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Skye Denison has hired sexy contractor Beau Hamilton to renovate the old house she inherited. Everyone recommended him, after all. His good looks don’t hurt either. Especially since Skye has sworn off men since her breakup with her boyfriend.

Unfortunately Skye soon realizes his work isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Before she can fire him, she finds him murdered. Who could have killed the contractor? Soon Skye finds the list goes on forever. Can she find the killer without putting herself in danger? Plus should she give Simon another chance? Then there’s Chief Wally Boyd who is showing real interest in her. What’s a girl to do?

I love this series. School psychologist Skye Denison is such a fun character. No wonder the kids love her so much. I was happy to see Wally and her giving it a chance in this book. I’m not sure which man I want to see her with, but she hadn’t even given Wally a turn so that she could make a better decision.

I always enjoy the wacky characters in this series. The author has done a great job of creating an enjoyable series with a town full of interesting people. This installment didn’t disappoint! I can’t wait to read the next book. I highly recommend this book and series.

Dawn Dowdle


Pack your bags and don’t forget your funny bone as we head out for another knee slapping adventure in Scumble River . Skye has settled into her new house, which she inherited from Mrs. Griggs and is finally getting started on the renovations to it. But she feels like she is in over her head with her contractor, a good-looking charmer who came highly recommended by all his former clients and who is doing a lousy job, starting all sorts of projects and the few that he has managed to finish have been awful. Skye isn’t sure what to do and has she tells Loretta, her lawyer friend, maybe she should have waited but when Beau came out to give her an estimate, he was so gorgeous, she could barely remember her own name and before she knew it, she had signed a contract with him. And even though she goes home every day with the intent of firing him, she just can’t bring herself to, especially when he smiles at her.

But after talking with Loretta, she decides that today is the day when she fires him and with her backbone stiffened, she heads home. But when she gets home, there is no sign of Beau or his crew and no sign they had been there all day. Exasperated, she inspects the gaping holes in the walls and the roof and the clapboard that he started to take off, even though she told him not too. Her anger grows as she realizes that no work had been done all day and she begins to get really depressed about the whole thing when she hears a noise. She hopes it is her beloved cat, Bingo, who has been missing for several days. She heads toward the noise but then stops to think about whether she should call someone just in case it isn’t Bingo but then decides she can handle it. She heads down into the woods, calling for Bingo until she gets to the river where she sees an old wooden dock with a motorboat tied to a post. She hears a moaning sound coming from the boat and she goes to investigate, but just as she reaches the boat and sees Beau inside, sprawled on the bottom bleeding, the pier breaks apart and she finds herself in the icy water. Since she is a swimmer, she thinks she will have no problem swimming out and grabbing the boat but nothing has prepared her for the icy water she encounters. She quickly gets into trouble in the icy water but realizes that she has to help herself so she manages to make it to the boat and get inside. She starts back to shore and can’t figure out what is going on when she sees all these lights at the shore because she knew she didn’t leave any on but she decides that she can’t go any further and heads to shore. When she gets there, it seems that half the town is there and that they are looking for her. It turns out that Beau is dead, shot, and she is the prime suspect.

The sheriff seems determined to try to solve the case quickly by pinning it on Skye and she decides that if she is going to stay out of jail, she had better find the real killer. Unfortunately, as she begins to look into Beau’s life, she finds out why he got glowing recommendations from past clients and that most of them had motives to kill him. And to make her life even more complicated, she and Simon have broken up, despite their mother’s efforts to get them back together and Wally, the police chief, is now romancing her, leaving Skye confused and torn.

In her best adventure yet, Skye is forced to solve the murder of her contractor before the sheriff can find a way to pin it on her and she does it in her usual madcap, full of misadventures way.  A very satisfying addition to one of the best series you will ever read.

Kathy Thomason