Dru’s Short Musing:
Everything that could happen to a person does in the name of Dahlia Devine, as her role in discovery who she is, is fraught with the unexpected and it will take an understanding of who she is to come out of it alive in this complex tale that takes you on a roller coaster ride of emotions.

From the first page to its conclusion, the author set the stage with an eclectic and unique cast of characters who play to their strengths to a multi-plot mystery that have you wondering if the two (missing mother and dead boyfriend) are connected or at least cross path as each step taken brings on a new discovery for which we are teased chapter after chapter as to who is doing what to whom and how will this all end. There are plenty of plot twists, some that I did not see coming, in this well-written tome with visually descriptive narrative, engaging dialogue and down-home country atmosphere beckoning to be heard. Every time Dahlia moves forward, something pulls her back, but it’s her determination to figure the mysteries out with her heart and soul on the table. A solid mystery and an enticingly intoxicating tale that once started I could not put down until all was said and done. There were also some familiar names which enhanced my reading pleasure. This is an excellent novel and one of the best books by Lori Rader-Day that I have read.

Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: January 6, 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Book Synopsis:
From award-winning author Lori Rader-Day, Wreck Your Heart is an engaging, “wisecracking and wonderful” crime novel with a big heart, about a country and midwestern singer out to catch her big break before family—or murder—wrecks everything.

Dahlia “Doll” Devine had the kind of hardscrabble beginning that could launch a thousand broken-hearted country songs, but now she’s the star of her own stage at McPhee’s Tavern. As part of Chicago’s—yes, Chicago’s—country music scene, Dahlia is an up-and-coming singer in spangles and boots of classic country tunes. Up and coming, that is, until her boyfriend Joey up and went, taking the rent money with him.

So Dahlia is back to square one, relying on Alex McPhee—again. Alex helped her out of a bad situation when she was a kid living rough with her mother. Now he’s part landlord, part band booster, all-around rescuer. It’s just that Dahlia wishes she didn’t keep giving him reasons to have to do it.

Just as Dahlia suspects she’s scraped rock bottom, the mother she hasn’t spoken to in twenty years shows up with something to say. The next morning, a distraught young woman arrives at the bar, asking after her missing mother—Dahlia’s mother, too, even if the missing suburban PTA mom the girl describes sounds pretty different from the one who let Dahlia down all those years ago.

Though no one is using the word sister any time soon, Dahlia lets herself be drawn into reuniting the family that might have been hers. But when a body is discovered outside McPhee’s Tavern, the crime threatens not just the place Dahlia has made into a home, but everything she’s believed about her past, her dreams for the future, and the people she was just, maybe, beginning to let into her heart.

FTC Full Disclosure – I received a digital ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.