Tart of Darkness is a tasty start to a new series. We meet Dani, who has just quit her job and is spending her time trying out recipes and feeding her college student neighbors. When she inherits a house unexpectedly, she is able to start her own business Chef To Go. After catering her first big party, the hostess is found dead and Dani is thrust into the spotlight as the main suspect.
I really enjoyed this book. A first in new series can be hard, having to introduce the cast of characters and to set the stage for the current book and the rest to come, but the author tackles this perfectly. The characters are fun, the side plots are great and definitely keep the reader entranced with the story. The surprise at the end when everything ties together is unexpected but definitely fitting. I cannot wait to see what is next for all of these characters.

Things finally seem to be headed Dani’s way, she’s inherited a huge old house in a college town that will enable her to put her cooking skills to use. She launches Chef-To-Go, selling meals to hungry college students. To help make ends meet while she’s building her business , she rents out a couple of rooms to college kids who become almost like extended family. When one of them is murdered, Dani’s heartbroken, but even worse, she’s one of the suspects. This is a charming cozy mystery that will please Swanson’s fans

Dani's career hits a snag and she takes the opportunity to take a new life path. The path becomes clearer when she inherits a beautiful mansion from a woman she has never met. She decides to simultaneously open Chef-to-Go, a catering business that also sells pre-made, healthy meals, as well as renting out rooms in her new home to college students. A murder suddenly threatens her lifestyle and her freedom when an overzealous detective sets her sites on her. With the help of the handsome uncle of one of her roomers, Dani investigates the murder to clear both her name and that of his niece.

One word described this book for me. Disjointed. Most chapters are written from the POV of Dani, while there are a few written from the POV of "Uncle Spence." The book starts as a strong cozy, but then adds in a bit of thriller and romance. The time frame is off - it seems as though events just happened but Dani refers to months passing. I tend to judge a book by how soon I look at how much is left. In this book, I had only read a quarter of it. By half way through I just didn't care anymore. I also didn't appreciate the author throwing in references to her other books in an effort to sell more of that series. I had never read any of Ms. Swanson's other books (didn't even realize who wrote these until half way through the book) and this writing was not an incentive to read them. I received an ARC from NetGalley and the Sourcebooks Landmark but was pretty disappointed in it.