Published by Red Adept Publishing

Synopsis:

High school teacher Emma Lovett is finally recovering from her first year of teaching when she discovers another dead body. As if that wasn’t bad enough, this time, someone has killed a student, Kisten Hollis.

Emma and her best friend, Leslie, are desperate to solve this murder. But suspects abound. The perpetrator could be a teacher, an administrator, a member of Kisten’s zealous church community, or even another student.

Emma must juggle her teaching responsibilities, her new romance with handsome Hunter Wells, and interest from a hunky second suitor, all while searching for evidence to bring a killer to justice before someone else dies.

Publication Date: 24th April 2018

I love cosy mysteries so much – this one featured the utterly and deliciously far-fetched murder of a high school student (actually very sad, come to think of it) and the clues are fed to you throughout, sending you in all directions until the conclusion which is a complete surprise!

Emma and Leslie are amateur sleuths of the highest order; they disregard all notions of personal safety and police procedure, jumping headlong into their own investigation of the suspicious death of a student. Their friendship is the highlight of this series for me, they’re very funny together (are women allowed to be funny? Surely not.) and support each other unconditionally. They’re an adorable combination of Shakespeare quotes for all equations and Southern belle cute-isms.

You can tell that the author has been a teacher, which is what makes the school setting for this series really authentic and compelling. The teachers write up lesson plans and have to attend anti-bullying seminars, they also flag up the issues of religion/bullying/sports bias in schools which got me thinking without distracting me from the plot.

The only issue I had with this book is a very personal one to me – the police investigating the case of the murdered teen are completely inept and don’t even care that a child has been killed, given their complete lack of involvement. I know it’s kinda necessary for quality sleuthing to take place, but it seems impossible to me that they just wouldn’t care or be involved at all. 

I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

**Thank you to the author for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review**