The Buenaventura Beach Mystery Series

The hot summer months used to be Avery Baldwin’s favorite time of year. After graduating from college, she wanted to move away from her hometown and make a life of her own, but the desire to be with her family, to return to the old, familiar haunts that were so comforting, stuck with her. As soon as the month of June rolled around, Avery enjoyed hopping in her car and driving to Buenaventura Beach where she readily embraced the salty ocean air and relished the feel of the sun’s rays as they kissed her hair.

This summer has been a wild one for Avery Baldwin. She thought when she came back to Buenaventura Beach that she’d have time to chat with family members, visit with friends, and dip her toes in the ocean while soaking in the sun. But one lazy, Saturday morning, when she heads out to the Buenaventura Beach Country Club to visit her best friend, Jasmine Lowe, the owner of the place, she finds something quite unexpected.

The mindset of a pageant contestant is an enigma to Avery Baldwin. She never participated in them during her younger years. When she had the opportunity, she determined she’d rather sit on the beach and draw in her sketchbook. So, when her nephew, Noah Dixon, volunteers to serve the community by working as a stagehand for the local Miss Buenaventura Beach Pageant, she commends him for his thoughtfulness, and leaves the rest of her comments to herself.

Avery Baldwin is taking a minute to catch her breath. Now that the summer’s over and things have gone back to normal in the little town of Buenaventura Beach, she’s looking forward to spending her days teaching students how to create works of art and her nights cuddling with Chance and his son, Cubby. But on Halloween, when Avery, Chance, and Cubby go visit the coffee shop, The Witch’s Brew, they find trouble waiting for them.

When Brie Thornberg-Selvidge shows up to said book club complaining about having a sleepless night, Avery Baldwin is concerned. A barking dog is to blame for Brie’s fatigue, so the ladies decide to sit up that night, listen for the dog, then contact the animal’s owner. Everything goes according to plan, right up to the point where the little dog and its owner glide through Brie’s backyard. Is that a ghost walking around Buenaventura Beach with a yapping doggy trotting by its side? Or is some prankster intentionally trying to ruin the quietude of the town?

Avery Baldwin and Cubby Zabrowski, Chance’s eleven-year-old son, are on the beach, enjoying a lovely, leisurely afternoon, when out of nowhere, a shrimp boat glides onto the shore. The unusual circumstance is shocking, but Loti Baldwin sees the arrival of the ship as an ominous sign. A hurricane is coming for them. Hurriedly, the people of Buenaventura Beach evacuate and seek shelter at a rental property in Orlando owned by Savanna Hautett. With twenty people staying in a house together for three days, just about anything can happen. Tempers flare, and before long, there’s a murder.

You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay on this island. Wedding bells are ringing for Avery Baldwin and Chance Zabrowski. The pair, and all their nearest and dearest, leave Buenaventura Beach, hop aboard a luxury cruise ship, and sail to the Bahamas so they can say their sacred vows and finally become man and wife. But trouble follows them to paradise. An uninvited guest joins the wedding party at the last minute. The wedding ceremony is moved to the end of the week. And the new vacation friends they meet, Ramona and Harold, suddenly disappear.