Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Jennie Bentley | History Mystery : Truth or Fiction?
Uncategorized / March 4, 2010

It’s the kind of coincidence that, if I’d put it into a book, nobody would believe. Picture this: it’s sometime in late 2008, and I’m sitting in front of my computer, getting ready to start writing the third book in my Do-It-Yourself mystery series from Berkley Prime Crime, featuring textile-designer-turned-home-renovator Avery Baker and her boyfriend, hunky handyman Derek Ellis. (Remember those names. There’ll be a quiz later.) Each book in the series details the renovation of a decrepit house, and each book includes a few fresh murders and some sort of history mystery. In book 1, Fatal Fixer-Upper Avery inherited her Aunt Inga’s Second Empire Victorian cottage and hooked up with Derek, the handyman she hired to help her renovate it. In book 2,Spackled and Spooked the two of them bought and renovated their first project together: a low-slung mid-century brick ranch, rumored to be haunted because of a tragedy that took place some seventeen or eighteen years ago. I had already decided that in book 3, Avery and Derek would be taking on the renovation of an old carriage house at the back of their friend Kate McGillicutty’s property. They’re broke, since they haven’t sold the house from book…