Sophie Winston, Domestic Diva, is managing the local Home decorating Festival. When Paisley, one of the participants, needs help managing her children, she asks Sophie to get her mother who is only a few houses away from the event. Sophie finds her mother, Lark, but she won't be doing any babysitting. Sophie tries to help Paisley but when another victim turns up and they were both on the same recent trip, Sophie sets out to find out what the connection could be.

The location, right across the Potomac River from my area is fun to picture, the characters are wonderful and the mystery fun! ( )

The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit by Krista Davis is the 14th A Domestic Diva Mystery. This cozy can be read as a standalone if you are new to this entertaining series. Sophie Winston is organizing Old Town Alexandria’s DIY Home Decorating Festival. When Paisley needs Sophie to locate her mother for help with her rowdy brood of boys, she is happy to help. Unfortunately, Lark is found dead in her back garden and is not from natural causes. Lark left them a cryptic clue to help. When another woman is found dead in a similar manner, Sophie wonders if something happened on their recent trip to Portugal. Sophie must gather the clues and sift through them so she can identify the guilty party. I thought The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit was well-written with developed characters. Sophie Winston is a friendly and relatable character. I like how various characters are still friendly despite previous relationships and residents of the community are there for each other in times of need. I love the setting of this book. The author provided beautiful descriptions of Old Town with its beautiful old homes. The DIY Home Decorating Festival was fun. There were some great items being sold along with some interesting demonstrations (I want a festival like that in my town). I especially loved the word images of Paisley’s hand painted furniture. The whodunit was a delight. I enjoy a good mystery that is thought out and complex. I had a good time solving this mystery. It was fun following Sophie as she asked questions and collected clues. I appreciated that Officer Wong and Detective Wolf are friendly. Detective Wolf does not discount Sophie There was a lot going on in The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit. Besides the whodunit and the festival, Sophie has houseguests, Paisley’s rowdy children (I do not know how she does it) plus her irritating husband (she needs to get a divorce), Natasha carrying on about her house, and the dashing new medical examiner Dr. Chryssos who takes an interest in Sophie. There are mouthwatering food descriptions (made me hungry). There are recipes at the end of the book. I enjoyed reading The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit and did not want it to end. Cozy mysteries like this one are rare. The Diva Serves Forbidden Fruit is a diverting tale with cute canines, a fun festival, tasty treats, a clever clue, boisterous boys, a dashing doctor, and an astute amateur sleuth. ( )

Sophie is trying desperately to pull of the DIY Home Decorating Festival on her street. Her neighbors have gotten their tents ready and have started selling their wares and demonstrating how to create decorating items. In between she has to pick up her best friend Nina from the airport, but is stunned when Nina arrives without shoes and looking haggard. After getting a tale of woe from Nina, it's back to business for Sophie.

But when she visits another friend the next morning she finds the woman dead with a strange symbol carved into the soil beside her. After informing the police, Sophie finds herself in the middle of another murder investigation, this one closer to home and it involves more than one friend. But when Nina is targeted, Sophie knows she has to act quick or she'll lose her, too...

This is the fourteenth book in the series, and unfortunately I haven't read them in order, so some of the revelations in the book are a complete surprise to me. However, I do plan on going back and reading the rest of the series, because what's discovered doesn't spoil this book at all.

We again have Natasha whining every five minutes to Sophie for something, and while Sophie tunes her out, I certainly wish I could, too. I have never cared for the woman, but at least she's not uber-annoying in this book, which is a good thing. Actually, there are some funny moments with Natasha that she has no control over, and I did enjoy those.

There's also trouble in the festival, with the entrants complaining amongst themselves, and I am not going to detail that as this is a new book and I want people to enjoy reading it. And you should enjoy it, too. There's an awful lot going on, and a lot of people doing it, and poor Sophie is right in the middle of it again.

But there are some good things that occur, and that makes all of it worthwhile. I do still think that Sophie needs to get herself together, but that's a personal opinion and has no reflection on this book, which is very good indeed. I enjoyed it immensely, and the mystery was indeed something that wasn't discovered until very close to the end (although I did figure out the murderer before Sophie, so that's something in my favor!). When it all comes together, we get a few more surprises which are nice, and it gives us something to look forward to in the next book. Recommended. ( )