Ain’t She a Peach

Molly Harper

A Southern Eclectic Novel #4

June 12, 2018

Gallery Books

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An Atlanta ex-cop comes to sleepy Lake Sackett, Georgia, seeking peace and quiet—but he hasn’t bargained on falling for Frankie, the cutest coroner he’s ever met.

Frankie McCready talks to dead people. Not like a ghost whisperer or anything—but it seems rude to embalm them and not at least say hello.

Fortunately, at the McCready Family Funeral Home & Bait Shop, Frankie’s eccentricities fit right in. Lake Sackett’s embalmer and county coroner, Frankie’s goth styling and passion for nerd culture mean she’s not your typical Southern girl, but the McCreadys are hardly your typical Southern family. Led by Great-Aunt Tootie, the gambling, boozing, dog-collecting matriarch of the family, everyone looks out for one another—which usually means getting up in everyone else’s business.

Maybe that’s why Frankie is so fascinated by new sheriff Eric Linden…a recent transplant from Atlanta, he sees a homicide in every hunting accident or boat crash, which seems a little paranoid for this sleepy tourist town. What’s he so worried about? And what kind of cop can get a job with the Atlanta PD but can’t stand to look at a dead body?

Frankie has other questions that need answering first—namely, who’s behind the recent break-in attempts at the funeral home, and how can she stop them? This one really does seem like a job for the sheriff—and as Frankie and Eric do their best Scooby-Doo impressions to catch their man, they get closer to spilling some secrets they thought were buried forever.

With Ain’t She a Peach, Molly Harper proves once again that she “never lets the reader down with her delightfully entertaining stories” (Single Titles).

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SASCHA DARLINGTON’S REVIEW

Dear Molly Harper,

I am a born again reader of your work. Years ago I read your Jane Jameson series, which I fell in love with. In a time when vampires were rocking, you  wrote vampires with snarky humor. And then other books came between me and your work.

Last year I was lucky enough to stumble on the first novella in your Southern Eclectic series and now I am devoted.

I didn’t think you could surpass Marianne and Carl, but you’ve given me Frankie and Eric, and truthfully I could read another book about them and not be bored.

Ain’t She a Peach is just what the doctor ordered. I needed some renewal. I needed some laughs. I needed some introspection, and you gave them all to me.

Thanks. A devoted, born again fan.

Sascha

Folks, I loved this book. Frankie is such a wonderful heroine, embodying vulnerable and stubborn and fierce in such a way that the reader falls in love with her. She’s prickly so that is no easy task, but she’s understandably prickly and, therefore, lovable.

I would suggest that Ain’t She a Peach is more women’s fiction than romance for the mere reason that the romance doesn’t really stand at the forefront. No bodice ripping here, folks. In fact, while Frankie and Eric sizzle, there is also respect and gentleness that I love.

Sometimes I feel like I echo myself, but one thing that makes this novel work is that it has heart. Besides the laugh-out-loud humor, the steamy romance, there’s Frankie looking inside herself at who she is, knowing that because she had leukemia as a child, she’s been coddled and spoiled.

Molly Harper knows how to balance things so that we have all of the feels. We feel the love, the family, the life, the death, and a huge amount of loving tenderness that makes this novel just rise so far above the field of her contemporaries. Harper looks as these people with love and therefore so does her reader.

I hope there’s many more novels in the Southern Eclectic series because I think we’re in a time when we really need this humorous, snarky, loving touch. It gives us hope and laughs and moments when we don’t have to think about anything except a lake town where the funeral home is also a bait shop and a family of loving eccentrics runs it.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

 Ain’t She a Peach is on sale June 12. You can pre-order here.

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rating: 

5 out of 5 butterflies

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