This mystery features two twin sisters Sunny and Eve and their home remodeling business. When trying to repair an old house in the bayou a dead body is discovered at the job site and the hunky guy that both sister like, Dave, is arrested. The sisters get to work to uncover who the true murder is to save Dave.
Overall this book was just ok. The murder was interesting and the setting but both sisters falling for the same guy they barely knew was unbelievable and one of the sisters was rather cruel.

I didn’t care for this one. Wasn’t as tightly written nor character driven enough for me

I really wanted to like this book, I love stories set in this part of the country. I just couldn't get into the story and found myself skimming rather than being absorbed with it. The twins were irritating and immature to me and I could care less about their "triangle" with Dave. I was a disappointed reader.

I received a readers copy in exchange for my honest opinion from NetGalley

Dead on the Bayou

by June Shaw

Sunny and Eve are identical twin sisters in the cozy mystery Dead on the Bayou. The sisters try to keep their home repair and renovation business going while exonerating themselves and friend Dave Price from murder charges. Sunny is the narrator of this tale and shares with the reader in endless repetition her attraction to Dave and how she stifles it because her twin sister is also attracted to him. Much information about her investigation is also repeated to the point that as a reader I wanted to yell “I know. I was there!”

The plot idea is good. The ending is a surprise, but in a disappointing way. There are no clues to lead Sunny and Eve in that direction at all. The setting is well executed with descriptions of the bayou and Louisiana food. Even better are the descriptions of the living facility where the twins’ mother resides. Accurate details include little groups of chatting ladies, assigned tables with self-assigned seats at early mealtimes, and seniors with walkers who by necessity are totally focused on keeping themselves upright and headed to their destination. Unfortunately the author, June Shaw, keeps returning the twins fruitlessly to this home to investigate even though the residents have little more than rumor to offer and usually are not even available. The twins are not honest, being willing to bend truth and fabricate stories to cover themselves. I found myself looking for diversions each time I finished with a chapter or two. Dead on the Bayou is not a page turner.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press) for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 3/5

Category: Mystery

Notes: #2 in the Twin Sisters Mystery Series

Publication: August 22, 2017— Lyrical Underground (Kensington Press)

Memorable Lines:

…she reminded me of my first-grade teacher, who didn’t know about my dyslexia any more than the rest of us did at that time. Every time I read a few words or a group of numbers in class, she gave me that same hard shake of her head and finger wag as though I had been a really bad puppy. She would end this display of negativity toward me by speaking my name with a sharp tone and say, “No, you are wrong. Again.” No wonder I hated my early schooling.

Bless my third-grade teacher, who figured I was dyslexic and had me tested.

Eve must have read my mind since she called me the instant I sat in my truck and pulled out my phone. Maybe that was an occurrence with a lot of people, but over our lifetimes my twin and I so often received the same vibe at the same time that our connection was hard to discount.

I love mysteries that are set in the south so I thought this book would be a great read for me. Unfortunately that was not the case. The relationship between the sisters was weird, the love triangle was very off-putting and the story just wasn’t believable. The writing wasn’t awful but it also wasn’t great and I found myself losing interest quite a bit.

I read the previous book in this series and enjoyed meeting the odd assortment of characters.
Once again we get the insight and advice of the seniors living at and rarely leaving the nursing home.
The sisters are still both attracted to the same man, the hunky Dave. Although Sunny and Eve are persons of interest in the murder, it is Dave who ends up in jail.
The book has a steady pace and the mystery is not solved too soon.

Book two in the identical, head turning, carpenter sisters, with bodies ending up being found by them.
Both Sunny and Eve live very busy lives, and hard to imagine but they have a remodeling business. As first one body shows up, and a bit of romance is ensuing, you wonder whom the hunk is going to end up with, but where he ends up is not what you were thinking.
With these two you are never going to know when the next shoe is going to drop, or body either for that matter. We also get to enjoy the twins Mom and the other folks at the senior home, and they have much wisdom to offer these two sisters.
A quick and enjoyable read that you will need to keep reading to find out who!
I received this book through Great Escapes Book Tour and was not required to give a positive review.

I love the unique premise of this novel and series. Identical twins with very different personalities provide a multitude of plot twists and plenty of humor.

Eve is the more outgoing twin, while Sunny has a much more unique personality. She shies away from romance, and when she gets scared she hums and sings Christmas carols--which can be highly inappropriate and hilarious at the same time.

The supporting cast includes a group of gossipy senior citizens. They never leave the Home, but they seem to know everything about everyone in town.

The plot is well-developed and the story is well-written. The reveal was a total surprise, after many twists and turns to get us there. I look forward to reading more about these characters in the future.

**I received a copy of this book from the author with no expectation of a positive review. All thoughts and opinions are entirely my own.**

This is a charming series. The twin sisters, their mother and her friends, possible romances, and Louisiana all add to the enjoyment. I look forward to reading the next one.

I was so excited for this but sadly, it just didn’t hit any of my cozy mystery spots. I like the premise but was taken aback by the sister’s relationship. I have not read book one in the series, so that could be the problem.

This is set in Louisiana. I live in Louisiana, although not on the water sadly, so I was psyched to pick this up and see what kind of world the author could make. I enjoyed most of it but the relationship between the twins, a weird love triangle, kept throwing me off of the whodoneit story.

Trying to help out a friend, Dave, Sunny and Eve wind up getting way too close to a corpse and wind up being the center of an investigation. What’s even worse, if that’s possible, small towns talk so everyone knows who was there when the corpse was found. Doesn’t help that the cops seem way laid back and will tell anyone nearly everything!

What is really strange, other than the love triangle trope, which drives me insane, is that the sisters do not seem to have a great relationship. Eve is going through trying to come to terms with her grandson having to move away, so I understand why she is distant but she also seems rather mean. Everyone is going out of their own way to step on eggshells when they are around her. She also talks very little. Being that this is my first book with them, I was taken aback by how little characterization there was with Eve. I liked Sunny better, but the fact that she was constantly doing her best to get around Eve’s attitude made her as frustrating as Eve’s narcissism.

I’m not sure how I feel about this plot. It was okay. I didn’t figure out the ending, which is a plus, but the rest has made me disgruntled. I enjoy cozy mysteries because you can sit back and fall into a mysterious plot without too much fear of the plot being a psychological thriller, and hopefully not too much romance. This didn’t have any of the great things that I love about cozy mysteries. I think the characterization can be worked on but if I were to read another book it would be to hope that Sunny finally grew a backbone.

Two stars for the premise but not for pretty much anything else. Where are the editors these days? This could have been greatly improved by a copy edit. I'd like to see more from Shaw and the twins (this is the first one of her books I've read) simply because she's hit on an unusual twist in the cozy category but please please have someone else look at the manuscript before it's published. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) provided by the Author and Publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an fair and honest review.

I am a sucker for any romance/romantic-suspense/mystery/cozy with its' setting in the Bayou. I love this region and I particularly love it when an author can make it live as another character in their books. So much for what I wish for. This book was ridiculous and not in a wonderful, funny way. It was ridiculous in a really badly written way. Only good thing is that the baddie was someone you would never guess.

Sunny Taylor and Eve Vaughn are twin sisters who have started a home remodeling business but keep getting distracted from it by the bodies that keep popping up at their job sites. Also a distraction is hunky Dave Price who Eve swears is her sole mate and Sunny day dreams is the one to fulfill her fantasies. When Dave wants them to fix up the old, ramshackle bayou fishing camp he just bought, they each have the same reason to take the job. Now history is repeating itself and they discover a body at Dave's fishing camp. Dave is under suspicion and the twins can't let their guy to end up in jail.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2050230342

My rating: 2 of 5 stars, it was just okay.

Book 2 in the series.

This was an okay story. I haven't read the previous book, and at times I felt like I was a bit lost.

My main problems came with the main characters. I had a hard time liking them. And the new spin on the love triangle (two sisters, one man) just annoyed me to no end. Sunny is determined that he has feelings for her, Eve thinks he's her soulmate and neither one seems to give a thought to the other's feelings, nor does it seem to bother them that he's playing them both. I just can't get past that. As a result, I kept putting my Kindle down and reading other things.

The mystery itself was decent, but lost in the relationship mess.

Identical twin sisters Sunny Taylor and Eve Vaughn are both divorced and jointly own a home repair and remodeling business along the Louisiana bayou. They’re hired by their friend Dave Price to fix up his newly purchased fishing camp and both Eve and Sunny would love for their professional relationship with Dave to become a little more personal. However, when Eve, Sunny, and Dave find a dead body in the house at Dave’s new camp, any plans for remodeling or for romance must be put on hold until Sunny and Eve can prove Dave is innocent of murder.

This is the second book in a new series, but the first I’ve read by this author. There are many cozy mysteries featuring sisters, but I love the idea that the main characters in this series are identical twins. Although they look alike, their personalities are very different. Eve is a man-hungry Southern belle who would be right at home with Blanche Devereaux from The Golden Girls. Sunny is more reserved and although she loves her sister, even though she doesn’t always love what she does. Eve makes no secret about her interest in Dave, but Sunny keeps her feelings for him secret while they’re dealing with murder and Eve is adjusting to her daughter, son-in-law, and new grandson moving away. While this is noble of Sunny, having this fact hang over them throughout the whole book gets old.

The book is based on a great fun premise, but unfortunately, the characters are so exaggerated and over-the-top, they don’t seem like real people at all. Sunny’s habit of singing Christmas carols when she’s scared seems silly and irritating instead of quirky and fun. I had hoped the twins’ mother would be more involved in the investigation. Although Sunny and Eve rush in and out of Miriam’s assisted living home throughout the book, they rarely have a real conversation with her, and so the reader doesn’t have the chance to get to know her.

The remodeling business and bayou setting are interesting, as is the idea of having twins for the main characters. The plot of the book is good and it is fast-paced as Sunny and Eve investigate to find the real murderer. I think the series has promise if the characters could become more realistic giving the reader characters they can care about and to keep their outsized personalities and foibles from overpowering the book.

~ Christine

If only this book was a crisp as it's description, it would have been more enjoyable for me. Maybe I missed something with the first in June Shaw's Twin Sister Mystery series, but in the latest I feel like I was without key information. Neither of the sisters was particularly likeable and were so beset with personality issues that I had a very hard time with it. The final outcome of the mystery was intriguing, and for that alone there was some redemption of the book, but otherwise I was left with a negative impression.

Maggie has returned to her family's home in Louisiana after a breakup with her boyfriend. She's hoping to continue her art career, while helping her family with their bed & breakfast and working as a tour guide at the family's old plantation (now run by the state). It's almost Christmas, and the B&B is suddenly getting bad reviews, followed by the murder of one of their guests. Maggie and her boyfriend Bo, who is a police detective, both are suspects, but they work to find the killer.
This is a fun mystery to read, mostly because of the infusion of authentic Louisiana cultures--Cajun, Creole, mixtures. The characters are interesting, and provide good dialogue (again, authentic!) I noticed only 2 possible flaws: at one point it's mentioned that Maggie's mother has used shrimp instead of crawfish in the etouffee because crawfish weren't in season. Then, the next evening, we find Maggie at a bar where she's offered Cajun popcorn (fried crawfish) by Rufus. And, I really think Maggie's boyfriend should be called Beau rather than Bo, especially since he appears to be from a family that has roots in the same area.
The plot of this mystery is well-written, with enough twists to keep the murderer secret, at least until near the end. It's a fine cozy mystery with some good recipes at the end of the book! I look forward to reading the next installment!

In the second book about Twin Sisters Eve, and Sunny June Shaw writes a great mystery. With the death and discovery of Mrs. Wilburn the nosy neighbor the Twins are thrown into the investigation. I kept reading to try and find out why and how this body ended up in Dave's camp house. The investigating at the nursing home where the Twins mother lives was a great idea.. We are left guessing how the clues all connect until the end. I really thought the book was a quick read. The pacing really needed to slow down at one point. Though the words and events flowed well. This book was faster than I thought it would be.. I also would like a little more character description. It would help to have a more intimate moment with the Twins. I did however enjoy the touches of when food would be discussed. That seems totally Louisiana. This series could easily become one of my favorites.

I enjoyed this entertaining mystery. I found this book to be well written with a good plot and setting. I enjoyed the author's writing style and hope to read more of her work.

Dead on the Bayou is the second book in June Shaw’s A Twin Sisters Mystery series. This is a well-written cozy mystery with a good mix of quirky humor, colorful characters, a touch of romance, and an interesting mystery. The mystery kept me guessing until the final reveal.

Sunny Taylor and Eve Vaughn are identical twins, with completely different personalities, who live in the small town of Sugar Ledge, Louisiana. Sunny and Eve are both divorced and have recently started a home remodeling and renovation business. Sunny is unsure of herself and when she’s anxious or scared, she starts humming or singing Christmas carols (a result of being traumatized by the death of their older sister, Crystal). Eve is more outgoing than her sister is, tends to flirt with the men she meets, and paints about her relationships. Both sisters are close to their mother, who lives in a nearby retirement community. Sunny is recovering from an injury to her shoulder caused by a gunshot and unable to perform any physical carpentry work but she agrees to take a look at the bayou fishing camp Dave Price recently purchased. Sunny and her sister are attracted to Dave and both hope he becomes more than just a satisfied customer, but Sunny feels she should back off because Eve is currently emotionally insecure. Sunny and Eve meet Dave at the fishing camp to give him ideas for fixing the place up. Sunny finds a large trash bag in the utility room, and when she tries to move it away from the hot water heater, discovers it contains the body of Eve’s neighbor, Clara Wilburn. When they try to pay their respects to Mrs. Wilburn’s son, Royce (who lived with his mother due to his gambling obsession and debts), he accuses Sunny of killing his mother. Sunny learns that the victim wasn’t very well liked, not even by her family. Dave is questioned by the police and told he is a suspect. Dave is arrested and the twin’s business is in jeopardy because their names are linked to another murder.

I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book from NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

Now that twins Sunny Taylor and Eve Vaughn have settled into their home remodeling and repair business they’re excited to be remodeling Dave Price’s fishing camp. The fact that he’s gorgeous is just an added bonus. But when they find a body on the site, there’s little time for romance or repair. The police are suspicious of all three and the whole situation is doing nothing to help Sunny and Eve’s business, especially when another body is found. A cute home repair cozy with a touch of romance