I know it’s hard to imagine a woman getting offed by a tube of
lipstick, but I’m here to tell you, it can be done …
So begins Ms America and the Offing on Oahu, and the amazing journey
on which beauty queen and budding sleuth Happy Pennington embarks.
34-year-old Happy, born and raised in Cleveland, has been competing
in beauty pageants all her life—thanks, or no thanks, to her mother.
But it’s not until California contestant Tiffany Amber is murdered
during the televised Ms America pageant for married women does this
policeman’s daughter take home the first national title of her
life—and find herself inexorably drawn into solving the crime.
Ms America and the Offing on Oahu is the debut
novel in a madcap cozy mystery series in which Happy finds
corpses strewn across the landscape as she travels the
United States—and once competes overseas—in her year-long reign, which aficionados
prefer to call a “year of service.” Happy is aided in her sleuthing
by fellow beauty queens Trixie Barnett and Shanelle Walker, and
by her retired cop father Lou. She is challenged in her life
path by her mechanic husband, NASCAR pit crew wannabe Jason Kilborn,
her teenage daughter, Rachel, and her stage manager of a mother, Hazel.
Pageant emcee Mario Suave, as hunky as any beauty queen is gorgeous,
cannot hide his growing attraction to Happy. After Happy learns
Mario’s one big secret, the two get even closer. Mario also looms
large as the one man in Happy’s life who fulfills her fondest wish
by admiring her more for her brains than for her beauty.
Here's a sneak peak at chapter one …
