It’s the end of the summer and Journalist Penelope Trubble has returned home to help her father with the Private Eye business. With a contest prize of ten thousand dollars on the line, the town is full of summer vacationers on the hunt for the rare 1913 Liberty Head nickel that was lost to Bohemian Lake over fifty years ago. With the help of spitfire local, Eve Berns and Cody Lumos, the town’s handsome new detective, amateur sleuth Lucky Penny takes the bait and goes diving for the story behind the legend of the million dollar coin. Unfortunately, her dive turns up more bodies than missing treasure. The deeper she digs, the more secrets she finds hidden in the sand, but will she be buried along with them?
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MY REVIEW
With a last name like Trubble, I think 'Lucky Penny' was destined to become a cozy heroine, don't you? After all, they are experts extraordinaire at finding trouble.
There are several non-standard (my words) settings in Murder She Floats that, for me, add a certain 'je ne sais quoi' to the mystery. Since everyone is diving the lake to find a special coin, a lot of things happen under the water. Penny finds something she thinks may be a body, but it turns out to be something innocuous, but the whole town knows it because the emergency folks were called in. But unfortunately for Penny she later has the chance to see that finding a body underwater is every bit as terrible as finding one on dry land.
(The next paragraph is incognito to hide a possible spoiler. If you want to see it anyway, you can highlight it.)
I hope it's not giving away too much, but there are secret passages all through the lake resort's hotel. When the place was built, back in the day, who knows for what they were used. These days, the hotel staff use them on occasion while serving guests or cleaning, etc. And people with some knowledge of the hotel's special feature use them as well.
I did like that Penny and the town's 'handsome new detective' Cody Lumos, don't go immediately to that 'awkward attraction' stage, although there may be the possibility in future installments of "The Penning Trouble Mysteries". And, well ... everybody needs a friend like Eve. They just do. And that's all I'm going to say about that. ;)
Murder She Floats is a great start to a hopefully long-lasting series. The mystery is delish and the danger is real. A great end of the summer read!
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MEET THE AUTHOR
Rachael Stapleton lives in a Second Empire Victorian home with her husband and two children in Ontario, Canada and enjoys writing in the comforts of aged wood and arched dormers.
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GIVEAWAY!!!
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(Disclosure: I received a copy of the book from the author and publishers via Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours in exchange for my honest review.)
Thank you for having me and for the amazing review. I agree that everyone needs a friend like Eve. My fave character to write but shhhh don't tell the other...
ReplyDeleteThank you for the review and for hosting me!
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