Married to Murder (Miranda Marquette Mysteries Book 9)

Trouble Has a Way of Finding Miranda Marquette

Miranda Marquette thought she finally had it all figured out—a steady job, close friends, and a wedding on the horizon. But just as life starts to settle, old secrets and familiar faces return to shake up her carefully rebuilt world.

When her friend Chenoa reappears under dire circumstances and a near-fatal attack leaves news anchor Lyanne with amnesia, Miranda is pulled back into a whirlwind of mystery, mayhem, and murder. To make matters worse, buried bodies turn up behind her fiancé’s house—bodies that might just tie back to Miranda herself.

Add to that the sudden reappearance of Steve Pierce, a man from her past with unfinished business and possibly life-changing news, and Miranda finds herself questioning everything she thought she wanted.

In this sharp, fast-paced mystery, starting over isn't just a choice—it’s a matter of survival.

Excerpt from the book

We had been working non-stop on the addition to the house since my brother Michael’s and his wife Kara’s wedding. We decided not to start until after their wedding, scheduled for the last Saturday in October, because we didn’t want everything to be a mess for that event. When we originally made that decision, though, their wedding had been planned for September, which pushed back our plans by a month as well.

When Jason originally bought this house, he never anticipated marriage, kids, guests, and the resulting space necessary to sustain that lifestyle. The good news was that we had plenty of property. The bad news was that the house had originally been built in the forties, so we had no idea what we were going to find once we started demolition.

Jason and I considered starting the demolition ourselves but soon learned we were in over our heads. Upon professional inspection, problems were found at every turn. The foundation sagged and needed to be supported. The beams supporting the roof were partially rotted from a previous roof leak that we weren’t aware of. The copper plumbing needed to be converted to PVC where possible. The electric, mostly knob and tube, required conversion to a modern electrical panel with 220 volts and circuit breakers. This would require all the wiring in the house to be replaced—no easy task from behind the plaster walls.

Because we planned on extending the rear of the house back toward the barn, the septic tank and leach field also needed to be relocated. So what started out as a modest addition of two bedrooms and two baths turned into a monumental disaster. Everywhere we turned, contractors needed more money. When we tried to match the existing wood tongue-and-groove siding, we were advised to replace the siding on the whole house with vinyl. When we attempted to match the shingles on the roof, we were advised to replace the roof completely. And most recently, when we got a quote for the windows, the salesman pointed out that most of our existing casement windows were rotting and would need to be replaced over the next several years anyway.

The good news, if any, was that Jason had no mortgage on the house. While he might not have enough cash to complete a full rehab of the house while we completed the addition, the resulting construction loan would be far less than most Californians dreamed of having for a mortgage.

On Sunday, January 8th, Jason and I sat on the picnic table in the backyard, waiting for the excavator to arrive. We hoped they didn’t unearth anything else that would slow down the project. I asked, “Do you think we should have waited until after the wedding to start the addition?”

He took my hand. “Probably, but I think we’ll thank ourselves when we don’t have to go through all of this anguish while we’re settling in and trying to get pregnant.”