FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!
In
the seaside town of Lighthouse Cove in northern California, everyone
knows the best man for the job is actually a woman—contractor Shannon
Hammer. But while Shannon can do wonders with a power drill and a little
elbow grease, she’s about to discover that some problems aren’t so
easily fixed....
Shannon’s home-renovation and repair
business is booming, but her love life needs work. On a blind date with
real estate agent Jerry Saxton, she has to whip out a pair of pliers to
keep Jerry from getting too hands on. Shannon is happy to put her rotten
date behind her, but when Jerry’s found dead in a run-down Victorian
home that she’s been hired to restore, the town’s attractive new police
chief suspects that her threats may have laid the foundation for murder.
Determined to clear her name, Shannon conducts her own
investigation—with the help of her four best friends, her eccentric
father, a nosy neighbor or two, and a handsome crime writer who’s just
moved to town. But as they get closer to prying out the murderer’s
identity, Shannon is viciously attacked. Now she’ll have to nail down
the truth—or end up in permanent foreclosure.
Kate
Carlisle on Creating Lighthouse Cove
Hello,
my name is Kate Carlisle, and I have power over life and death.
Fictionally
speaking.
I’ve
just launched my second mystery series, The Fixer-Upper Mysteries, with A
HIGH-END FINISH (available now in paperback and ebook), and I brought to life
an entire town for your reading
pleasure.
At first
glance, Lighthouse Cove is an idyllic northern California coastal community,
with a charming downtown and amazing views everywhere you look, but behind that
perky façade is a growing sense of unrest. (This is a mystery series, after
all.) Those with all the wealth want more of it, and they won’t let
small-minded townies get in their way.
Shannon
Hammer bridges the gap between have and have-not. She’s blue collar all the
way, townie to her core, but she makes nice with the rich and powerful because her
construction company is the go-to choice for the wealthy owners of all of the cliffside
Victorian homes in need of restoration. In Lighthouse Cove, the best man for
the job is a woman.
The
Bibliophile Mysteries, my first mystery series, are set primarily in San
Francisco, so I work within the framework of a place that really exists. With the
Fixer-Upper Mysteries, though, I needed to create Lighthouse Cove from the
ground up with such a sense of history and place that it would feel as real to
readers as it does to me.
From A High-End Finish:
I turned up the radio to distract
myself and cruised through downtown past the Town Square on my way to one of my
houses a few streets north of Main Street.
The Town Square was pretty much
deserted at this time of the morning. In the center of the grassy square, a
large gazebo was set beneath sheltering trees. During the summer, free band
concerts were held there on the weekends. Everyone in town turned out, carrying
their lawn chairs and picnic hampers. The ice cream shop on the corner did a
bumper business on those nights. Some of my earliest best memories had taken
place right here. Fireworks. Marching bands. My mom and dad holding hands. Ice
cream.
Now, though, the Square was
silent. I scanned the area anyway on the off chance that I’d catch a glimpse of
one of my girlfriends opening her shop, but the only place open was the diner
on the corner. The other shops on the Square wouldn’t open for business for
another two hours or more.
It was just as well, I realized
as I drove on. I should probably avoid the area for the next few days. I knew
my gossip quotient had skyrocketed since I’d stumbled over Jerry’s body on
Sunday. Everyone in town would be vying to get the inside scoop from me, but I
dreaded the whispers and questions that would follow. I had to endure scrutiny
and doubt from the new police chief, but not from people I’d known my entire
life.
I hope Lighthouse
Cove will be a town you’ll enjoy visiting again and again. Grab A HIGH-END
FINISH to get in on The Fixer-Upper Mysteries from the very beginning!
Golden Heart
and Daphne du Maurier Award winning author Kate Carlisle spent over
twenty years working in television production as an Associate Director
for game and variety shows, including The Midnight Special, Solid Gold
and The Gong Show. She traveled the world as a Dating Game chaperone and
performed strange acts of silliness on The Gong Show. She also studied
acting and singing, toiled in vineyards, collected books, joined a
commune, sold fried chicken, modeled spring fashions and worked for a
cruise ship line, but it was the year she spent in law school that
finally drove her to begin writing fiction. It seemed the safest way to
kill off her professors. Those professors are breathing easier now that
Kate spends most of her time writing near the beach in Southern
California where she lives with her perfect husband.
A lifelong
love of old books and an appreciation of the art of bookbinding led Kate
to create the Bibliophile Mysteries, featuring rare book expert
Brooklyn Wainwright, whose bookbinding and restoration skills invariably
uncover old secrets, treachery and murder. Kate is a member of Sisters
in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers and
Romance Writers of America. She loves to drink good wine and watch
other people cook.
Despite the appearance of overnight success, Kate's dream of publication took many, many years to fulfill.
What a fabulous start to a new series! Lighthouse Cove is the perfect setting for this charming cozy mystery. Shannon is a wonderful antagonist, and her supporting cast of characters add so much to the story! The mystery was creative, very well plotted, and kept me guessing right up to the end.
Ms. Carlisle has a gem of a series on her hand. I am looking forward to seeing more of Shannon and Lighthouse Cove. This book just shot on to my "favorites" list!
Rating: 5 stars
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All conclusions reached are my own.
Thanks to the awesome ladies at Penguin, I have 1 paperback copy of A High-End Finish
by Kate Carlisle to give away to one of my lucky readers! Just enter
the Rafflecopter below for your chance to win, and be sure to keep
checking back for more awesome giveaways!
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