Book review: Dangerous Deeds by Beth Prentice

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m currently working as a crane operator on mine maintenance shut downs up in the Pilbara. It’s pretty random work, but when I get it I’m usually lucky enough to do more reading than actual work. Yesterday I was slogging away at a new release book that I wasn’t really getting into and after another slow 10% I decided today was not the day that this book was going to be read.

Instead I decided I was going to pick a book I knew I’d enjoy. One of my reading goals this year is to read some of the many books I already own on my bookshelves and my kindle. I’d read a few chapters of this book last year and really enjoyed them, but got called away to read a review book. So yesterday was the opportune time to pick it up again. Bad idea! After not wanting to put it down to do my work yesterday, I also didn’t want to put it down to go to sleep and so I played the one more chapter game. I’m sure many of you know this game, and also know it’s never just one more chapter. So the one more chapter game kept being played until low and behold, there was only 4 chapters left, so I may as well finish the book. Yawn, oh dear, now there’s just over 5 hours until I have to get up for work. But was it worth it? Most definitely!

Dangerous Deeds is the first book in The Westport Mysteries and was a fabulously crazy read full of mystery, stalkers, a seriously hot handyman, a crazy grandma and well a crazy family really.

I enjoyed this book so much, there was a smile on my face through much of it, as Riley says it’s never dull when Lizzie and her family are around.

Lizzie is a fabulous character, she’s completely real, has issues like the rest of us and isn’t on the small side as she points out several times. When Lizzie buys an old house to renovate it brings with it unexpected problems and a mystery of a hidden ring and letters, but it also brings Riley the seriously hot handyman. Riley is gorgeous from the beginning and not just in looks. Diving right into the mystery with Lizzie so begins a hilarious but scary at times adventure to find the owner of the ring.

Grandma Mabel is just fabulous  I’m not sure how I’d go if she were my grandma, but I wish I thought I’d be as outrageous as she is when I’m older (maybe something to aim for).

Today I’m going to start book two: Give Muder a Hand and hope I finish it well before bed time.

About the book:

If only she knew buying a house could be so dangerous…

Meet Lizzie. She’s 31 and having a premature mid-life crisis. So, she bought a lonely, run down old house that pulled on her heartstrings.

But with the purchase Lizzie gets more than she bargained for. She didn’t expect the engagement ring and letters of forbidden love hidden under the attic floorboards. She didn’t expect the lazy cat, or the drop dead gorgeous handyman. And she definitely didn’t expect the stalker.

As the renovation begins and the house starts to slowly return to its former glory, the letters dog her dreams. Why was the writer forced to turn away from his love? Why was their love forbidden? And why was this all hidden under the floorboards?

Filled with a drive to reunite the ring with its rightful owner, Lizzie engages the help of her new handyman, her crazy family and her sex crazed Grandma, and sets on a journey of lost love, heartache, and public damnation.

But can Lizzie restore the house to its former glory, and find who it all once belonged to before her stalker catches up with her? Or will she lose everything…including her life?

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