Whitney Whitaker is the Property Manager for Home & Hearth Realty. Whitney also moonlights, adding her carpentry skills to her uncle’s business, Whitaker Woodworking, loving the work and working alongside her Uncle Roger and cousins Buck and Owen. While Whitney dreams of owning a home one day, she’s saving money by living in the renovated pool house at the back of her parents’ property. Whitney may have even more opportunities to find a home when she passes her real estate exam. Before the upcoming exam, she has a chance to purchase a house to flip and is hopeful that Buck will agree to a partnership on the opportunity and needed renovations. After all, what could go wrong with their combined experience in construction and comfort in working together?

This cozy mystery has many delightful aspects, from the Nashville, Tennessee setting to wonderful characters, beginning with Whitney and the whole Whitaker tribe, the Hartleys at Home & Hearth, and best friend Colette Chevalier. An extra-special mention of love is for Sawdust. His name is purr-fect for the feline sharing Whitney’s life. I loved Sawdust’s intermittent narrative chapters throughout the story, especially when he shared his fear of a demon in his home with Whitney.

I enjoyed the multiple aspects of real estate within the storyline. The twists and turns in the investigation kept spinning, and I didn’t figure it out before the reveal.

I’m looking forward to reading more of this series! ( )

Sorry Ms Kelly

I liked the Pae novels, the adventures of Megan Luz and the lady law dog were fun, and had some plausible plots. This book is the first of another series of her, but I just couldn't buy into it.
DNF ( )

Great. Ready to read the next in the series. ( )

I enjoyed it, look forward to another ( )

Diane Kelly writes a very good series about an IRS agent, Tara Holloway, and a surprisingly decent series about a police officer and her K-9 (surprising because the dog has its own chapters).

This is not on par with those other efforts. This was just short of awful.

The characters are good, but the author has fully grown adults running around saying “the b word” but not thinking twice about haring off to the home of someone they decide must be a suspect and “interrogating” them, flinging accusations around like confetti.

The plot was well constructed but just about smothered under chapters of introspection and a detective just short of being earnestly incompetent.

Sawdust is awesome, but Kelly tends to give him slightly canine tendencies that don't quite ring true, and frankly, no matter how endearing Sawdust is, a reader can't help but wonder if this isn't a marketing gimmick to appease the cat lovers out there.

Disappointing, but this won't be a series I'll be continuing. ( )