Trouble Play: Vista De Lirio Mysteries Book 3 by Elizabeth Hunter
Trouble Play: Vista De Lirio Mysteries Book 3 by Elizabeth Hunter
Trouble Play: Vista De Lirio Mysteries Book 3 by Elizabeth Hunter
Women's fiction, paranormal mystery, contemporary romance
Recurve Press, LLC
October 18, 2022
Kindle, Paperback
284
Paranormal women's fiction for lovers of sassy women, psychic shenanigans, and lifelong friends.
This desert oasis has gone to the dogs, and things are about to get bloody! (Not the dogs though. The dogs are fine.)
Comedian Evy Lane thought she’d done it all, but taking on the role of mistress of ceremonies for the Desert Fancy Dog Show may be her most challenging gig yet. The locals are a menagerie of high-strung prima donnas, nervous Nelsons, and she’s not talking about the dogs!
When high stakes competition leads to gruesome murder, she’s going to need every telepathic power at her disposal—and every psychic friend she knows—to make this show go on. Pesky police detectives, dangerously attractive investigators, and a menagerie of our favorite Vista de Lirio characters make this mystery the most twisted yet!
TROUBLE PLAY is the third book in the Vista de Lirio series, a new paranormal mystery series by Elizabeth Hunter, bestselling author of the Elemental Mysteries, the Glimmer Lake series, and The Irin Chronicles.
Trouble Play, book three in Elizabeth Hunter’s Vista De Lirio Mysteries series, is Evy (Landa) Lane’s story who, along with her two newly aquired best friends, have been solving murders with the help of their recently gained paranormal skills. Through a series of weird events instigated by Evy’s Aunt Marie, these three middle-aged women have been gifted with unexpected abilities: Evy can hear people’s thoughts, Vivian can sense people’s emotions, and Julia can see ghosts. But best of all they have been gifted with each other who are more like family than friends.
“We’re lucky to have each other. When I think about who I want around when by wrinkled old ass gets into trouble, its you two.”
Julia blew her a kiss and smiled. “Don’t get maudlin, Landa. Your ass is pretty big; it’s going to be a lot of years before it wrinkles.”
Evy flipped her off as Julia laughed.
Vivian’s shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. “But when your beautifully wrinkled ass does get into trouble, you know who you can call.”
While I loved both Julia and Vivian’s stories and romances, I think I have been most tickled by Evy’s. Professionally known as EV Lane, Evy is a comedian/ventriliquist whose stage partner is a dummy named Geoff who just happens to be haunted by the really nice ghost of its former owner, Geoffrey. Evy is quick witted and snarky. When she gets hired to co-host an international dog show that is premiering in the desert her take on the snooty and competitive world of show dogs and the canine puns she is scripted to deliver for the broadcasts will have giggling out loud or atleast shaking your head at the corniess of them. When she meets Rafe, who is in town to help his mom with her prized contestant, Evy’s snarky puts a whole different spin on their initial attraction that heats up the already hot desert! Even though the gist of the story revolves around solving murders, Trouble Play left me thinking more about the fun and romance than anything else. I will admit that E.H. threw in some interesting twists to the whodunit and an ending I didn’t see coming. Included in this great story are all the supporting actors and the guard Alpaca, Paco, that I loved from the other books. All this together made it hard for me to put Trouble Play down!
Sometimes I think I sound like a broken record, but I have yet to read anything from Elizabeth Hunter that I haven’t liked. Her stories are engaging, with great characters and interesting plots. Her contemporary women’s paranormal mysteries are no exception. Vista De Lirio is the third series in this genre with each series being comprised of three books for each of the trio of friends. I love that the heriones are middle-aged women who deal with this stage of life with humor and vitality. Their personalities are so different but their shared experiences with the paranormal has made them tight friends who truly complement each other and make each other better. As a reader it was both entertaining and uplifting. I was also struck by how seamless that E.H. wove the idea of paranormal gifts into the day to day life of the characters. It really makes you think that the paranormal could actually be plausible. While I hate to see the Vista De Lirio Mysteries series come to an end, I can’t wait to see what E.H. comes up with next in this genre.
Tanya’s love for books has been a lifelong passion that she likes sharing with others. Reading is also the thing that relaxes her after a day of juggling the many responsibilities that come with being being wife to an amazing man, mother to four great kids spread around the world, business manager, and farm hand on their place in southwest Missouri; home to Akaushi cattle and a menagerie of pygmy goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.
