Mary Kay Andrews invites you to the beach house in ‘The Homewreckers’

What could be a superior location for romance than a home renovation?

Ah, I listen to the bitter laughter of all of you who’ve been by way of a reno with a substantial other (or ex-sizeable other). But in Mary Kay Andrews’ new beach e-book, The Homewreckers, rehabber Hattie Kavanaugh’s passion for reviving crumbling properties prospects not just to appreciate but to a starring part on a Television display — not to mention clues about a 17-calendar year-old thriller. So what is a very little dumpster fireplace along the way?

Mary Kay Andrews is the nom de plume of Kathy Hogan Trocheck, who was born in Tampa and elevated in St. Petersburg. After a profession as a journalist, mostly in Atlanta, Andrews turned to composing novels and quickly uncovered her way to the bestseller lists with what she calls beach guides, which function partaking characters, breezy humor and a combine of secret and romance — normally literally established at the beach front.

Andrews’ past couple guides have had Florida settings, but this just one is established in Savannah and Tybee Island, Ga., also common turf for the author.

Savannah, with its wealth of handsome more mature homes, is a perfect office for Hattie, who enjoys very little improved than renovating them. As the ebook starts, she’s flat on her back again in the crawl room beneath a “157-year-previous magnificent wreck” that she’s sunk way as well much funds into.

Her inspection of the corroding cast-iron pipes is interrupted when a guy falls via the rotten kitchen area ground and lands on her.

The guy is Mo Lopez, who generates a actuality Tv set series for HPTV (Dwelling Area Tv Community). He’s in Savannah searching for a new sequence strategy after his most current display, Killer Garage, tanked. When he sees a 3-story Queen Anne Victorian surrounded by scaffolding, he walks through an open up doorway for a closer look — and crashes as a result of the ground.

Even with Hattie’s aggravated response, Mo instantly proposes a display concept, starring her: Saving Savannah, a fact series in which she rehabs old homes for the digital camera — and makes her fortune.

Hattie throws him off her work web page, but it’s not prolonged just before she loses the Victorian, and all the dollars she’d invested in it, additionally income from her beloved in-rules. Though she’s only 33, Hattie’s a widow. Soon after her spouse, Hank, died in a bike incident, she grew to become even nearer to his mom and dad, and she works for father-in-law Tug Kavanaugh’s contracting company.

She requires to recoup her losses rapidly, and soon she and Mo have a deal for the present. Scrambling for a new project, Hattie finds that a neglected seashore dwelling on Tybee Island’s desirable Again River is staying offered for unpaid taxes. She scrapes up enough to invest in it — cash from the community will not arrive until afterwards — and receives to function.

The at the time-gorgeous household experienced been handed down through generations of the Creedmores, an aged Savannah family members, but intrafamily feuds led to it staying marketed. Holland Creedmore Jr., known as Minor Holl, whom Hattie understood back again in large university, is furious and does not hesitate to threaten her when she refuses to provide it to him.

Mo, in the meantime, is wrestling with his boss at the community in excess of the demonstrate. Rebecca desires to alter the title to The Homewreckers, and she wishes a co-host, an HPTV star named Trae Bartholomew. “Picture this,” Rebecca tells Mo, “We’ve obtained your lady Hattie. She’s cute as a button and healthful as southern-fried freckles. And then we deliver in this lovely L.A. designer. He’s a blond, big-metropolis drink of h2o. … Homewreckers is at the house where a relationship clearly show fulfills a flip present. Consider mash-up of The Bachelorette and Flip or Flop. Get it?”

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Mo receives it, to his chagrin, considering that he’s crushing on Hattie. He’s also been all over her enough to know she’s fiercely unbiased and centered on her operate, and that Rebecca’s romance subplot could go way off the tracks.

But soon Trae, alternately obnoxious and charming, is on set, and they’re all performing on an impossibly tight timetable to make the network’s slide season deadline. Then demolition perform in a toilet reveals anything that had been shoved down by way of the previous-fashioned razor blade slot into the wall: a wallet.

Hattie and her finest pal and assistant, Cass Pelletier, acknowledge the ID in the wallet proper absent. It belongs to Lanier Ragan, who was their favourite trainer at St. Mary’s Large College, the neat young teacher all the women felt they could talk to.

When they were being her college students, Lanier Ragan disappeared from her family’s home a single night time, leaving her spouse and 4-12 months-previous daughter sleeping. She’s been lacking without having a trace due to the fact 2005.

Right up until now.

Will the wallet solve the mystery of Lanier’s disappearance? Will the police existence on the occupation web site hopelessly throw off the challenge routine? Will Hattie determine out who seems to be sabotaging the renovation? And in the romantic triangle that varieties amid Hattie, Trae and Mo, who will get their coronary heart broken?

No spoilers, but I can explain to you you will have enjoyable acquiring out.

If your mother enjoys beach front books and/or property renovation Tv, The Homewreckers may possibly be a great Mother’s Working day gift. Place the cherry on best by taking Mom to satisfy Andrews and get a signed copy of the guide at one particular of two occasions the writer has coming up in the Tampa Bay space.

The Homewreckers

By Mary Kay Andrews

St. Martin’s Press, 448 internet pages, $28.99

Meet the creator

Tombolo Publications presents Mary Kay Andrews in dialogue with writer Kristin Harmel (The Forest of Vanishing Stars) at 7 p.m. May perhaps 10 at Coastal Innovative, 2201 Initial Ave. S, St. Petersburg. Tickets are $28.99 for a person duplicate of the guide and one admission, $36 for one guide and two admissions at tombolobooks.com/activities.

Andrews will talk about and indicator The Homewreckers at 6:30 p.m. May perhaps 11 at the Oxford Trade, 420 W Kennedy Blvd., Tampa. Tickets $5 for admission only, or $30.16 for admission plus a person signed copy of the book, at oxfordexchange.com/webpages/calendar.