I need to be completely honest for a second. This is the third time I've attempted to read Wicked Appetite by Janet Evanovich. I bought it in 2010 when it was first released and I was so excited because hello! I love Stephanie and I love Diesel in the Between the Numbers series. So yes I was very excited to read a series featuring a new girl and Diesel, but I never was able to make it more than half way. I found the book boring and just way to much deja vu with the By the Numbers series. So I set it down. Now five years later (plus over a year since I've read the last Plum book) I was able to sit down and truly enjoy Lizzy and Diesel and people I read it in one sitting, sacrificing sleep to do so.

Lizzy is just your average girl. She has the girl-next-door thing going on that I just loved and made her extremely relatable to me. She's a pastry chef in Salem, Massachusetts and lives in a house (which is falling down around her) that she inherited from her Aunt Ophelia. No guy in her life, she really doesn't seem to need one. She's self-sufficent and most importantly she's happy. Then Diesel comes in and turns everything on its head!

Diesel happens to be one of my favorite characters and my secret ship from the Between the Numbers series (you know the ones that covered the holidays). He's just Diesel with his beach-bum sexiness going on, a little boy-next-door qualities, and a lot of mystery!! Diesel drops into Lizzy's life unexpectedly. He's there to protect her but also to use her powers (more on that in a sec) and can we all just agree that we wouldn't argue if he showed up on our doorstep to protect us ;)

So the premise of this series is set around the SALIGIA stones. Each stone represents one of the deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy wrath, sloth and gluttony. Supposedly the keeper of all the stones can raise hell on earth. This book is about finding the gluttony stone...appetite...get it ;) I kind of like that each book will be centered around a different stone. This one cracked me up as the people who had contact with the stone took on the attributes. So you had people who couldn't stop eating or collected too many things or practiced other activities.

Overall I enjoyed this book, especially once I was able to separate the similarities to Evanovich's other series. Yes they are similar, yes some of the characters are similar (you have Diesel and Wulf his evil cousin to represent Morelli and Ranger, Glo for Lula, etc.), but it's easy to overlook as there is an overarching theme to the series. This book is what I saw one reviewer refer to as a cupcake: easy to enjoy, quick to consume, leaves you satisfied. I would easily recommend this book to anyone that enjoys the By the Numbers series, a little fantasy, a little romance, and of course a lot of laughs!

This book fulfills #60 on the COYER Summer Scavenger Hunt