From USA Today bestselling author Pamela Fagan Hutchins.A musical career in the making. A murdered childhood friend. One chance to catch the killer.Ava dreams of building a better life for her daughter through her island pop songs. Her new temp job leads to a once-in-a-lifetime shot at a record deal, but before she can pack her bags for New York, she discovers a dead body outside her office … she discovers a dead body outside her office building. Horrified, Ava recognizes the murdered sex worker as her childhood friend.
The single mother finds herself torn between pursuing her life’s passion or justice for her murdered friend. When another friend is killed, she worries the deaths are connected to a shared trauma that she’s been running from her whole life. After dumping her cop boyfriend, she realizes the pain she keeps locked inside could be sabotaging her shot at lasting love.
Before Ava can move on to a bright future in music, she must confront the truth behind her dark past to catch the murderer or she’ll be next on his kill list.
Bombshell is the first book in Ava’s trilogy and book #7 within the What Doesn’t Kill You romantic mystery saga. If you like sexy single moms, shocking suspense, and journeys of self-empowerment, then you’ll love USA Today best seller Pamela Fagan Hutchins’ award-winning series.
Buy Bombshell to get into the rhythm with a fast-paced pop murder mystery today!
˃˃˃ See why Pamela wins contests and makes best seller lists.
- USA Today Best Seller
- #1 Amazon Best Seller
- Top 50 Amazon Romantic Suspense and Mystery Author
- Silver Falchion for Best Adult Mystery
- USA Best Book Awards Cross-Genre Fiction
- Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, Romance, Quarter-finalist
˃˃˃ Once Upon A Romance calls Hutchins an “up-and-coming powerhouse writer.”
If you like Sandra Brown or Janet Evanovich, you will love Pamela Fagan Hutchins. A former attorney who splits her time between Nowheresville, Texas and the frozen north of Snowheresville, Wyoming, Pamela lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands for nearly ten years. She refuses to admit to taking notes for this series during that time.
˃˃˃ The Ava series reviews are in, and they’re good. Very, very good.
“Just when I think I couldn’t love another Pamela Fagan Hutchins novel more, along comes Ava. She’s smart and sassy, with a story full of juicy plot twists. I enjoyed Bombshell from cover to cover!” — Marcy McKay, author of Pennies from Burger Heaven
“To finally get a whole book of Ava’s beautiful voice and attitude was so much fun. And then to see that her outer armor was mixed with the very real insecurities and struggles that we can all relate to was magical. She personifies bombshell in every sense of word and I can’t wait to have her voice in my head again in Stunner.” — Tara Scheyer, Grammy-nominated musician, Long-Distance Sisters Book Club
“Entertaining, complex, and thought-provoking. Each book gets better and better and better…It was so hard to put this book down once I started reading.” — Ginger Copeland, power reader
˃˃˃ Catch more adventures with Ava and her friends in the What Doesn’t Kill You romantic mysteries.
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Ava Butler, a single mom and singer, has memories of abuse that haunt her into avenging the death of her childhood friends. She is a spunky character with amazing grit. Bombshell is the name of her explosive debut album. It’s the song she was born to sing. “So now everyone here thinks I’m some kind of hotshot. So I sing to them, pounding my chest, channeling my goddess of the morning-after power.” When she finishes her performance, the crowd goes crazy for her, which makes her reflect on the “Bombshell” hysteria: “It feels ironic to me, in light of real bombshells. Coworkers who are killers. Lovers who are FBI agents. The time bomb inside my breast.”
The story is not for the faint of heart. I was riveted by the plot twists, by action sequences in particular scenes, and above all, by the character. She’s real. The author, Pamela Fagan Hutchins, created an authentic voice that made me care deeply for Ava. The language of the story is in the present tense, first-person account, which put me in an immediate contact with Ava, as if she is confiding her most intimate secrets.
Highly recommended. Five stars.
Loved this book. Ava is a great character and the dialogue is some of the wittiest and best I’ve read. The author has a unique ability to bring a setting to life. I felt like I was in St. Marcos. The characters, the dilemma Ava finds herself in, and the desire to keep turning pages to find out what happens next makes this a book I would highly recommend to everyone. Really, really, good!
Bombshell was a tantalizingly exotic read! Pamela Fagan Hutchins depicted a carnal, gritty island world inhabited by a Bombshell of a female protagonist, Ava, that was foreign to me–and that I couldn’t get enough of!
Ava is a fascinating combination of romantic and cynic with a whirlwind life and a mountain of trouble as a single mother with aging parents, negotiating island corruption as they clash with her big dreams. This is a story that will keep you glued until the end–and then wanting more!
You will love this action-packed adventure with a spirited lead character who will have you rooting for her in no time. Funny, smart, self-deprecating, she’s a complicated character with lots going for her but plenty of trouble holding her back. Just when it looks as though Ava’s got her mojo working and a chance at getting the singing career she’s dreamed of, she comes face-to-face with her past. It’s ugly and the way it catches up with her is ugly too. The murder of an old friend is only one of the plot twists that keep this story moving in interesting, suspenseful, and unexpected directions. Will Ava conquer the demons from her past by finding her friend’s killer? Will the good things she wants–music, love, family–be hers or will the dangers in her life, past, and present, be her undoing? You’ll just have to read this well-told story to find out!
A great book in a great series. Always a good read.
Ava, the fiery bombshell of the title, is a fun departure from Hutchins’ other heroines, but she’s one of my favorites. Sassy, but not without her struggles. Determined to right wrongs and make a name for herself.
I have always loved the character that is Ava! She has always been sassy, sexy and naughty but there has also always been something about her, something deeper. I finally got the chance to discover all that is the bombshell Ava and she did not disappoint! When she goes to interview for her latest temp job she doesn’t anticipate finding a dead girl, a girl she once knew and now she feels committed to bringing her justice. All she has to do is deal with dumping her on again off again fling, keeping the new job she loves, mother her daughter, care for her ailing Mom & Dad and oh yeah, try to break out as the next big singer! Nothing an island girl can’t handle, right?! Wrong! One more girl is dead, another is missing and Ava seems to be at the center of it all and she has no one she can turn to! Bring on the action and cross your fingers that she survives!
“Bombshell: Ava’s First” earns 5/5 Caribbean Conundrums…Clever!
Ava Butler, a thirty-something, single mom, is very excited about her new temp assignment with a virtual currency company, but her first day doesn’t go smoothly. A run in with a pothole forces her to get a lift to work which leads to a side trip down an alley and the discovery of a dead body. Although a few years apart the murder victim attended the same Catholic school. The memories of her own time there reopens old wounds about her tragic “Me, Too” experiences she believes the dead girl shared. Then more young women are dead, her employer has issues, law enforcement has issues, a possible record deal is dangled, and another tragedy is more a horrific déjà vu memory…this can’t be happening!
As an all-time multi-tasked, I greatly enjoy audiobooks, and “listening” to Pamela Fagan Hutchins’s book was the perfect opportunity to go a bit outside my “cozy” comfort zone. With a lot to unpack in Pamela Fagan Hutchins’s story, the plot is engaging addressing contemporary themes, edgy with sexual innuendo and a few adult situations and language to match. It is less mystery in a “cozy” sense and more a suspense thriller expanding into different directions with rich characters including a jumbie spirit? But it all links with more than a few perilous situations and a “Wow!” ending that made me eager to read the rest of Ava’s trilogy.
Chanté McCormick is quite the narrator. She went beyond a traditional reading enriching Ava’s first-person narrative with a pleasant natural voice, but it’s the fun and very entertaining dialogue for the “Calypso” accent of Ava and the other island residents, southern drawl from Ava’s BFF, and variants in common American that Chanté did well. For female narrators mastering the male voices is quite a challenge, but Chanté did more than a satisfactory job. I found the audiobook very entertaining, and well-worth picking it up.
I have the eBook, too, and was able to do a bit of reading and listening…
First time I’ve read anything by this author. I truly enjoyed the book.
I thought it was good
Bombshell – a review by Rosemary Kenny
The eponymous ‘Bombshell’ Ava is a single Mom and part-time lounge singer, living in one household on a Caribbean island with her baby daughter Ginger, in the loving bosom of four generations of her family.
When she gets a job working as a PA for rich, but disabled Harry, it leads to her meeting millionaire Nick, who’s very taken with Ava as quickly becomes apparent, when he unexpectedly takes her to an exclusive party.
What happens there will shock and maybe thrill you a little bit too, as events take an unusual course leading to a tale of mystery, intrigue and murder in Paradise!
Bombshell, is a fantastic introduction to Princess of Tropical Murder Mysteries Pamela Fagan Hutchins’ Ava trilogy, (part 9 of her epic What Doesn’t Kill You series) and a definite 5-star winner, that will grace your murder-mystery-thriller bookshelf – get it today!
I really enjoyed this book. Ava, the protagonist was amazing. A little wild, a little crazy, yet down to earth, and loyal to those she cared about. I was pulling for her all the way!
Ava, a singer, gets involved in the death of 3 girls from her Catholic school when they were young. It gets very interesting. So many scary things happen to her. A must read!
Interesting book. Not exactly my cup of tea but it had its moments.
The lead character is a bit too different from myself to be able to relate to her. Sometimes you just want to shake some sense into her. While the book was enjoyable, I won’t be reading the rest of the series.
Great spin off from the Annalise jumbie story.
Interesting light read. However the main character is too much at times.
Never cared about the characters. Just could not get into the story, even though I’ve spent a good amount of time in the Caribbean on islands. Oh well.
Ava is a voluptuous promiscuous club singer in St. Thomas in the virgin islands. She has a Jamican mother and a Canadian Father; and a jilted boyfriend who attempts to contact her. Since he in Houston, she just doesn’t answer any of his entreaties. Although raised Catholic she is spiritually confused by past abuse by priests and nuns yada yada yada. Her multiplicity of gods shower her with temporal gifts to numerous to list here. Because of these all of her problems are solved. The Church’s aren’t but this is more fodder for a sequel. Meanwhile Ava has learned nothing except that she is an eceptionally talented person.
I didn’t really like this book. Eva is a strong character, but all her sleeping around just put me off. And to think that her love Conner could just forgive her for having multiple partners while he waited for her doesn’t cut it. It had a decent story but it wasn’t for me.