On the heels of a public, broken engagement, Maeve Cleary returns to her childhood home in Hampton Beach, NH. When a dead body turns up behind her mother’s music school, three old friends land on the suspect list. Licking her wounds soon takes a back seat to outrunning the paparazzi who spin into a frenzy, casting her in a cloud of suspicion.
Maeve juggles her high school sweetheart, a cousin with a touch of
clairvoyance, a no-nonsense detective, and an apologetic, two-timing ex-fiancé.
Will the negative publicity impact business at the Music Box— the very place
she’d hoped to make a fresh start?
EXCERPT:
With his mouth
set in a grim line, he waited.
If anyone else
had enough nerve to presume she owed them an explanation, she would respond
with a solid mind your own business. Instead, the seventeen-year-old still
inside her refused to tell him to get lost. “He was hiding money in his
office.” This was one of those times when learning how to wait a few beats
before blurting out inflammatory information would come in handy. Each second
of passing silence decreased her ability to breathe in the confined space. She
turned the ignition and switched on the air conditioner.
“How do you
know?” His volume just above a whisper, each dragged-out word hung in the air.
“I found it.”
“When were you in
his office?” He swiped at a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face,
then positioned a vent toward him.
“Last night.”
When would she learn to bite her tongue? Finn’s switch from rapid-fire scolding
to slow, deliberate questioning left her unable to swallow over the sandpaper
lump in her throat.
“Where was Vic?”
She stared at the
back of the building, wishing she’d kept her mouth shut. “He’d left for the
night.” If she averted her gaze, she could pretend his eyeballs weren’t bugging
out of his head, and his jaw didn’t need a crane to haul it off his chest.
“You were at the
town hall after hours? Did anyone see you?”
“A custodian
opened his door for me.” She snuck a glance. Sure enough, features contorted in
shock and horror replaced his boy-next-door good looks.
My Review:
There's something just so enjoyable about a good murder. In a book that is, when you can try and work out who is behind it all without endangering yourself at all. It's hardly surprising that when heroines such as Maeve in A Sour Note, can't help but try and get to the bottom of who the murder is, when faced with a mystery.
Maeve has recently returned to her home town, after the breakdown of her engagement. If she was hoping for a quiet life, then she is sadly disappointed. After discovering the dead body of a self-proclaimed local celebrity, the problem isn't that Maeve can't find out who might have killed Trixie, but rather that there are far too many candidates.
This was a fun cozy mystery. I didn't manage to solve it myself, although I think that I was heading in the right direction. Maeve is a headstrong character, who thinks nothing of putting herself in danger to try and find out what's going on and who might be behind the murder.
I enjoyed the setting of this book and the other characters that made up the pages. These are people that Maeve has known all of her life, but hasn't been around for quite some time.
I really enjoyed this murder mystery and I'd been keen to read more about Maeve and The Music Box in the future.
About the Author:
Jill
Piscitello is a teacher, author, and an avid fan of multiple literary genres.
Although she divides her reading hours among several books at a time, a
lighthearted story offering an escape from the real world can always be found
on her nightstand.
A
native of New England, Jill lives with her family and three well-loved cats.
When not planning lessons or reading and writing, she can be found spending
time with her family, trying out new restaurants, traveling, and going on light
hikes.
Social media links:
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