This is not a serious book. I need you to understand that upfront. Wicked Appetite is cotton candy in audiobook form — it dissolves fast, it's mostly sugar, and you will not feel guilty about consuming the whole thing in two shifts.
I picked this one up because I needed something light after a week of back-to-back traumas that I won't get into (HIPAA, you know how it is), and my usual dark thrillers were not going to cut it. Normally I'd reach for something like Deserter: A Novel, which scratches that darker itch just fine, but that week? No chance. Sometimes you don't want a psychological deep dive. Sometimes you want a pastry chef named Lizzie Tucker chasing down ancient relics tied to the Seven Deadly Sins in Salem, Massachusetts, while a guy named Diesel — just Diesel, like he's a cologne — flirts aggressively and breaks things.
Supernatural Stephanie Plum, but Make It Pastry
Let me just say what every Evanovich fan is already thinking: this is basically the Stephanie Plum formula transplanted into a paranormal setting. You've got the plucky heroine who's slightly in over her head. You've got the mysterious hot guy with a dangerous cousin. You've got a quirky sidekick animal — in this case, a cat named Cat 7143, which, okay, that's pretty funny. And the villain is named Gerewulf Grimorie, which I definitely would've misspelled if I'd been reading this in print.
The gluttony relic plotline is thin. Like, tissue-paper thin. The hunt bounces from one location to the next with a lot of banter and not a lot of actual detective work. If you're coming in expecting a tightly plotted mystery, adjust those expectations now. This is a romp. It's about the vibe, not the destination.
But here's what surprised me — the food descriptions. Evanovich goes hard on the baking details. Lizzie's recipes, the way she talks about dough and chocolate, the sensory overload of her kitchen scenes. I was driving home at 7:45 AM after twelve hours of night shift and genuinely considering stopping at a bakery. At 7:45 AM. When I should've been heading straight to bed. That's power.
Lorelei King Doing the Heavy Lifting
Look, I'll be honest — if I'd read this in print, I probably would've put it down around chapter three. The dialogue is constant. Like, relentless. Scene after scene of Diesel being smug, Lizzie being exasperated, and secondary characters doing bits. On paper, that can feel repetitive.
But Lorelei King turns all that dialogue into a performance. Her Diesel has this low, amused rumble that makes his arrogance charming instead of grating. Her Lizzie sounds genuinely flustered rather than just written-flustered. And she nails the comedic timing — there's a beat she hits after a particularly absurd line about the monkey (yes, there's also a monkey; I forgot to mention the monkey) that had me actually laughing in my car. Not smiling. Laughing. At 7 AM. After being awake for 14 hours.
King has narrated Evanovich for years and it shows. She doesn't just read the characters, she knows them. The way she differentiates Wulf's menacing tone from Diesel's cocky one — subtle but clear. You never lose track of who's talking, which matters when half the book is people talking at each other.
The Medical Stuff (Or Lack Thereof)
There's barely any medical content to fact-check here, so my dashboard was safe from yelling. A few bumps and bruises, nothing that required me to pause and sigh. This is a book where people get thrown across rooms by supernatural forces and walk it off. As someone who's actually worked a code, I can tell you that's not how physics works, but also — not the point. Not even close to the point.
Who This Is For (And Who Should Keep Walking)
If you loved the Stephanie Plum books and want more of that energy with a supernatural twist, this is your jam. If you need audiobooks for mundane tasks — commuting, cooking, folding the mountain of laundry that never ends — this is perfect for that. It's six hours, it's breezy, and Lorelei King makes it better than it probably deserves to be.
If you want complex plotting, real stakes, or anything approaching literary fiction, skip this entirely. No shade. When I'm in the mood for something with actual teeth — stakes that punch you in the gut — Pieces of Her is more that lane. It's just not what this book is doing.
Carlos asked me what I was listening to and I said "a paranormal romance about the Seven Deadly Sins" and he said "so not a documentary about our kids?" Married sixteen years, folks.
Night Shift Prescription
Perfect for that post-shift decompression when your brain is too fried for anything heavy but you need something to keep you awake on the drive home. It's fun, it's forgettable, and Lorelei King earns every cent. My mom would love this (she still thinks I should've been a doctor), but she'd also tell me it was too short. Six hours feels about right for this story, though — any longer and the thin plot would've started to crack.
