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

What could be a better environment for romance than a household renovation?

Ah, I hear the bitter laughter of all of you who’ve been by a reno with a important other (or ex-major other). But in Mary Kay Andrews’ new beach reserve, The Homewreckers, rehabber Hattie Kavanaugh’s affection for reviving crumbling homes qualified prospects not just to love but to a starring part on a Tv set present — not to point out clues about a 17-yr-aged secret. So what’s a minimal dumpster hearth along the way?

Mary Kay Andrews is the nom de plume of Kathy Hogan Trocheck, who was born in Tampa and lifted in St. Petersburg. After a job as a journalist, generally in Atlanta, Andrews turned to composing novels and soon observed her way to the bestseller lists with what she phone calls seaside publications, which aspect participating characters, breezy humor and a combine of secret and romance — usually actually set at the beach.

Andrews’ past several publications have had Florida configurations, but this 1 is established in Savannah and Tybee Island, Ga., also common turf for the writer.

Savannah, with its wealth of handsome older homes, is a excellent place of work for Hattie, who loves absolutely nothing far better than renovating them. As the e book commences, she’s flat on her again in the crawl room under a “157-year-aged wonderful wreck” that she’s sunk way too substantially dollars into.

Her inspection of the corroding solid-iron pipes is interrupted when a guy falls by means of the rotten kitchen area floor and lands on her.

The male is Mo Lopez, who creates a truth Tv set sequence for HPTV (Residence Put Tv Network). He’s in Savannah hunting for a new collection notion following his most latest exhibit, Killer Garage, tanked. When he sees a three-tale Queen Anne Victorian surrounded by scaffolding, he walks via an open up door for a nearer appear — and crashes through the ground.

Despite Hattie’s aggravated response, Mo straight away proposes a display idea, starring her: Preserving Savannah, a actuality series in which she rehabs old residences for the digital camera — and helps make her fortune.

Hattie throws him off her task web page, but it is not extensive prior to she loses the Victorian, and all the dollars she’d invested in it, in addition income from her beloved in-legislation. Even though she’s only 33, Hattie’s a widow. Immediately after her spouse, Hank, died in a bike accident, she became even closer to his dad and mom, and she functions for father-in-legislation Tug Kavanaugh’s contracting enterprise.

She desires to recoup her losses fast, and before long she and Mo have a offer for the present. Scrambling for a new task, Hattie finds that a neglected beach front house on Tybee Island’s fascinating Again River is currently being bought for unpaid taxes. She scrapes up plenty of to buy it — income from the network will not get there right up until afterwards — and receives to operate.

The after-lovely residence had been handed down by means of generations of the Creedmores, an aged Savannah relatives, but intrafamily feuds led to it becoming sold. Holland Creedmore Jr., recognized as Minimal Holl, whom Hattie knew again in superior university, is furious and doesn’t wait to threaten her when she refuses to sell it to him.

Mo, meanwhile, is wrestling with his boss at the network more than the display. Rebecca needs to alter the title to The Homewreckers, and she desires a co-host, an HPTV star named Trae Bartholomew. “Picture this,” Rebecca tells Mo, “We’ve obtained your female Hattie. She’s lovable as a button and wholesome as southern-fried freckles. And then we deliver in this attractive L.A. designer. He’s a blond, major-town consume of h2o. … Homewreckers is at the room the place a courting exhibit fulfills a flip demonstrate. Think mash-up of The Bachelorette and Flip or Flop. Get it?”

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Mo receives it, to his chagrin, because he’s crushing on Hattie. He’s also been all-around her sufficient to know she’s fiercely impartial and targeted on her operate, and that Rebecca’s romance subplot could go way off the tracks.

But before long Trae, alternately obnoxious and charming, is on established, and they’re all doing the job on an impossibly limited schedule to make the network’s slide time deadline. Then demolition get the job done in a toilet reveals one thing that experienced been shoved down by means of the previous-fashioned razor blade slot into the wall: a wallet.

Hattie and her ideal pal and assistant, Cass Pelletier, understand the ID in the wallet appropriate absent. It belongs to Lanier Ragan, who was their favored instructor at St. Mary’s Large College, the interesting youthful teacher all the girls felt they could converse to.

Whilst they ended up her college students, Lanier Ragan disappeared from her family’s home 1 night, leaving her spouse and 4-year-outdated daughter sleeping. She’s been missing with out a trace due to the fact 2005.

Till now.

Will the wallet clear up the thriller of Lanier’s disappearance? Will the law enforcement presence on the work web page hopelessly toss off the task timetable? Will Hattie determine out who appears to be to be sabotaging the renovation? And in the passionate triangle that kinds among the Hattie, Trae and Mo, who will get their coronary heart damaged?

No spoilers, but I can tell you you’ll have fun obtaining out.

If your mom loves beach front guides and/or property renovation Tv set, The Homewreckers may well be a good Mother’s Working day reward. Place the cherry on major by taking Mom to meet Andrews and get a signed copy of the book at a single of two gatherings the writer has coming up in the Tampa Bay area.

The Homewreckers

By Mary Kay Andrews

St. Martin’s Press, 448 webpages, $28.99

Meet up with the author

Tombolo Publications offers Mary Kay Andrews in conversation with writer Kristin Harmel (The Forest of Vanishing Stars) at 7 p.m. Could 10 at Coastal Resourceful, 2201 1st Ave. S, St. Petersburg. Tickets are $28.99 for one copy of the e-book and just one admission, $36 for one e book and two admissions at tombolobooks.com/activities.

Andrews will talk about and sign The Homewreckers at 6:30 p.m. May possibly 11 at the Oxford Trade, 420 W Kennedy Blvd., Tampa. Tickets $5 for admission only, or $30.16 for admission as well as one particular signed copy of the e-book, at oxfordexchange.com/web pages/calendar.