal since it is his case to investigate. This actually just meant we see less of him in the story than in others and more of Megan and Kimmy, Lana's friends and partners in investigation.
The mystery is well written with plenty of plausible suspects. The how and the why are clearly explained at the end of the story. Lana seems to be maturing in this novel and some of her perspectives reflect the author's personal experiences while writing this cozy. Be sure to read her note at the beginning as I sheds some light on the dialogue and self reflection Lana experiences in this book. I really enjoy this series and hope to be able to read more of it in the future.
An added bonus to this book was my discovery that the cover has a bowl of hot and sour soup with mushrooms floating in it, thus I am able to complete a prompt for a challenge that I had NO idea how I was going to accomplish it. So excited.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A well written cozy that has the reader guessing throughout. Even as the story is wrapping up there’s still nagging doubts as to who is really responsible. The book has the same quirky characters that are so enjoyable to read about. Lana is her usual stubborn self and we get a deeper glimpse into her relationship with Anna May, her sister. This book has some deeper life philosophies mixed in too which makes sense if you read the author’s note. Lana is a strong woman surrounded by other strong willed women and a supportive boyfriend; a nice change from many cozies where the lead female isn’t always so strong
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Challenge Prompts
The Challenge Prompts I will use this for are:
- Library Love #LibraryLoveChallenge Book #46
- Finishing the Series #FinishingTheSeries2022 Series:25 Book #1
- Virtual Mount TBR #VirtualMountTBR2022 Book #56
- Cruisin thru Cozies Free choice #36
- Cloak & Dagger #CloakDaggerChal Book #57
- Craving for Cozies Book #53
- Medical Examiner Challenge 1 Toe Tags
- Beachcomber Challenge
- Crime Scene- living room
- Weapon- push
- Detectives- Lana Lee
- Victims- Gavin
- Six Shooter Challenge Target #28 Shot #4
- Beat the Backlist #BTB2022 #12 mushroom on the cover
- PopSugar #popsugarreadingchallenge #14. A book with cutlery on the cover or in the title
- Pick your Poison # 66 a book by a BIPOC author
- Bookworm # 26 Read a book published by Macmillan (or subsidiary)
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