Does private investigator Olivia Lively throw back the covers and jump out of bed the instant her alarm clock goes off at 7 a.m. on a weekday?

No, she does not. She reaches her hand to slap at her iPhone. Running a hand through her ruffled pixie haircut, she luxuriates in her silky pjs, stretches muscles taut from her long-distance run the previous day, and inhales the scent of coffee. Her new programmable coffee & espresso maker, even on sale, was a splurge, but her one-woman biz, Lively Investigations, has had a good couple of months. After seven years as a P.I., she’s finally making it. Yay, her!

Fully awake now, Liv heads down to the galley kitchen. She grabs her coffee and wanders to her favorite spot in the third-story apartment: the glassed-in screen porch overlooking Portland, Maine. From her perch atop Munjoy Hill she can look across the entire peninsula: East Bayside, Bayside, downtown, and the western hills, blue and misty in the distance. She flicks on a favorite Baroque playlist, and plans her day to the cheerful, soaring notes of Vivaldi and Bach concertos.

After coffee, she enters her walk-in closet, the one she had specially built when renovating the apartment building. She inherited the place from her maternal grandmother, a hands-off, unwitting slum lord who let her sleazy manager take care of everything. Renovating the structure to code took most of Liv’s cash, but now she rents out the first two floors and lives in the upstairs apartment. As long as nothing major happens, the renovations will pay for themselves. Eventually.

Liv peruses her extensive collection of vintage couture and high-end labels. Just because she rejected her parents’ society lifestyle doesn’t mean she has to dress down. She purchases her fabulous clothes from consignment boutiques, resale shops, and estate sales. She rarely pays full price.

Except for the shoes. Okay, and the handbags.

Because today’s agenda includes surveillance for an insurance scam case, she chooses a pair of Citizens for Humanity jeans, black combat boots, a basic gray sweatshirt, and a black knit cap. She grabs her gear: binoculars, extra cell phone charger, camera with telephoto lens, water bottle, and her cell phone. She gets into her unremarkable, older sedan and spends the morning following the mark to the grocery store, the post office, and–aha!–the gym. She snaps some photo and video evidence to send to her client.

Next, she heads to Lively Investigations’s two-room office. It’s located in a shabby former warehouse in Portland’s gritty, industrial-but-slowly-gentrifying East Bayside neighborhood. Liv’s been bugging the current owner to install a better security system and more lighting in the parking lot to no avail. One of these days, someone will break in, she’s sure. No sense obsessing about it though.

She settles at her desk to do some paperwork. A couple hours later, her best friend Ashleigh breezes in after her job at a local elementary school and suggests a late lunch. They grab a table at Buoy Bagels near the Longfellow College campus, chat about Ashleigh’s job as a school counselor, and dissect Liv’s frustrating relationship with Rob Mickelson–Liv’s former client turned lover. He’s a commercial loan officer and still married, though he claims he’s divorcing Gina soon.

After work, Liv goes for a seven-mile run. She’s in training for a half-marathon. Back home again, she takes a long soak in the tub, orders pizza, and watches a few episodes of The X-Files, her guilty pleasure. She has a secret obsession with cryptozoology, alien lore, and Mulder and Scully. Right before bed, she fields a phone call from her mother, Tiffany, who’s been bugging her for weeks about the hospital auxiliary’s Spring Fling fundraiser. She promises to find a suitable date.

Rob is definitely not suitable.

Tomorrow she’ll rendezvous with him at The Cormorant, a luxurious hotel on Congress Street. She’ll ask him, again, about the divorce. He’ll make excuses. They’ll order up their usual bottle of Veuve Clicquot from room service. She’ll push her guilt aside and revel in the moment. Bad boys have always been her downfall. Rob seems better than most, so she gives him the benefit of the doubt about his marital status.

Little does she know that soon this decision will come back to bite her…

Read what happens in Final Draft: An Olivia Lively Mystery (Book 1)

Final Draft, An Olivia Lively Mystery Book #1

Genre: Private Investigator
Release: March 2023
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Sin, suffer… stakeout?

While untangling an academic plagiarism case involving a well-known author and his troubled protégé, private investigator Olivia Lively learns that when it comes to life, love, and authorship, the lines can get pretty fuzzy.

Olivia Lively’s private investigation business might be flourishing, but her private life is a mess. Her latest romantic mistake is stalking her, her socialite mother is trying to hook her up with a commitment-minded cardiologist, and her best friend is struggling to start a family and is totally fed up with Liv’s drama.

So when graduate writing student Cooper Tedeschi begs Liv to prove that his professor-one of the most famous novelists in the country-stole his manuscript, Liv is grateful for the distraction and is soon entangled in the competitive world of academia. Meanwhile, the hot heart doc her mother has chosen for her surprises Liv in more ways than one, and Liv’s conniving ex isn’t quite done playing with her yet.

As the plagiarism case grows more complicated, and her private life more confusing, Liv learns that the line between truth and fiction-and right and wrong-is not always clearly defined.

Meet the author
Shelley Burbank is a mystery and women’s fiction author and journalist based in Maine and San Diego, California. Her short fiction has been published in True Story Magazine, San Diego Woman Magazine, and The Maine Review and will be included in the Partners In Crime Anthology, Crime Under the Sun, this summer. Her debut novel, Final Draft: An Olivia Lively Mystery will be published by Encircle Publications in March 2023. Shelley’s currently hard at work on the next Olivia Lively mystery, Night Moves.

All comments are welcomed.