It’s my WEDDING DAY!

I’m so excited. At long last the love of my life, Connor McNeil, and I are to be married. It’s spring on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, the perfect time for a wedding after winter storms and before the full mad holiday rush of the summer months.

Connor and I would have liked a small simple wedding, but that wasn’t going to be possible. Not with the number of relatives, friends, coworkers, Connor and I have. Not to mention that I’m the only daughter of a socially established mother, and she has some definite ideas about what a proper wedding should be. For her daughter, at any rate.

Wisely, Mom kept her hands largely off the detailed planning, so Connor and I are able to have our day mostly the way we want it to be.

The ceremony will be performed in a church in Nags Head, and the reception held at the Ocean Side Hotel. Dinner, dancing, midnight dessert buffet (catered by none other than my beloved cousin Josie as her gift to us). Friends of mine I haven’t seen since I left Boston will be coming, and I’m excited about that, as will my co-workers at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library. Albertina James, library director, is closing the library early on Saturday so everyone can get to the church on time.

Mom did have a heavy hand on the guest list though, at least as regards to the Richardson family. An invitation was sent to my brother, Kevin, and his wife, Kristen, shortly before they separated. Oops. Kristen doesn’t seem to have gotten the hint that she’s no longer welcome. To make matters worse, she’s bringing a plus-one. Kevin, angry and humiliated and out for revenge, might not be terribly happy to see her and her new boyfriend enjoying his family’s hospitality.

My dad’s sister Joyce is coming also. Aunt Joyce has had very limited contact with her brother and his family, and I’ve only met her on a couple of occasions. She was a true rebel in her younger days and never much cared what her stuffy family or anyone else thought of her and her bohemian lifestyle. She spent part of her youth as the lead singer of a moderately successful rock and roll band. When the band folded, she tried her hand at acting, of which the highlight of her career was advertising dishwashing detergent.

Now, she’s in her early sixties. She’s been married three times, never had any children, and these days she spends most of her days ensconced in her apartment overlooking Central Park, being a ‘patron of the arts’. Her plus-one, I understand, is a has-been actor. It should be okay, as long as they don’t dance on the tables, drink too much, or monopolize the conversation at their table.

Speaking of tables, I’ve only just seen the seating plan Mom and Aunt Ellen put together. Kristen and her plus-one have been seated at the far end of the room, near the kitchen. Any closer to the kitchen and they’d be chopping vegetables. Aunt Joyce and Wayne are at that table also. Mom might as well have labeled it the “Richardson Outcast Table.”

What can I do? There’s bound to be some sort of conflict when you put people together who have years of unresolved history between them. I only hope no one is murdered at my wedding. That would be a real downer.

Ha. Ha. Just kidding.

Death Knells and Wedding Bells, A Lighthouse Library Mystery Book #10
Genre: Cozy
Release: June 2023
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Librarian Lucy’s wedding is nearly perfect—aside from a missing guest and the strangled body she finds. Now, she must vow to find the killer in this 10th Lighthouse Library mystery.

Lucy and Connor planned for the perfect Outer Banks wedding—and that’s exactly what they got. Aside from typical rumblings of familial tensions, the late spring weather allowed for a beautiful day, the food was delicious, and everyone had a good time, until one of the guests goes missing.

Before Lucy can look forward to the rest of her life in Nags Head and the work she does at the Bodie Island Lighthouse Library, she gets a phone call from her boss, Bertie James. Eddie, Bertie’s friend, never made it back home after the reception. Initially, Lucy doesn’t think anything of it—sometimes wedding guests simply have a little too much fun. But this quickly turns to something darker when she discovers the body of a wedding guest strangled in a locked closet, and the police immediately start asking questions about Eddie. Lucy must figure out if the two are connected before it’s too late—both for Bertie’s friend and the rest of her wedding guests.

With the Classic Novel Reading Club reading the Selected Works of Edgar Allan Poe—Lucy wonders if the master of the macabre can assist her investigation or if the hunt for the killer’s identity will remain as nothing more than an unsolved mystery.

About the author
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than fifty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing the Tea by the Sea mysteries, the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series, the Year-Round Christmas mysteries, and the Lighthouse Library series (as Eva Gates).

Vicki is a past chair of the Crime Writers of Canada and co-founder and organizer of the Women Killing It Crime Writing Festival. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards. Vicki is the recipient of the 2019 Derrick Murdoch Award for contributions to Canadian crime writing. She lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.

Death Knells and Wedding Bells from Crooked Lane Books is Vicki Delany’s 50th book!

All comments are welcomed.