Daily Archives: May 7, 2024
Mystery on the Jersey shore
PLEASE WELCOME LYNDI’S ADVENTUROUS FRIEND KAREN CINO!!!
Hi All! I am so thrilled to be here today. My writing career has been such a journey. Even as the market changes, my heart and soul remain in one place. The Beach. Through the years I have intertwined my love of the Jersey Shore into my books. I love the beach so much that nine years ago, I moved down to the shore. My new series Jersey Route 35 Cozy Mystery Series takes place at the Jersey Shore, Seaside Heights, Exit 82 to be exact. And before you ask, I have never watched the MTV show Jersey Shore, nor have I frequented any of the places they were at.
I got into writing cozy mysteries because of my sense of adventure. In my earlier years, I was an investigative reporter and loved sneaking around in search of answers. I guess it was the curiosity that always got the best of me. That’s why, in the first book in the series, Seaside Reboot brings the main character back to the place that she always loved. She finds herself on the boardwalk, dipping her feet at the water’s edge. The main characters will bring you down the boardwalk to visit so many of the attractions throughout the series. The series is available on all platforms.
Thank you for stopping by. Feel free to reach out to me.
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BLURB
Vicki Bandini never expected to be returning home to the family beach house on the New Jersey Shore, let alone inherit her daughter’s businesses. Sitting in her driveway is a 1962 Transporter that’s literally a beach store on wheels. The winter business consists of cleaning out estates. Days after her arrival, she goes on a last minute job her daughter had gotten. Before she starts cleaning, she finds a dead body up in the bedroom.
To her surprise, the detective who arrives was her high school sweetheart. Along the way, she meets a retired police photographer named Angie who winds up being her partner in crime as they both try to solve the murder.
To add to the confusion is an old family feud with her next door neighbor. Completing the chaos is when old sparks ignite with the handsome detective. Will Vicki be able to keep the past on the back burner, and her nose out of the investigation?
EXCERPT
Vicki Bandini stood on the back deck with the sleeves of her sweater pulled over her fingertips. For early May the temperature was well below average. The ocean’s waves were calm as the sunrise rippled across the water. This was her favorite time of the day.
Moving back to the Jersey Shore to her family’s summerhouse would be a big adjustment, especially being a widow. When she and Sean first got married, they’d enjoyed living at the beach. She was devastated when he got transferred to Queens. But now she had moved back into the family beach house where her daughter, husband, and granddaughter had lived.
When her son-in-law’s company announced its move to South Carolina, Vicki was distraught. Their weekly Sunday dinners at Vicki’s house were now a thing of the past, and spending time with her granddaughter would be via FaceTime.
As a teenager, Vicki sorted out her problems on this deck. After she buried Sean, she came to spend a few days with her daughter and spent most of her time sitting out here on the swing. His death had been unexpected and happened so fast. It was hard to wrap around her head that her husband passed away from colon cancer right before his forty-fourth birthday. She never expected to be back in her hometown as a widow, having to start over again. She hadn’t had time to digest that he had colon cancer that had spread throughout his body, before he was gone. Who would’ve thought that at forty-eight she would be a widow?
With her daughter and her family having moved, Vicki was left to run her daughter’s two businesses: Mia’s Residential Home Cleanout and Jersey Shore Beach Shop on Wheels. Vicki could picture herself driving the 1962 Volkswagen transporter, selling all kinds of beach accessories, but the cleanout business, she knew, would be backbreaking. She would finish out the customers already on the schedule and then decide if she wanted to continue during the off-season. It wasn’t as if she needed the money, Sean had made sure he’d provided for her after he’d passed.
Vickie opened the sliding glass door and went into the house. It was still early, she hoped there would be an influx of warm weather later in the day. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, bringing her back to the day she came home from her honeymoon. This house brought back so many memories of when she was growing up. Her parents had bought it and they’d used it as their summerhouse until deciding to make it their primary resident just before she started high school. Right before she had gotten married, her parents had moved down to Florida, and Sean and she moved into the summerhouse. Within the first year of their marriage, they’d put on an extension taking the bungalow from two bedrooms and one bath to three bedrooms with a family room.
The landline rang, bringing her out of her flashback, and she followed the ring until she located the phone on the mantel. “Hello.”
“Is this Mia’s Residential Home Cleanout service?”
“Yes. How may I help you?”
“Hi. It’s Neil Adams. Just verifying you’ll be at 43 Hummingbird Road tomorrow morning at ten.”
Vicki opened the appointment book and saw the entry. “Yes, I’ll be there.”
“As we previously discussed, I need you to pack up the remaining clothes and donate them to some charity. The house is being sold fully furnished. Anything you come across that’s personal, let me know.”
“Okay.”
“The realtor will leave the key under the planter on the porch. When you’re done and the realtor gives the thumbs up, I’ll pay you through PayPal.”
Vicki agreed, since she had no clue as to what Mia had worked out with him. It would have been nice if she had gone over the upcoming jobs. “I’ll check in with you tomorrow when the job is completed.” Before she could say anything else, he had already hung up. “Thanks Mia,” Vicki said. She took the appointment book into the kitchen and plopped into the chair.
She flipped through the rest of May and was relieved to see there weren’t many jobs booked. She needed to speak with Mia about this cleaning business. She hated cleaning her own house, let alone cleaning someone else’s. But Mia told her the money she made during the winter months was enough to carry her through the year. Since there was only a handful of jobs scheduled for the rest of the month, she would finish them out, and then reevaluate if she wanted to continue. In her next conversation with Mia, she would discuss the future of the company.
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