“We don’t hire people like you, Miss Sophie Parker.”

And with that, my day starts off with a bust.

They say you can’t go home, and I’ve discovered the truth of that statement every day since returning to the small Blue Ridge Virginia home I grew up in. Growing up in a prominent, affluent family, I’ve gone from riches to rags now that my father and brother are in prison for running a Ponzi scheme, and my mother has run off to some South American country with her personal trainer. I’ve been forced to return home because I have no money and someone needs to look after my cantankerous great aunt.

But as you can imagine, not many people in my little town want to hire the daughter of a crook. It doesn’t help that my degree in Folklore nor my vast knowledge of fairy tales isn’t in high demand in a small town.

I may be down, but I’m not out. Nor am I proud. I was able to get a job as a wench waitress at a pirate themed sports bar called the Booty Burgo. It’s as bad as it sounds, and why I continue to look for a different job.

To make ends meet, I belong to a coupon group that meets once a week to swap coupons and gossip. I have a college degree, but growing up as daddy’s little princess means I’m not wise to the ways of the world, especially to the complex process of clipping, matching, and stacking coupons.

My best friend Lani is in the group, but so is my nemesis from high school, Vivie, who’s hated me ever since I dated her ex-boyfriend, now husband, for a week when we were sixteen. Randy was a cad in high school, and now, ten years later he’s a douche who spends his nights ogling the waitresses at the Booty Burgo. He’s another reason why I want a new job. Too bad for me, the interview at Denny Coker’s Bail Bond Service this morning doesn’t go well when his wife calls me a crook and a temptress.

I leave the interview in my thirty-year old poop brown Volvo wagon I call the Brown Bomber, and head to the grocery store. I hope that I’ve calculated my coupons correctly. The twenty-dollar bill in my wallet is all I have until I get paid. Unfortunately, couponing is like new math, it doesn’t make sense and my purchase cost exceeds what I have in my purse.

My embarrassment at miscalculating my purchase turns to humiliation when my teenage crush comes up behind me in the checkout line. AJ Devlin is as handsome now as he was when I last saw him ten years ago on my eighteenth birthday, the day before he headed off to bootcamp and I went to college.

He’s still kind and sweet, boosting my mood on a bad day by inviting me to fly with him as he transports a plane from a small county airport to Richmond. But all those happy feelings vanish when we land, and the police take us into custody.

It turns out that AJ repoed the plane, and the indebted owner was killed with an expensive golf club around the time we were there. To make matters worse, the murder victim is the man who turned my father into the Feds, giving me motive to want him dead. So now AJ and I are the subject of a murder investigation and my day is still far from over.

Fortunately, there isn’t any evidence to hold me, and I make it back to my little mountain town just in time for my coupon group. While there, Lani explains the error I made on my shop earlier (the store doesn’t double coupons anymore). Vivie snarls her usual insults at me, which I do my best to ignore, but even I have my limits. But it’s not all tedious. When another member says the quote about having to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince, I get to share my love and knowledge of fairy tales to explain that in the original story, the princess throws the frog against the wall.

At the end of the evening, I return home, and thankfully, Aunt Rose is asleep so she can’t fuss at me. I head off to bed, and wonder what the day will bring tomorrow. And then I remember, I’m the subject of a murder investigation.

There’s another saying about curiosity and cat, but I ignore it because my and AJ’s behinds are on the line. All I have to do is figure out who the real murderer is. What could go wrong?

You can read more about Sophie in Death of a Debtor, the first book in the NEW “Sophie Parker Coupon” cozy mystery series, coming February 12, 2019.

Forced to move back home to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia after her father and brother end up in jail for running a Ponzi scheme, Sophie Parker does the best she can. While living with her curmudgeonly aunt, she works as a wench waitress at a pirate-themed restaurant and learns the ins and outs of discount shopping through a coupon group.

Life goes from bad to worse when an innocent airplane ride with her former teenage crush, AJ, leads to her being picked up by the police. The plane’s indebted owner has been murdered, and he’s the man who helped put her father in jail.

What started as a curiosity has now turned into a quest to make sure she isn’t arrested. Armed with gossip from the women in her coupon group, and her cantankerous aunt, Sophie sets out to find out who killed the ruthless businessman minutes after she flew off with AJ.

Purchase Link
# # # # # # # # # # #

Meet the author
Jenna Harte is a die-hard romantic, writing about characters who are passionate about and committed to each other, and frequently getting into trouble. She is the author of the Valentine Mysteries, the first of which, Deadly Valentine, reached the quarter-finals in Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award in 2013. She’s also the author of the Southern Heat contemporary romance series, and the new Sophie Parker Coupon Mystery Series.

When she’s not telling stories, she works by day as a freelance writer, author and blogger. She’s an empty nester living in Central Virginia with her husband.

Keep up-to-date on Jenna’s books, get chocolate recipes and more at her website at jennaharte.com.

All comments are welcomed.