Showing results by author "Kay Dew Shostak" in All Categories

Jewel Mantelle has never lived in the South, much less on the coast, so moving from Chicagoland to the historic North Florida coastal town of Sophia Island seems like just the adventure to fix her marriage. However, when she arrives, she finds that it’s awfully hot and humid there and that these Southern folks really like to hug. Her husband’s past on the island includes a creaky old house in the historic district and lots of nosy relatives he’d forgotten to mention.

Looking in your teenage daughter's purse is never a good idea. After all, it ended up with Carolina Jessup opening a bed & breakfast for railroad fanatics in a tiny Georgia mountain town. Carolina knows all about, and hates, small towns. How did she end up leaving her wonderful Atlanta suburbs behind while making her husband's dreams come true?

Jewel Mantelle is just beginning to get used to the humidity in her new Southern home on Sophia Island, when Turtle Season opens way too early. At least, it's too early according to her friends with Turtle Trackers. Is it a true sea turtle nest found on a stormy April morning? Not likely, when a body is eventually discovered buried where the eggs should be.

Used to a lifetime of no one caring where she was, Becca Sue's not sure she likes it when everyone wants her with them. The luxury subdivision she inherited is on it's feet as Backwater, Florida. With the market and shops, it's now a multi-use community - whether the wealthy owners there want that or not. On a quick trip home to Piney, Georgia, Becca Sue discovers she's now one of the cool people. Maybe the trip shouldn't be THAT quick. Being one of the cool people is, well, cool.

Book Six in the Southern Beach Mystery series set on an island on the Northeast Coast of Florida. Sure, folks may say having your house on the Christmas Home Tour is murder. But until now—did they really mean it? Sophia Island is decked out for the season. White lights line Centre Street buildings and every branch of the massive live oaks. Christmas music, the smell of fudge, and shoppers floats from shop to shop. Crowds prepare to descend on the small island to see the four homes decked out for the annual Christmas Home Tour. Jewel Mantelle lives in one of those four homes and getting ...

Book 7 in the Southern Beach Cozy Mystery series set on Sophia Island, Florida, which is in real life Amelia Island, Florida. A long-hidden discovery in the tangles of Jewel and Craig Mantelle’s backyard reveals more family history than the Sophia Island Museum has in all its files. As the mystery unravels, Craig must confront the sordid past no one imagined in his family. Can he show his face on the island, knowing all this? Jewel and her lunch bunch are recovering from the holidays when a woman invited to their lunches realizes her husband is missing. He’s soon found dead, but ...

Once again, the Sophia Island Shrimp Festival is over. Thousands attended to eat shrimp, shop, and watch the pirates come ashore as usual, but this year’s temperatures were warmer than ever. Everyone is happy that the busy hot weekend is over, and everyone came through unscathed. Or so it seems. Jewel and Craig Mantelle also made it through their kids and families’ first visit to their new island home.

Carolina knew moving teenagers from the Atlanta suburbs to a small Georgia mountain town was a horrible idea. She knew opening a B&B was an even worse plan. Oncoming headlights aren’t only aimed at her family, the town of Chancey is being set up for a collision that could change everything. And as that unfolds, Carolina’s husband Jackson is smack dab in the middle of it all, his hand on the throttle, going full steam ahead.

Football is a whole other thing in the South, Midwestern transplant Jewel Mantelle discovers, and on Sophia Island, they love the Gators. Jewel would be fine with that if her friends only meant the University of Florida football team, but they also seem to love the critters skulking around in the ditches and creeks running through their tiny beach town. At her first ever football party she finds herself front and center for the spectacle of the eccentric Bell Jackson calling the gators behind his huge mansion—and it gives her the creeps. But finding out those very same gators didn’t ...

What if your children are all miserable, Carolina wonders, but your life is finally coming together? Will’s new marriage and new job, are already old. Savannah’s reduced to chasing a guy and she’s playing the Southern Belle to do it. Bryan is labeled a stalker. But maybe worse, is he a world-class liar? Carolina’s friends are having kid worries, too. Laney’s finding the age gap between high school senior and newborn grows with her exhaustion. Susan’s kids too quickly get accustomed, and attached, to their new station in life in their ritzy mountain community.

Inviting your ex-spouse for the holidays might not be a good idea. Especially when folks don’t know you were married before. Carolina quit her job, and for the first time ever, she’s doing the holidays as a stay-at-home mom. And doesn’t all that extra time mean everything will be perfect? Then, the RV showed up. The RV with her parents, their dogs, and their obsession with Gone with the Wind. Then, the college kids showed up.

Overnight, a shiny new business opens on Chancey, Georgia’s Main Street, with a manager straight from New York City, who doesn’t find the South charming, at all. Carolina’s bookstore is also opening on Main Street. If she can keep Patty’s mind on books instead of a new romance. Then, when a secret wedding catches everyone off guard, a springtime tornado in Chancey just seems like icing on the cake. (Wedding cake, that is.) Trains still run by Crossings, the B and B for rail road enthusiasts. Ruby still sells coffee and muffins. And kids still get out of school for the summer.

Aren't detours supposed to have big warning signs? So why do life's detours come out of the blue and hit so hard? It's been a year since they opened the bed-and-breakfast for Railfans in the small town of Chancey, and the Jessups feel as if they've always lived in the Georgia Mountains. After a hard summer, Carolina is looking forward to the cooler temperatures of autumn and the routine of the school year. However...unplanned detours mean more family in town, families pulling apart at the seams, and just plain ol' heartache.

Pretty paper and bows make promises, the gift inside rarely keeps. December comes to Chancey in this eighth audiobook in the series with promises of new birth, new love, new opportunities all tied up with shiny bows. Christmas is making a comeback in Chancey with Missus Blue ribbons tied on everything that stands still. Newcomers to town gussy up the gazebo complete with magnolia leaves, tiny lights, and even a chandelier. Remembering the Christmas of 1945, the Chancey Parlor and Depot is opened with solemnity, white roses, and a renewed feud.

October arrives with Carolina holding way too many secrets...or you could say not holding them exactly. The town has barely gotten over the loss of their patriarch F.M. when one of the most stable marriages around is on the rocks, maybe completely over the cliff. Then the movie people hit town, and they don’t seem to be helping.

Book 11 in this popular Southern Fiction series set in the North Georgia Mountains. It’s graduation time in Chancey… …a time for caps and gowns. For Pomp and Circumstance. For magnolias blooming and epic parties. And, apparently, for a growing sinkhole to pop up on Main Street. Years of neglected underground repairs have forced half the shops downtown to close indefinitely. When Ruby’s Café moves into Blooming Books and Missus, Chancey’s new mayor, gives no straight answers on when repairs will be completed, well, Carolina Jessup will tell you that’s just the cherry on top her ...

Book 9 in this Southern Fiction series. It’s a new year in Chancey, and hope abounds. Carolina hopes her daughter, Savannah, will figure out what she’s doing after graduation, hopes her husband, Jackson, working from home won’t drive her crazy, and hopes being a grandma to her son Will’s new baby will be as fun as everyone says. Her hopes for the rest of the town, however, are less than optimistic. Is Shannon pregnant? Is Peter the father? If he is, what will that mean for his engagement to Delaney? Speaking of engagements, is former wallflower Susan serious about marrying movie ...

Book 10 in this popular Southern Fiction series set in the mountains of North Georgia. Spring is in the Chancey air—almost. Spring means planning. Planning for gardens, weddings, babies, and spring break. But first comes the North Georgia Book Festival with a surprise author, who is celebrated by everyone. Well, everyone that hasn’t read her books. Carolina is busy with the book festival, but she can’t help noticing how so many of the lives around her are veering off course. She’s sure she knows how they can all be happy, but they don’t seem to want her help. If only they would ...