Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Death of a Wolfman by Susan Boles - #review #giveaway


Lily Gayle Lambert is a professional seamstress specializing in period dresses for convention attendees and re-enactment groups along with being an amateur genealogist. And a big pain in the butt to the county sheriff…who just happens to be her cousin.

Quicker than she can stitch together the threads of a genealogy project she’s just signed on to research, Lily Gayle finds herself embroiled in investigating the Halloween night murder of a stranger who suffers from ‘wolfman syndrome’. Before she can even get going good on the first murder a member of a prominent family turns up dead too.

Escaping from a trailer in the woods owned by two good ole boys suspected of being involved and a confrontation with the eldest son of the town’s wealthiest family have Lily Gayle hot on the trail of the killer.

With the help of her lifelong best friend, Dixie, Lily Gayle must find the link between the two and solve the mystery before her investigation makes her the next target.



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MY REVIEW

Am I glad the relationship between Lily Gayle and Ben was clarified, because it had me a little worried at the beginning.  But that's because probably the usual cozy heroine's love interest is an officer of the law.  LG and Ben are cousins!  But then I thought, well, maybe their family tree doesn't fork that much.  (I say that with a lot of love, because that's what they say about my home state!)  Turns out there's nothing romantic going on there at all, just familial concern and the heroine frustrating the you-know-what out of the local LEOs.

Ben gets a call out one evening while he is having supper with LG for a body.  There is someone (or something?) lying dead in the woods, dressed in clothing, but looking for all the world like a Hollywood-style werewolf.  Of course, the law doesn't want to admit that werewolves exist but it gets even more interesting when it is discovered that the being was killed by a silver bullet. (Cue the movie mood music.)

In a fun bit of 'I-know-something-you-don't', LG figures out what the deal is with the dead guy before, oh, most if not everyone else in town.  But, rather than have her idea criticized by her cousin, she writes her idea on a piece of paper, folds it over and hands it to Ben, telling him to open it up when they get the forensic reports back.

Then there is the wealthiest family in town, who are every bit as strange as you might think a small town old money family might be.  The spinster daughter is a midwife, and it turns out that each generation of this family, one of the women has been a midwife.  Odd tradition, to say the least.  So as much as the women get out and about, that's how little the men engage with the locals.

The midwife has come to LG, not because she is expecting, but because she is an amateur genealogist, and LizBeth (the midwife) wants some research done on her family tree.  As LG starts this paid project, the eldest son of the Mitchell family comes and asks in increasingly threatening terms for LG to let it be.

And the fascinating and strange reveals and occurrences continue to the end of the book!  Ms. Boles is an expert at keeping readers engaged and on their literary toes!

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MEET THE AUTHOR



Susan calls McNairy County, TN her home ground even though she has moved away. It was here, at Bethel Springs Junior High School that she began her writing career with two friends. They formed their own little writers group that was so secret they were the only ones who knew it existed. She still has some of the stories they wrote carefully preserved in a loose leaf binder and tucked away for safety.

She has worked in retail management, briefly for the Census Bureau and for many years in the investment/insurance industry in the regulatory compliance arena. All of which are left brain activities. So she exercises her right brain activity with reading and writing…just to keep both sides even.

Reading has been a passion since she was very young. As a toddler, her mother read to her from her ‘baby books’ and her Mother tells a story about her holding one of them upsidedown and ‘reading’ by repeating the story verbatim from memory.

Death of a Wolfman is the first in the Lily Gayle Lambert mystery series. Her previously published romantic suspene novel, Fated Love, is a contemporary paranormal romantic suspense (with a twist of paranormal) set in Memphis, TN. Her first novel, Kate’s Pride, is a historical women’s fiction set in West Tennessee in the aftermath of the Civil War. The novel is loosely based on her own Great Grandmother and published under the pen name Renee Russell.

Life got in the way of writing for many years but now she’s come back to her early love.

Stay in touch for upcoming releases!

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GIVEAWAY!!!


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Click on the banner above to go to the tour page, where you will find links to more reviews of this title.  You can also find out how to become a blog host for future book tours while you are there!

(Disclosure:  I received a copy of this book from the author and publishers via Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.)

2 comments:

  1. LOVE this review!You are a sassy gal like Lily Gayle. Thank you so much, LuAnn!!!

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  2. Sounds like Lily has a lot going on in her life. Book sounds like a great read.

    ReplyDelete