Brown and de Luca Return

I'm Rachel and just so you know up front, I've got a mouth on me. Not in public–when I can help it. Cussing is bad for the image of a bona fide guru of self-help, or that which I call "the bullsh*t I write."Only, I'm not so sure it's bullsh*t, because in trying it out, I got my eyesight back after 20 years. Yeah, the corneal tissue came from a serial killer, and yeah, I started seeing his crimes. But still, eyesight.I also have the hottest detective in the universe attached to my proverbial–and, okay, wider than I'd like–hip. I got his 2 nephews with the package and I couldn't fu–freaking love Jeremy and Josh more if I was their mother, which I'm way too young to be.That's a lie, Rache. They're twelve and eighteen. You're thirty–Don't interrupt, Inner B*tch, I'm on a roll.I also have my amazing bulldog, Myrtle. I understand her. She's blind like I used to be.And I got a little something extra with my cornea transplant. "It's a blessing and a curse," said the greatest TV detective ever.Only my something extra was…let's say down. And one of Josh's sixth-going-into-seventh-grade pals has been kidnapped. The sick prick snatched him off his bicycle and left a note behind. "Wait for instructions." Only none ever came.What a time for my antennae to be out of whack!

I'm going along in my blissful life, waiting for my guy to get off his ass and pop the question and trying to put my next self-help book to bed, when I'm interrupted by a mental intruder. I'm suddenly doing a ride-along inside some stranger's head, while the attached set of hands strangle a guy in the back seat of a car.It felt like I was killing the guy. But I didn't, because I woke up cussing (not unusual) in my own bed beside my sexy cop and my blind bulldog. Said sexy cop then gets a text about a body, and I know it's the man I just sort of murdered.Turns out mister picture-wire necktie isn't the only victim. One of the others was punched in the face by our 19 year-old sort of kid in front of 20 witnesses right before he vanished. Jeremy is brought in for questioning by Mason's own co-cops.The only other suspects are a woman who beams sweetness and light like a freakin' earthbound angel, and an old horror star who's supposed to be dead. And if those two are murderers, I'm Miz Manners.Mason wants them to be guilty because it would clear Jeremy. He thinks I'm keeping things from him, which I am. He thinks I'm not putting Jeremy first, which I totally am. This whole thing is getting between us. So I've gotta solve it, fast.Even if it means going face-to-face with a serial killer.But the vigilante is more broken than I bargained for, and is determined to silence me. Permanently.

"Maggie Shayne's books have a permanent spot on my keeper shelf."~#1 NY Times Bestselling Author
KAREN ROBARDSSo, I'm going along in my blissful life, waiting for my guy to get off his ass and pop the question and trying to put my next self-help book to bed, when I'm interrupted by a mental intruder. I'm suddenly doing a ride-along inside some stranger's head, while the attached set of hands strangle a guy in the back seat of a car.It felt like I was killing the guy. But I didn't, because I woke up cussing (not unusual) in my own bed beside my sexy cop and my blind bulldog. Said sexy cop then gets a text about a body, and I know it's the man I just sort of murdered.Turns out mister picture-wire necktie isn't the only victim. One of the others was punched in the face by our 19 year-old sort of kid in front of 20 witnesses right before he vanished. Jeremy is brought in for questioning by Mason's own co-cops.The only other suspects are a woman who beams sweetness and light like a freakin' earthbound angel, and an old horror star who's supposed to be dead. And if those two are murderers, I'm Miz Manners.Mason wants them to be guilty because it would clear Jeremy. He thinks I'm keeping things from him, which I am. He thinks I'm not putting Jeremy first, which I totally am. This whole thing is getting between us. So I've gotta solve it, fast.Even if it means going face-to-face with a serial killer.But the vigilante is more broken than I bargained for, and is determined to silence me. Permanently."Shayne has hit the jackpot with the pairing of self-help author Rachel de Luca and Detective Mason Brown.

"Maggie Shayne's books have a permanent spot on my keeper shelf." -#1 NY Times Bestselling Author KAREN ROBARDSHey, I'm Rachel de Luca, a self-help guru with a potty mouth and a penchant for crime-solving. My partner, soon to be husband if I can get over my paralyzing fear, is Mason Brown, a detective with the Binghamton PD.Ten years ago, professional mermaid Eva Quaid disappeared without a trace from The Sapphire Club. Now, my niece Misty is working at the same club, doing the same job. Coincidentally, (not) Misty's college roommate is in the thick of her self-produced true crime podcast about the same cold case. Misty has kept every bit of this from our way-too-close-for-privacy family.None of this would be a big deal, except that I've been having nightmares. It's my wedding day, and I look from my adoring groom to my twin nieces, face down in the shallows of the reservoir behind the altar.I dreamt, too, of a dying mermaid who's been trying to get my attention ever since.When my sister expresses worry about her twin daughters, Mason and I agree to do a little snooping-only to find Misty has been keeping some big secrets, and is not where she's supposed to be. Nobody knows where she is.I'm pretty sure that Misty's gone off the grid with her podcasting partner Zig to surveil their favorite suspects in the ten-year-old case of the missing mermaid.I'm even more sure the mermaid is dead, and that her killer is determined to keep their oldest, deadliest secret, even if it means taking another young woman's life.I have to find my beloved niece before my visions come true-the way they always do.