The Paradise Creek Inn is open
for business in rural Wilbarger County Texas. Business is slow except for the
occasional parties for family or friends, until a prestigious actor becomes
stranded on the property. Suddenly Lizzie Fletcher and her family are booking
parties and events left and right – a dream come true.
Things quickly change when the
hired hand makes a gruesome discovery. Sheriff Wade Adams and his team are
called to investigate. While evidence is being analyzed, another body is
discovered. Long kept secrets revolving around these discoveries begin to
unravel.
Death
on Paradise Creek is a 60,929 word, 205 page murder mystery set in
Wilbarger County Texas.
Paperbacks are $15.95 and ebooks
are $6.99
It
is available for purchase at:
Amazon.com in paperback and for Kindle
Barnes and Noble.com in paperback and for Nook
Black Rose Writing in paperback
Chapter 6
Lizzie
woke Saturday morning to the smell of coffee brewing. She hadn’t realized how
much she missed waking up to that smell. She always had coffee after she got to
work. She went downstairs to find Ellen and Lois sitting at the kitchen table.
“Good
morning, Mama. Good morning, Granny,” she said as she planted a kiss on each
woman’s cheek. “Where’s Daddy?”
“He
had to get started moving the cattle to the east pasture. He said he’d be
missing a lot of work since we’ll be in town for Jan’s festivities later this
week,” Ellen explained.
“Lizzie, sit down; I want to talk to
you about something,” Lois said.
“Okay.
It sounds like something serious Granny.”
“Well,
it is in a way. Is your job in Chicago the kind of job you always dreamed
about?”
“No,
it isn’t. It’s a work my way up the ladder and pay my dues kind of job.”
“Would
you still like to run your own inn?”
“That
has always been my dream, but I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”
“Alright
then. I have a proposition for you. I’m getting too old to live in that great
big house all alone. You’re parents and I have been talking about this, and we
want to see what you think. We’ll turn the house over to you. You can renovate
it and make it into the inn you’ve always dreamed of owning.”
“But
Granny…”
“Now,
let me finish,” Granny interrupted.” I’ll move in here with James and Ellen.
You’ll manage the inn. I’ll fund the renovations, within reason mind you. Your
parents and I will help when you need it. The old place needs fixing up anyway,
and I see no reason to fix it up only for one old lady. It will become a family
business.” Granny paused for a moment, and then said, “Well what do you think?”
Lizzie
didn’t know what to say. She wanted to jump at the chance to design and run her
own inn.
Based on her debut novel, Death on Paradise Creek, Dianne Smithwick-Braden looks to be a promising new Texas author. Her writing is relaxed and easy to read making for an enjoyable story. What's great about Death on Paradise Creek is that it has multiple elements - mystery, clean romance, history, even natural disasters - and a super-interesting sub-plot that started over a hundred years earlier than the main storyline. Smithwick-Braden expertly weaves the separate storylines together and provides an unexpected and satisfactory ending.
Death on Paradise Creek has a rich cast of characters, and Smithwick-Braden does an outstanding job of fleshing-out each of them. Readers think they have a pretty clear picture, and then the author throws in a detail that muddies what had seemed clear, which makes solving the whodunnit part of the story more difficult.
Though the writing is mostly solid, I think the book could easily be taken to the next level with another pass at editing. There are some punctuation errors, a misplaced modifier or two, and too many extraneous details that didn't add to the story. I would have also preferred less of the play-by-play dialogue and more summarizing of scenes.
Sensitive readers need not worry about any unsavory elements, as there are maybe four swear words (mild), only implied sexual situations, and the violence is not graphic in any way. Death on Paradise Creek is light and lovely.
Thank you to the author and Lone Star Book Blog Tours for providing me an eBook copy in exchange for my honest review -- the only kind I give.
Dianne Smithwick-Braden is a native Texan raised in rural Wilbarger
County on the family farm. She is a graduate of Vernon High School and West
Texas A & M University. She currently resides in Amarillo, Texas with her
husband, Richard. She has been a high school science teacher in Amarillo since
August of 1990.
Dianne is an avid reader of fiction but murder mysteries are by far
her favorite genre. Death on Paradise Creek is her first novel. She has already
begun work on a sequel.
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