Off to Japan for Felicity and Logan. Where she will attend a chocolate festival and hold a demonstration. When murder happens on a movie set nearby, Felicity is once again involved to find the killer. This series is best read in order to me. The characters are well developed and fun. The setting was a welcome change. I love all things chocolate and this series fits right in! Thanks#Netgalley and #Booksgosocial for the eARC in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are mine.

Felicity is a bean to bar chocolate maker and along with Logan her fiancé they are visiting Japan and are exhibiting at a chocolate festival.
Felicity is feeling the nerves she’s going to have to do chocolate making demonstrations in front of people whose first language isn’t English , how will it go?
Chloe Felicity's niece is an online influencer and comes on the trip with a group of Felicity’s friends .
Of course things don’t run smoothly , Felicity has her phone stolen and later she finds the robber dead but then when she returns to the scene with Logan and the police the body is missing .
The body was on a film set so the group get mixed up with a filmmakers , actors and crew.
There’s trouble at the festival one of the other exhibitors doesn’t like Felicity and wants her expelling from the festival.
Chloe finds herself in the middle of the trouble and there is little that can be done to help her .
Where is the body?
Who is the killer?
A great read , the characters are well rounded and likeable .
The setting is beautiful and there’s chocolate and murder , so what’s not to like ?
A great addition to the series .
Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial.

I picked this up because I love a murder mystery and I was intrigued by the setting. Japan and chocolate?! Both things I love. And the mention of famous Japanese murder mysteries was fun, especially as I've read and enjoyed some of them too.

However I didn't realise this was the 8th (!) book in a series when I picked it up, so I was obviously missing some of the background context. And there are a lot of recurring characters. It does a good job of explaining who people are without giving away too many details of previous cases, and it doesn't impact on the central mystery either. However I'm not sure I could tell you know who everyone is and what their relationship to the main character was!

Overall I enjoyed the mystery but I did find the story a little confused. As the main character is a chocolatier there was a lot of mention of the chocolate selling business including technical details but it didn't always mesh well with the mystery elements for me. Also there were a lot of coincidences for me. Literally everyone she met was somehow involved in the crimes or popped up again. And I can imagine that worked in the previous books where she was in her hometown, but Tokyo is huge so it was harder to suspend my disbelief.

It definitely left me intrigued though and I might try picking up some of the earlier books in the series to get some more of the backstory.

Honestly, so far this is my least favorite of the series. At 336 pages, this book is long for a cozy and I felt every bit of that length as the plot just continued to plod along. There were far too many suspects. I liked the backdrop of Japan in this one but also felt like Felicity was completely out of her element trying to solve a crime in a foreign country in a place known for formalities and traditions. She spends a lot of time ruminating on her own and following silly red herrings that you miss the camaraderie between the characters you get when she is back in Galveston. She goes with a large friend group, including her fiancé, Logan, and yet she seems to be all alone frequently. Even with the addition of Honda the calico cat, I almost gave up on this one because I was so bored.

Thank you to Golden Tip Press and Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Felicity and Logan and a bunch of friends go to Japan for a chocolate festival. With YouTubers and podcasters along, the trip quickly gets complicated.
This book is so interesting, and it’s different from some cozy mysteries I’ve read. I don’t exactly how to explain the difference, but I feel like the author is a technical person. With each book she delves into the nitty gritty of whatever situation is facing the main character with lots of details.
I’ve never been to Japan and this has some interesting details. The acknowledgments at the end suggest the author enjoyed some detailed research before writing the book.
There are some good descriptions of chocolate and the making of chocolate to draw you in.
The mystery was a complicated affair with good suspects that may or may not have had motives outside of Felicity’s head.
The story is told in first person. For me this leads to a common problem, I don’t remember the main character’s name and sometimes have to think for a few seconds when the name Felicity is brought up to remember who the name belongs to. Don’t get me wrong, I like first person narratives they just leave me with the aforementioned problem.
Thanks to Netgalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read Vanishing Into The 100% Dark. I recommend it.

This is the 8th release in this charming foodie based Chocolate baker series. Thank you to the author, to Net Galley and to the publisher for he opportunity to review. My review opinions are my own.

Our talented chocolatier Felicity has been thrilled to be invited to Tokyo to a chocolate festival and demonstration. She invites some of her closest friends to accompany her. Her trip does not start well with the theft of her phone. After that interruption in her schedule she attends the chocolate demonstrations where she has a interpreter to help her show her talents with chocolate. When a murder occurs on a nearby movie set Felicity is involved once again determined to solve the murder and find the rightful suspect with her friends help. Although in a unfamiliar city and not able to speak the language Felicity forges ahead . When her younger media helper is suspected Felicity is determined to free her from suspicion and solve this murder.

I enjoy the characters in this foodie based series and the descriptions of the chocolate making is divine, The sleuth is well crafted and was fun to conclusion. The animal characters take a smaller part in this release but are charming. I look forward to the next in series,

Felicity and her friends had to Tokyo where she will be teaching a class on chocolate. Having agreed to chaperone Chloe, she’s dismayed when Chloe becomes a murder suspect. She is able to keep Chloe out of jail, she in the game need to find that who killed in the stunt man and why so that Chloe can go home and spend the rest of her life in a Japanese prison.

I have enjoyed the series from the start and it was a pleasure to have them take a trip to Tokyo. Sometimes a trip to another country doesn’t always work for a series, but in this case, it certainly worked. I enjoyed every single minute of it.

Summary: A thoroughly entertaining read with a diverse cast of likeable characters and a fun premise. While the writing isn’t top tier and the plot gets a bit silly, I found it charming and will happily go back and read the other books in the series. If you’re a fan of chocolate and murder mysteries, there are worse ways to spend an afternoon!

I was first drawn to the book largely because of the calico cat on the cover, and then once I read the synopsis I just couldn’t resist. The slightly absurd premise of a chocolate maker getting caught up in a murder mystery sounded too good to pass up - I of course then realised that this is the eighth book in the series, and said chocolate maker Felicity has in fact been involved in quite a few murder investigations by this point!

It was somewhat unsurprising, then, that I struggled to keep up with the large cast of characters - many of whom seem to have been initially established in earlier books - but nonetheless I found the group quite fun to follow with their different personalities, likes and dislikes, and interpersonal relationships.

I loved the Tokyo setting and the way in which the chocolate festival brought lots of different people together across backgrounds and cultures, as with the film set, its cast and crew, and homages to classic kaiju cinema. The cat Honda, of course, was a standout for me and probably earned the book at least one of the three stars I’ve given it!

While the writing isn’t the most refined and the plot isn’t the tightest, overall I felt this book had a lot of heart and was a lot of fun. Like my favourite kind of chocolate, it was sweet and light and while I wouldn’t want to consume it exclusively, I’ll definitely go back in for another bite.

You can take the mystery reading chocolatier out of Texas but you can't keep the mysteries from following to the Chocolate event. Speaking of chocolate, yum to some of the goodies described.
Turning to the book, there are a lot of characters and more added on the Tokyo leg of Felicity and Logan's lives together. I suspect reading the previous books in the series would have helped cement who was who especially since some names are similar. We do get plenty of action including a fall from a building made more complicated by having lost her phone. Then Felicity lost the body of the phone thief but found another mystery so things were happening pretty quickly. There was plenty of action which kept me reading. What a new reader to this series found interesting was the dark omen that seemed to descend on Felicity when she got the mystery books. It would be interesting to go back and read the previous books to understand the backstory.
Overall, this was a pretty good cozy (3.75 stars) with the requisite cute animal and hunger pangs inducing yummy descriptions.
Thanks to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read this ARC.

"Vanishing Into The 100% Dark (Bean to Bar Mysteries #8)" by Amber Royer has Felicity and crew visiting Tokyo, Japan for a chocolate festival. Conviently, there is a Kaiju movie being filmed across the street. Some stunt tricks are learned and chocolate eaten. Also, keep a hold of your phone. It may keep you from getting pulled into a murder mystery.

There was a few problems and mysteries going on in this one. A lot for a short trip so far from home. It all starts with Felicity's phone getting stolen at the airport once they land in Japan and ends with them making friends with a film crew. Since so much was going on it was distracting enough to keep me from getting one suspect specifically in mind for anything.

widow, fiancé, Japan, chocolate, chocolatier, cultural-differences, festivals, local-law-enforcement, amateur-sleuth, influencer, podcaster, tv-film-industry, ex-physical-therapist, murder, murder-investigation, ex-cop, verbal-humor, thefts, relationship-issues, relationships, cozy-crime, teens, asthmatic, cat, rivalry, books, interviews, entitled-attitude****

The chocolate shop crew was invited to a chocolate festival in Tokyo! Delighted, they all packed up to go, but first there was the mugging at the airport, then seemingly everyone in the detective fiction book clubs gave her ominous books, then the first corpse vanished. Added to all this is the teenager true crime podcast influencer who feels so entitled. Speaking of vanishing acts, what's with that calico cat?
Very interesting story with lots of things new to me.
I requested and received a temporary uncorrected eGalley from BooksGoSocial and Golden Tip Press via NetGalley. Avail Mar, 2025
#VanishingIntothe100Dark by @amberroyerauthor #BeanToBarMysteriesBk8 #NetGalley @ibpa @booksgosocialgroup #cozymystery #murdermystery @goodreads @bookbub @librarythingofficial @barnesandnoble **** Review #booksamillion #bookshop_org #bookshop_org_uk #kobo #Waterstones #chocolate #japan #Tokyo

I love a good cozy murder mystery and that’s exactly what this book was! Felicity is basically the queen of solving murders. I love whenever there’s a cat in the story. What does Honda the cat know?? Will felicity solve the murder so Chloe doesn’t get arrested? This book was very interesting! I didn’t realize it was number 8 in the series but I had no problem following along. I’m definitely going to go and read the others in the series.
What a fun and quick read!!

Thank you NetGalley, BooksGoSocial and Amber for the E-ARC!

Publication Date: March 4 2025
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
#NetGalley #VanishingIntothe100Dark

Through NetGalley, I received a free copy of VANISHING INTO THE 100% DARK (Book 8 of the Bean to Bar mystery series) by Amber Royer in exchange for an honest review. Felicity Koerber isn’t quite sure how she became an invited presenter at an illustrious chocolate festival in Tokyo, but she and her friends are all grateful to accept and attend. However, Tokyo isn’t quite the working vacation Felicity was hoping. First, when she arrives, she’s mugged in the airport. Second, once she sets up her vendor booth, Felicity ends up with stacks of books dropped off by friendly strangers. Oh, noes, not books! (At least not when special books portent murder). Third, not everything in sweet at the chocolate festival; it seems like Felicity has an unknown enemy there. Fourth, of course, is murder. Felicity and her friends end up entangled with a group producing a monster movie; as a result, they end up entangled in another murder investigation, too.

I liked this book and enjoy the series. I recommend this book to fans of the series and the series to fans of cozy murder mysteries featuring tragic backstories, recovery, chocolate shops, special events, and featured pets.

#VanishingIntothe100Dark #NetGalley