Smile Beach Murder

March 1, 2022
An out-of-work reporter probes a death the police have written off. Mass layoffs at the Charlotte Times hit Callie Padget hard. Once she can no longer afford her big-city apartment, her childhood home on Cattail Island seems as good a place as any to escape. Not that there's much of her family there. Her father left before she was born, and her mother died when she was 12. Her Uncle Hudson is a cantankerous old coot, but he's kept her old bedroom in his loft waiting for her. Hudson prods Callie into working part time for Antoinette Redfield at MotherVine bookshop, where she encounters Eva Meeks, who runs Meeks Hardware with her sister, Georgia. Eva, who's all atwitter with hopes of finding the pirate treasure long rumored to be buried near Cattail, consults every treasure-hunting volume that MotherVine stocks. But her dreams of rubies and pearls crash when she falls from the top of Cattail Lighthouse. Though the police rule her death a suicide, Callie has doubts. It seems odd that Eva would kill herself when she was so optimistic about finding the alleged treasure. And it seems more than a coincidence that Eva died 26 years to the day after the equally fatal plunge of Callie's mother. When Eva's daughter, Summer, brings Callie a poem that's the first in a series of treasure-hunt clues, she decides to investigate. MotherVine's book delivery service gives her the perfect excuse to question many of the island's residents. The more she digs, the more she falls back in love with Cattail, with its annual Paint Your Door Red Day, its fabulous Cattaillion, and its handsome martial arts instructor, who sets her pulse racing. Turns out you can go home again.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 25, 2022
In this perky series launch from Bessette (Simply from Scratch), Callie Paget, a single, 38-year-old journalist who loves Mary Higgins Clark novels, has reluctantly returned home to Cattail Island on North Carolina’s Outer Banks after being laid off at the Charlotte Times. She takes a job at the island’s bookstore, where she runs into high school pal Eva Meeks, who’s searching for books on Blackbeard’s treasure. Legend has it the treasure is somewhere on the island, and Eva believes she has dug up a clue pointing to Cattail Lighthouse. Callie demurs when Eva invites her to join her on the treasure hunt, so when Eva is found dead at the bottom of the lighthouse, Callie is devastated. Her death is ruled a suicide, but Callie can’t believe Eva would do that to her daughter, who’s only 12—the same age Callie was when her own mother fell from the top of the lighthouse 26 years to the day earlier. Bessette offers everything a cozy lover could possibly want: a charming setting with a host of quirky natives, a bookstore with a cat, a lighthouse, and a hunky potential boyfriend. With any luck, the appealing Callie will be back soon. Agent: Adam Chromy, Movable Type Management.