#MysteryMonday & Review – Nearly Dead in Iowa by Wendy Byrne @wbyrneauthor #cozy #4paws

StoreyBook Reviews 

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Synopsis

Manhattan socialite Isabella “Izzy” Lewis is in desperate need of a fresh start. Ending up on the wrong side of a nasty divorce, jobless, and pretty much homeless, she’s hit rock bottom. So when the father she never knew asks her to visit him in Iowa, she figures she has nothing more to lose—until she arrives at his home and promptly stumbles (literally) over a dead body.

Now her missing father is murder suspect number one, and Izzy’s in the crosshairs of the local sheriff who’s convinced she’s somehow involved. After being reluctantly adopted by a local group of Jessica Fletcher wannabes, Izzy resolves to find her missing father and the killer. A job that proves harder than she thought as she juggles running down clues to the killer’s identity, her hot but suspicious new next door neighbor, keeping the sleuthing senior citizens out of trouble, and above all, going at least one day without being nearly dead in Iowa.

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Review

Iowa can be deadly! This is a good start to a new series about Isabella who heads to Iowa to meet a father she has never known, while escaping from a marriage that is ending. What she doesn’t expect to find is a dead body in her father’s home or that he is missing and presumed that he killed his best friend.

The mystery is finding out who killed Stan and Isabella jumps into that feet first because she wants to clear her father. She has a group of older ladies, called the Q’s, helping her out by snooping and asking questions wherever possible. Isabella (or Izzy as she is sometimes called) manages to put herself in some not so great situations – but it wouldn’t be a cozy if she didn’t.

I didn’t figure out who the murderer was, but the clues were there…I just went down the wrong path!

There are several intriguing twists that I won’t describe because it makes the story more rounded, but you might be able to figure out a few things as you read the book.

And of course there is a love interest with Gabe. He lives next door to her father and at first you think he doesn’t like Izzy, but we are proved wrong later in the book.

We give this 4 paws up

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About the Author

Wendy has a Masters in Social Work and worked in the child welfare field for twelve years before she decided to pursue her dream of writing.

Between teaching college classes, trying to get her morbidly obese cat to slim down, and tempering the will of her five-year-old granddaughter, who’s determined to become a witch when she turns six so she can fly on her broom to see the Eiffel Tower and put hexes on people—not necessarily in that order—somehow Wendy still manages to fit in writing. She spends the remainder of her days inflicting mayhem on her hero and heroine until they beg for mercy.

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