Crafts and Life

Leslee Stanton Nix—aka “Nixy”—thought moving to small-town Lilyvale, Arkansas, would be about as thrilling as watching paint dry. But keeping up with her retired Aunt Sherry and her troublemaking housemates—collectively known as the Silver Six—has proven to be as exciting as it is exasperating.
 
To kick off the grand opening of their craft shop, the Handcraft Emporium, Nixy and the Silver Six invite Doralee Gordon to teach a gourd painting class. Doralee’s spirit gets squashed when her ex-husband crashes the class with his new fiancée, but things really get messy when the bride-to-be later turns up dead. Now it’s up to Nixy and the Silver Six to use their melons to find the killer—before someone else gets painted out of the picture…

The renovations are done and the Handcraft Emporium is about to have its staggered opening (they are having a few days of classes and each teacher will donate a craft to the Grand Opening's Draw), the first class is on Gourd decoration and Doralee (along with her partner/helper Zach) are ready to go when her ex-husband turns up and causes a scene, he (along with his new fiancée and his sister) ends up staying for the demonstration (luckily he keeps quiet!), everything seems to be settling down, until Doralee and Nixy stumble across the fiancée's dead body!

Now Nixy needs to prove that Doralee had nothing to do with the death, she needs to keep the Silver Six out of trouble (easier said than done!) oh and learn how to be a pet owner (two delightful strays have turned up and adopted Nixy, a German Pinscher dog and a tabby cat), at some point in time she may even manage another date with Detective Shoar!

Lilyvale seems like a wonderful place to stay, Nancy Haddock paints it and the characters so well, I hope this is a series that keeps going!