Hall Ways Blog: Hell to Pay ~ ~ Book Tour Promo*, Review, & Giveaway!

HELL TO PAY

(What Doesn't Kill You, #7)

An Emily Romantic Mystery

Pamela Fagan Hutchins

Genre: Romantic Mystery
Publisher: SkipJack Publishing
Date of Publication: March 26, 2016
# of pages: 383

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Big-haired paralegal and former rodeo queen Emily has her life back on track. Her adoption of Betsy seems like a done deal, her parents have reunited, and she’s engaged to her sexy boss Jack. Then client Phil Escalante’s childhood buddy Dennis drops dead, face first into a penis cake at the adult novelty store Phil owns with his fiancée Nadine, one of Emily’s best friends. The cops charge Phil with murder right on the heels of his acquittal in a trial for burglarizing the Mighty is His Word church offices. Emily’s nemesis ADA Melinda Stafford claims a witness overheard Phil fighting with Dennis over a woman. Before he can mount a defense, Phil falls into a diabetic coma, leaving Nadine shaken and terrified. Meanwhile Betsy’s ultra-religious foster parents apply to adopt her, and Jack starts acting weird and evasive. Emily feels like a calf out of a chute, pulled between the ropes of the header and the heeler, as she fights to help Phil and Nadine without losing Betsy and Jack.

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HALL WAYS REVIEW: From the sighting of the face of Jesus in a quesadilla to the endearing lingo of the characters, this book is a blast of Texas fun. I jumped in on this 7th book in author Pamela Fagan Hutchins's What Doesn't Kill You series, which is the 3rd book featuring protagonist Emily, without having read any of the others. But oh, I will! It works fine as a stand-alone, but I want to know the backstories now.

The characters in Hell to Pay felt familiar, and it didn't take long for me to care about what was happening to them. Like so many women, when Emily gets angry with someone, she redirects the anger to herself, chiding herself for being mean and giving the other person the benefit of the doubt -- even if that person doesn't merit it. Readers will likely see themselves in how Emily reacts to situations where the reality is that a person wasn't courteous, but Emily's first assumptions are that there's been an accident or a medical issue or anything other than the possibility of flat-out rudeness. Readers are sure to get a chuckle out of Emily's vocabulary of substitute swear words and will find Emily infuriatingly reckless, which makes for a lot of discomfort when readers watch Emily make one bad choice after another.

". . . but the shame of my father's actions stuck with me like skunk spray,

no matter how hard I tried to scrub it off."

Pamela Fagan Hutchins uses fabulously descriptive writing so that readers are right in the thick of the story. Figurative language is used well and often with phrases really bringing scenes to life. I reviewed an ARC, so I assume the very few typos will be corrected. The story flows smoothly, page after page, where readers are treated to doses of humor, suspense, danger, tension, and romance.

Thank you to Lone Star Book Blog Tours and SkipJack Publishing for providing me an eBook copy in exchange for my honest review -- the only kind I give.

Pamela Fagan Hutchins writes overly long emails, best-selling, award-winning mysteries (WINNER USA Best Book Award, Fiction: Cross Genre, Finalist) and hilarious nonfiction. The Houston Press named her as one of Houston's Top 10 Authors (2014). She is a recovering attorney and investigator who resides deep in the heart of Nowheresville, Texas and in the frozen north of Wyoming. Pamela has a passion for great writing and smart authorpreneurship as well as long hikes with her hunky husband and pack of rescue dogs, traveling in the Bookmobile, and her Keurig. Download her mystery Saving Grace, free everywhere, and visit her website or drop her a note pamela at pamelahutchins dot com. And if you would like her to visit your book club, women’s group, writer’s group, or library, all you have to do is ask.