Sara Medlar, Famous Romance Author, finds herself returning to her home town of Lachlan Florida taking on a project of remodeling a home that she had admired as a child. When Sara’s niece Kate is offered a real estate job in Lachlan, Sara is thrilled to have her come and stay with her until she gets settled.

Kate is thrilled to have time with her famous Aunt, yet finds a surprise when she discovers her Aunt has another houseguest, Jackson Wyatt is also staying there. Good looking and charming, two things that Kate has absolutely no time for.

When two skeletons are discovered growing into a tree on an investment property recently acquired by Jack, the three are thrown into solving a long buried town secret, that the town seems to want to keep buried.

My first experience with Author Jude Devereaux was with The Summer House in 2008. This was a book club read and became one of my all time favorite books if not for the book itself, then for the discussion it brought forth. I read and reviewed it again in 2020.

At the time of the first reading of Summer House, I caved to read something else by this author in hopes of making lightning strike twice. I can not recall now what I tried to read however I do recall it did not stick.

A Willing Murder was a book I listened to on Audio. I enjoyed getting to know the characters and was especially intrigued by the skeletons that had been buried under the tree and the story entwined within. Perhaps the fact that the skeletons were almost immediately identified added to my interest of wanting to know the whole story.

An interesting story with great bones (pun intended), I enjoyed the mystery and had no idea until the very end as to who did it. Not too heavy and not too light, for this girl the book was a great fit for these spring days.

I have a few of her other books on my shelves that I look forward to reading.