Death at a Fixer-Upper: A Home Sweet Home Mystery
Publisher: Alibi (May 17, 2016)

Synopsis

In Sarah T. Hobart’s wickedly funny and fast-paced Home Sweet Home mystery series, small-town real estate agent Sam Turner discovers it’s bad for business when her clients keep dropping dead.

Newly armed with her real estate license, Sam Turner loves Arlinda, her quirky seaside hometown in Northern California. But life by the beach isn’t exactly a breeze: She and her teenage son, Max, are being evicted from their apartment, her long absent ex-husband unexpectedly resurfaces, and her possibly romantic relationship with sexy Chief of Police Bernie Aguilar is, well . . . complicated. All Sam wants is a quick and easy sale. What she gets instead is a killer headache—or three.

Sam’s trying to drum up interest in 13 Aster Lane, a rambling Victorian fixer-upper that’s more than a little neglected—and possibly haunted—so when a trio of offers arrive out of the blue, she can’t help thinking it’s too good to be true. But after a new client drops dead on the property, she fears she’s lost more than a commission. Before Sam’s out of house and home, she must unmask a killer targeting her clients, or the only property she’ll be moving will be plots—at the local cemetery.

Review

This is a fantastic new cozy series about a real estate agent (which sort of hits home since hubby is in that business).  It was interesting to read how they processed contracts since it is a bit more old school compared to all the electronic capabilities that are actually used to process a transaction these days.  But that isn’t germane to the book, just something that caught my eye.

The mystery itself isn’t solely focused on who is murdered and why.  Yes it is tied to the story but there is so much more to it than that, it is the history of the owners of 13 Asher Lane – a falling down home – and what happened to a missing heir and why are there now multiple offers on this house?

Sam is an intriguing character and is not a cut-throat real estate agent which turns out to be a good thing in the end…you will have to read it to find out why that is the case.  She is a single parent because her ex is MIA, until he resurfaces in town.  She is interested in her sister’s ex-husband, but that is a whole ‘nother story that is explained as well.

Good pace and kept me hanging on until the end so we had to give it 5 paws up!

About the Author

Sarah Hobart is a real estate agent and former newspaper reporter in Northern California, where she lives with her husband and two children in a majestic fixer-upper overlooking State Highway 101.

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