CLAMMED UP (Barbara Ross)

Julia Snowden has given up her lucrative financial career in New York City to move back to Busman's Harbor, Maine to help save the family clambake business.  Her plan for solvency calls for no more than 5 closed days over the summer and things look bright when preparations are underway for a wedding clambake on family-owned Morrow Island.  When the body of the best man is found hanging in a staircase in the old family mansion the Snowden Family Clambake is shut down, forcing Julia to investigate in hopes of salvaging the precarious family fortunes.  Since the main suspect seems to be Chris Durand, her close friend and secret crush, Julia is especially determined to discover the killer.

Ross, who lives in Maine, writes a fun and intriguing mystery filled with characters that you want to know better.  This is the first in this series.  I plan to read more!

HUSBANDS AND OTHER SHARP OBJECTS (Marilyn Simon Rothstein)

I didn't realize when I picked up this novel that it is actually a sequel to Lift and Separate. It was a delightful discovery!  The story picks up with Marcy trying to decide whether or not to move from her marital home of more than 30 years, a house that she never liked and didn't want in the first place.  She has her eye on a beautiful yellow house, but her grown children prefer that she stay put while estranged husband Harvey declares that he will move in if Marcy moves out.

When daughter Amanda announces that she is not only moving back east to work for a retail start-up but plans to marry her father's accountant, all sorts of wedding tussles ensue, including a new romance and old problems (i.e. estranged husband Harvey).  You will love this humorous but oh so relatable novel!  If you're a fan of Mary Kay Andrews or Dorothea Benton Frank get ready to embrace a new favorite!