Named 2016 Best Mystery Series by Texas Association of Authors. When Madison Reynolds finds herself widowed and penniless before forty, she does the only thing she knows to do – she packs up her teenage twins and moves back home with her eighty-year-old grandmother. Life in The Sisters, Texas has not changed much since she’s been gone, but at least her best friend Genesis is there to soften the … friend Genesis is there to soften the transition back into small-town life.
To make ends meet, Madison opens In a Pinch Temporary Services. Her first real client is Ronny Gleason, but when she shows up for the first day of work at the Gleason Poultry Farm, Madison makes a gruesome discovery. The dead body she finds belongs to Mr. Gleason. When a local man is arrested for murder, Madison takes on the job of proving his innocence. Even though she is not a private investigator, both mothers are desperate: Lucy Ngyen to clear her son’s name, and Madison to pay her bills. But as she begins asking questions around town, her interference is not welcome.
With a daughter determined to go back to Dallas, a son settling into small town life, a feisty grandmother who knows all the town gossip, bill collectors calling, and now someone trying to keep her silent, Madison has no time for re-kindling her high school crush with police chief Brash deCordova. She has her hands full just trying to stay alive.
If she survives her amateur investigation, Maddy has a decision to make. Will she go back to her life in Dallas, or will she build a new life here in The Sisters?
Read the Full Award-Winning Series, in Order. FREE with Kindle Unlimited!
Book One: Chicken Scratch
Book Two: When the Stars Fall
Book Three: Stipulations and Complications
Book Four: Home Again: Starting Over
Book Five: Genny’s Ballad
Book Six: Christmas in The Sisters
Book Seven: The Lilac Code
Book Eight: Wildflower Wedding: With a Killer Reception
Book Nine: To Be Announced
All available FREE in Kindle Unlimited!more
Good read. Good enough that I read #2 and am currently reading #3 in the series. I have #4, also.
Wow! Even living here in chicken ranch country, the graphic portrayal of chicken farming was enough to put me off my lunch. The book had a surprise ending while educating readers to the technology surrounding those massive chicken houses.
I do like the book and the series, it is funny and interesting characters. I do get tired of people especially women doing things that everyone knows is not smart!
Good story, funny
I found the book entertaining. The characters were realistic except for the inevitable trouble chromosomes that cause the heroine constantly to get into “trouble”, but this is inevitable in a mystery that evolves into a series. There is a nice romance outlined that is completely safe for all readers. I found the story to be well written, cohesive and with just the minimum of grammar mistakes. Does anybody remember that direct objects and objects of prepositional phrases take the objective case?
Love reading stories set in Texas!
Fairly fast read with a different subject matter which the author either knows about first hand or did some very extensive research. Decent characters and some amusing parts along with some mystery. I would have like the ending fleshed out a little bit more, but overall, a decent read.
Being a Texan, I must have selected this book because of the Texas setting. Books that have an unskilled, untrained female lead solving crimes for the police are generally too corny for me. This one wasn’t quite as bad as the main character was hired to investigate instead of jumpping in uninvited. Initially she was using proper precautions and informing the police of her findings and suspisions as she should have, and that part I appreciated. When she started acting on her own and putting herself into dangerous situations, the outcome became all too predictable.
I appreciate that it was a sweet, clean story and would have liked the characters more if they had not had such ridiculous names. – Yes, there are folks in Texas who give their offspring some very interesting monikers, but usually not everyone in the entire town!
It is not a bad book, just not my cup of tea.
As a side light, the book gives you a look into the chicken for food industry while keeping with a cozy small town mystery feel. I like that it’s not graphically steamy but a little romance thrown in.
Having grown up on a chicken farm, of course I had to read this book. The writing was witty, the characters believable, and the mystery page-turning. Once you read the first in the series, you’ll want to keep on reading.
fun. Lots of appealing characters, well developed.
Really loved this book, just had to get the rest of the series. Very well written, you really invest in the characters and believe in them. The romance is real, but not graphic which I like, leaves a little to the imagination.
Good read!!! Enjoy!!
I enjoyed this mystery and now am on book five of the series. It reminds me a little of A grown up Stephanie Plum.
Loved it
Great book. Fun.
I really enjoyed this book and was sorry when it ended. Will definitely look for others by this author.
A very good first book. I want to see what happens next for Madison and her family.
A lot of information about chicken farming….
It was a real page turner with the suspense and the possibility of romance.