Chicken
Scratch
The
Sisters, Texas Series Book 1
by
Becki Willis
Genre:
Cozy Mystery
Named
2016 Best Mystery Series by Texas Association of Authors.
When
Madison Reynolds finds herself widowed and penniless before forty,
she does the only thing she knows to do – she packs up her teenage
twins and moves back home with her eighty-year-old grandmother. Life
in The Sisters, Texas has not changed much since she’s been gone,
but at least her best friend Genesis is there to soften the
transition back into small-town life.
To
make ends meet, Madison opens In a Pinch Temporary Services.
Her first real client is Ronny Gleason, but when she shows up for the
first day of work at the Gleason Poultry Farm, Madison makes a
gruesome discovery. The dead body she finds belongs to Mr. Gleason.
When a local man is arrested for murder, Madison takes on the job of
proving his innocence. Even though she is not a private investigator,
both mothers are desperate: Lucy Ngyen to clear her son’s name, and
Madison to pay her bills. But as she begins asking questions around
town, her interference is not welcome.
With
a daughter determined to go back to Dallas, a son settling into small
town life, a feisty grandmother who knows all the town gossip, bill
collectors calling, and now someone trying to keep her silent,
Madison has no time for re-kindling her high school crush with police
chief Brash deCordova. She has her hands full just trying to stay
alive.
If
she survives her amateur investigation, Maddy has a decision to make.
Will she go back to her life in Dallas, or will she build a new life
here in The Sisters?
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“You were trespassing on
posted property.”
“I didn’t see the sign.”
“Did you happen to notice
the fence?”
Madison chose not to
comment. With a determined glint in her hazel eyes, she said, “I also overheard
them talking about the boss, someone obviously higher up than Ronny Gleason.
And I think you’re right. I think this is an organized gambling ring.”
“I’m so glad you approve
of my theory. I suppose your years of watching Matlock and CSI qualify you to
offer your glowing endorsement?”
With great effort,
Madison resisted the urge to stick her tongue out at him.
Brash continued. “Of
course, the biggest problem I have with all of this is that you were witness to
illegal activity, yet failed to call it in. By failing to report it, a smart
Assistance District Attorney could argue your silence makes you an accessory to
crime.”
Madison had a quick
comeback, along with a charming smile. “A smart Chief of Police would recognize
I have valuable information to share and would never dream of pressing
charges.”
She knew he was having
difficulty maintaining his stoic expression. His eyes glittered with
appreciation, but his voice remained gruff. “You should have reported it,
Maddy. We might could have caught them in the act.”
When The Stars Fall
The
Sisters, Texas Series Book 2
Madison
Reynolds is rebuilding her life, one obstacle at a time.
But
the building blocks aren’t standard issue: widowed at
thirty-nine…betrayed by her late husband…mother of teenaged
twins…finances in shambles…living with her eighty-year-old
grandmother…still attracted to her teenage crush Brash deCordova,
who just happens to be the Chief of Police in The Sisters…embroiled
in yet another murder mystery… How will she ever get all the blocks
assembled and stacked one upon another, in order to build a future
for herself and her children?
Madison’s
newest client at In a Pinch Temp Service is a
suspicious wife, up against a formidable foe—the lovely Caress
Ellingsworth, former soap opera queen. When the star is murdered and
Madison is eyewitness to the deed, she wonders if the shadowed person
she saw commit the crime might really be her client. Now Madison is
torn between uncovering the truth and keeping her client’s name off
the suspect list.
Caress
is not the only star in town these days. With a little help from
Granny Bert and Madison’s best friend Genesis, the popular
television show Home Again arrives, with some crazy notion about
remodeling the Big House for Maddy and her twins. The problem is,
Madison can’t afford to buy the house, much less pay to have it
renovated. No matter how tempting the offer—or how tempting the
show’s star, Nick Vilardi—Madison sees it as just another block
that will not fit.
Even
if she manages to stack the blocks in a semblance of order, even if
she climbs her way up and reaches for the sky, what happens when the
stars fall?
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on July 1-2 and July 14 **
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Unbidden, an old story
Granny Bert told Madison years ago came to mind. According to her grandmother,
a woman’s purse was stolen from a similar hook, keys and wallet still inside. A
good Samaritan called the next day to report finding the purse and arranged a
meeting to return it. As the story went, while the grateful woman was gone the
thief used her own house key to go inside the house and steal her blind. To
this day, Madison always took the time to wrap her purse strap around the hook
or to stash her bag elsewhere.
A wicked idea slipped
inside Madison’s mind. George Gail had paid her a thousand dollars to learn the
woman’s identity, but even if she followed the Lincoln all the way to another
town, there was no guarantee of success. But there was another way.
And Granny Bert had suggested a diversion.
Ignoring her conscience,
Madison dug into her pocket and found a roll of breath mints. She swiped a
piece of toilet tissue from the adjacent stall and wrapped it around the mints
several time, leaving a long twisted ‘tail’ sticking up. She waited until she
heard another rustle of clothes and was certain the home-wrecking woman was
otherwise occupied, then rolled the mints along the floor beneath the middle
stall.
In what she hoped sounded
like a frightened voice, Madison squealed. “Oh my Gosh! What is that? Is that a
rat?”
The home-wrecker
immediately shrieked. Madison’s hand slipped over the door, snagging the purse
as she heard the commotion on the other side. She could just imagine the woman
jumping to her feet, black tights tangled around her knees, frantically dancing
around the tiny space and scanning the back wall for a glimpse of the rodent.
“Oh, it is a rat!” Madison cried again, even as her hand made quick
work of jerking the wallet from the designer purse. A silver compact came out
alongside the expensive wallet and clattered to the floor, adding to the noise
and confusion. As it rolled into the stall, Madison added urgently, “Watch out,
there it goes again!”
Obviously terrified, the
woman inside blubbered incoherently. Her heels tapped out a frantic tempo on
the tile floor as she hopped from one foot to the other. By now, she was in
actual sobs.
Tamping down feelings of remorse,
Madison flicked the wallet open and quickly scanned the driver’s license
inside.
She’s
a local? From right here in Naomi? Madison absorbed the surprise as she quickly slipped the wallet back
inside the purse, yelled another warning that the rat was along the wall, and
quickly dropped the purse over the stall door. Not bothering to find out if the
strap snagged on the holder, she headed for the exit.
“I’ll call for the
manager!” she assured the frightened woman as she hurried out.
Stipulations and
Complications
The Sisters, Texas
Series Book 3
Life
comes with stipulations.
If you want to fit into last year’s
swimsuit, you can’t eat ice cream and a Gennydoodle cookie after
every meal.
If you want to go to Heaven, you can’t raise Hell on
Saturday night and show up in the church pew on Sunday morning,
hungover and reeking of cheap perfume.
And if you want your
hundred-year-old mansion completely updated and remodeled for free,
you have to sacrifice.
Stipulations, my child.
-Granny Bert
Cessna
Now
that Madison Reynolds has agreed to be part of a reality-television
home remodeling show, she barely recognizes her own life. The show is
an instant success, bringing cameras and reporters right to her
doorstep, eager to chronicle her every move in the small Texas town.
With In
a Pinch Temporary Services hovering on the thin line between
prosperity and extinction, Madison takes on another quirky case, this
one concerning a property dispute. Complications turn a simple
mission into all-out danger, and once again Madison finds herself
embroiled in an intriguing mystery.
Between
her cantankerous grandmother, a moody teenage daughter, an
ever-starving son, townspeople eager to grab their fifteen minutes of
fame at her expense, and a mother-in-law appalled by her undignified
foray into the public eye, Madison had her hands full, long before
the skeleton was discovered. Now work is interrupted at the Big
House, ghost stories abound, more secret passages have been
unearthed, and someone is trying to scare her away from her new home.
What
she needs is another session of Brash deCordova’s unique
‘river therapy’… not to mention the kiss that eludes them with
frustrating regularity.
What
she gets is another round of stipulations and complications.
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A police cruiser arrived
on scene, then another. Madison breathed a sigh of relief when she saw a
familiar athletic form crawl from the second car. She determined, however, that
Brash could start his investigation without her. She was fine right here, thank
you.
After a while,
Madison became aware of voices behind her. As the crowd grew front and center,
the swelling number of people pushed along to the side view of the house.
Although the gawkers could not see her sitting on the other side of the large
tree, she could easily hear their discussion.
“Been years since
we’ve found a dead body; now she shows up, and they’re
popping up like weeds!” one person harrumphed.
“I wonder who it is
this time. First, she finds Ronny Gleason dead in his chicken house, then she
watched as Caress Ellingsworth was killed in her own living room. Wonder who
she’s found this time?”
They
could at least get their facts straight, Madison thought sullenly. True, she had witnessed
the fight that resulted in the former soap queen’s death, but she didn’t
actually watch the murder take place. Secondly, it had
been in the actress’ dining room, not the living room. And third, she had not
been the one to discover this body. Details, people.
Home
Again: Starting Over
The
Sisters, Texas Series Book 4
Named
"Best Mystery Series of 2017" by Texas Association of
Authors
Things in The Sisters are heating up, and Madison
Reynolds is in the hot seat.
When a local woman dies in a most
unconventional way, In a Pinch takes on the quirky case and once
again, Maddy finds herself in the middle of a would-be murder
investigation. Even with the help of her grandmother and best friend
Genny, this case may be too hot to handle.
As summer
scorches its way across Texas, drama as thick as the August humidity
rolls through the twin towns of Juliet and Naomi. Granny Bert reveals
a secret that rocks Maddy’s foundation. A celebrity designer joins
the renovation crew at the Big House, bringing twice the chaos and
twice the fans. Madison’s estranged mother-in-law convinces the
twins to spend the summer with her in Dallas. As if all of that isn’t
enough to wreak havoc in Madison’s life, Barry Redmond continues to
propagate his ridiculous grudge against her.
Things really
start smoking when Cutter’s grandfather, rodeo legend Sticker
Pierce, returns to The Sisters and tries to rekindle a romance with
old flame Belle, aka Granny Bert. And Maddy’s latest brush with
death prompts Brash to finally make his move.
With
renovations almost complete and the love of a good man behind her,
Maddy is ready to tell the world: I’m home again, and starting
over.
Don’t miss Book Four in the award-winning The
Sisters, Texas Mystery Series.
**On
sale for .99 from July 1st-21st, then $1.99 until July
28th**
“During our
delightful conversation, Miss Baker mentioned that you are somewhat of an
amateur sleuth. I understand you work part time for a private investigator?”
“I’m not sure
‘sleuth’ is the right word,” Madison hedged. “You might say I am curious by
nature, and that I like to solve puzzles. And as far as working with a private
investigator, I mainly do routine surveillance,” she clarified. Code word for boring.
“But you have an
impressive record in solving cases.”
“I’d like to think I
helped clear up a few inconsistencies.”
Carson Elliot’s broad
smile was bright against his dark skin. “And that is why I am hiring you, Mrs.
Reynolds. You seem perfect for the job.”
“What job?” she
squeaked.
He continued as if
she had not spoken. “Money is not a concern,” he assured her. “If Genesis says
you are worth it, that is good enough for me.”
Was this man for
real? Madison had heard about these artistic types—brilliantly talented, but
often not in full control of their mental facilities. Carson Elliot wanted to
hire her, no questions asked, on the recommendation of someone he met just this
morning. Madison wondered about his stability as he opened a desk drawer, took
out a ledger, and began writing a check.
“I trust two thousand
dollars will be enough to retain your services. If you will submit receipts for
reimbursement, I will gladly pay for any research or expenses that you may
incur.” He spoke as he wrote. With a flourishing movement of his hand, he
ripped the check from its bindings and presented it to Madison.
By natural reflex, she
reached for the check, even as she protested, “Mr. Elliot, I have no idea what
it is you are hiring me to do!”
Genny's
Ballad
The
Sisters, Texas Series Book 5
By
all accounts, everyone loves Genny.
So why does someone want
her dead?
There’s something
special about Genesis Baker, owner of The Sister’s popular New
Beginnings Café. With her dimpled smile and twinkling blue eyes,
Genny has practically the entire town eating from the palm of her
hand. But Genny is hiding a secret. Despite her sunny disposition and
golden touch, there is heartache in her past, and heartache, they
say, comes in threes.
Heartache Number One: An
unwelcomed customer shows up at New Beginnings.
Apparently, the restraining order against him has lapsed.
Heartache
Number Two: Genny’s arch nemesis from high school returns
to town. Twenty years has done nothing to mellow the bitter feud
between these two women.
Heartache Number Three: As
Genny finally acknowledges her feelings for a younger man—sexy
firefighter Cutter Montgomery—memories of her first love come back
to haunt her.
On top of it all, someone is stalking Genny,
determined to make her life miserable.
As it turns
out, being kidnapped is only the beginning of her troubles…
Great
as a stand-alone, but Book Five of the award winning The
Sisters, Texas Mystery Series, voted Best Mystery Series by
the Texas Association of Authors, two years in a row!
“You know those phone
calls I mentioned?”
“The
telemarketers?”
Genny nodded. “Yes.
Only they aren’t from telemarketers.” She blew out a deep breath and voiced the
truth of the matter. “Someone is stalking me. And I want to hire you to help me
find them.”
Madison stared at her
friend in astonishment. “Stalking you? What are you talking about? And why is
this the first I’ve heard about it?”
Genny explained the
recent chain of events. She was halfway through her story when the door to her
office opened and Cutter burst inside.
He didn’t say hello.
He didn’t acknowledge she had another visitor. His face was set in an angry
scowl as he accosted her with his words. “Why didn’t you tell me about last
night?”
Her mouth set in
perturbed lines. Her voice dripped with cynicism. “And hello to you, too, Mr.
Montgomery. Come right in. Don’t worry about interrupting the private
conversation I was having with my friend. Please, yell at me all you
want.”
“Don’t make it sound
like I’m over-reacting,” he warned angrily. He shut the door behind him and
strode across the room, where he had the grace to shoot Madison an apologetic
look. “I’m sorry to burst in on you, Maddy, but did she tell you? Did she tell
you someone came to her house last night and set a fire?”
Maddy gasped. They
hadn’t gotten that far into the conversation. “A fire? Genny, what is he
talking about? Is your house okay? What happened?”
“Yes, my house is
fine. It was a flash fire in a bucket. Not nearly as dramatic as Cutter makes
it sound.”
“And they left a
message on your dumpster!” he continued to rant. “Before we
talked! Why didn’t you tell me, Genny?”
“You
skipped your turnovers. I didn’t want to bother you.” She tried to sound
flippant, but even she could hear the hurt in her voice.
Cutter stopped
abruptly and blinked. Hard. He saw the uncertainty on her face. The
vulnerability. “You thought I stood you up!” His tone was incredulous. “You
thought I had second thoughts about kissing you and that I stood you up
yesterday morning!”
Genny shot a look
toward her friend. Surprise popped Madison’s mouth wide open.
“Okay, I am obviously
way behind on this story,” Madison grumbled. “You have
to start at the beginning. Tell. Me. Everything.”
Becki
Willis, best known for her popular The Sisters, Texas Mystery Series
and Forgotten Boxes, always dreamed of being an author. In November
of '13, that dream became a reality. Since that time, she has
published eleven books, won first place honors for Best Mystery
Series, Best Suspense Fiction and Best Audio Book, and has introduced
her imaginary friends to readers around the world.
An
avid history buff, Becki likes to poke around in old places and learn
about the past. Other addictions include reading, writing, junking,
unraveling a good mystery, and coffee. She loves to travel, but
believes coming home to her family and her Texas ranch is the best
part of any trip. Becki is a member of the Association of Texas
Authors, the National Association of Professional Women, and the
Brazos Writers organization. She attended Texas A&M University
and majored in Journalism.
Becki
Willis is having a Christmas in July Sweestakes! Share your favorite
holiday tradition on Facebook and win Fire tablet, signed books, a
$25 Amazon gift card, ornament or ebooks!
More details can be found
HERE!
Follow
the tour HERE
for exclusive excerpts!
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