Blue-Ribbon Jalapeño Society Jubilee by Carolyn Brown

You Are Cordially Invited...Come early, eat until your buttons pop, and dance until you drop!

Miss Clawdy's Café has won the Jubilee blue ribbon every year since the dawn of time. This year, town matron Violet Prescott is going after that ribbon with an iron-clad determination only thinly disguised by her perfect coiffure and flawless manners, bless her heart.

It's time for café owners Cathy and Marty and their best friend Trixie to pull out their secret weapon. And this is where a lifetime of friendship, combined with just the right recipe at just the right time, might carry the day—or blow everything to smithereens.

Welcome to Cadillac, Texas, where the jalapeños are hot, the gossip is hotter, and at the end of the day, it's the priceless friendships that are left standing...

First things first, if you've read Angry Housewives Eating Bonbons by Lorna Landvik, skip this review and go straight to picking up this book and reading it.  Even though they're completely different books, I had the exact same 'down home, feel good, get way too involved' feeling throughout this entire book as I did Angry Housewives.  If that's up your alley, I guarantee this one is too.  

I've enjoyed Carolyn's books before, but this one was a lot more involved, evolved and a tad different that the others that I've read.  I became invested in the characters immediately.  Chapter one sets the stage and it continues strongly throughout the entire book.  I lost about 3 hours of sleep because I just couldn't put it down.  Not only do you have to constantly know what's going to happen next, you just can't stand to leave Cadillac until you absolutely have to.

I only have one tiny, niggling complaint about this book that kept it from being a perfect read.  There's one mystery that you find out about at the beginning, and you have to wait until the very end to find out what it is.  It just sits there in the back of your mind, randomly popping up and making you wonder what it is.  It isn't strong enough to be a constant thread throughout the book, so it isn't annoying.  My issue with it is that it just wasn't nearly as exciting a secret as I thought it might be.  As I was reading, I said to myself 'This is it!  I'm gonna find out!' and then I continued reading.  'Really?  That's it?'  quickly echoed around my bedroom walls.  The only thing that kept me from being majorly disappointed in this facet is that Carolyn pulled out a brilliant move next, that made me stop thinking about it and start chuckling.  

*I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.  Shawn