Classic Devereaux! Enjoyable characters and romance with suspense thrown in! Loved this book. Wellwritten and enjoyable. Looking for more.

I enjoyed this book - the author is primarily a romance novelist, and you can tell. Instead of the grim and gritty of so many mystery novels, this sparkled with the wit and characters you see in romance novels. I particularly enjoyed the character of Sara Medlar, and I hope there are more books featuring these characters to come.

An entertaining romantic mystery with a little too much fashion and designer labeling for my taste. Kate, a young real estate agent moves to the town where the father she lost when she was too young to remember him grew up and her aunt, an aging bestselling author she never knew she was related to lives. At one of the houses she plans to sell that is owned by and being remodeled by Jack, a young man who lives with her aunt, they discover two skeletons entwined in the roots of a fallen tree. Jack, Kate, and Kate's aunt try to solve the mystery while more bodies pile up. Deveraux was my favorite romance author in the 1980s. She penned many unforgettable novels so it was entertaining to see her writing now. She is still smart and clever and while this was an enjoyable read I didn't connect to it like I had to her early romance novels.

One of my all time favorite books has been “A Knight in Shining Armor”. Since reading that book, Jude Deveraux has been a favorite author of mine. One of my highlights of the recent ALA conference was meeting Ms Deveraux. Thank you Net Galley for providing me a copy of “A Willing Murder”. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Fun little mystery......loved the dialogue between Sara and Jack. This is a different departure than her other books, but well worth the read. Looking forward to reading more of her mystery books.

Thanks to Mira Books and NetGalley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ok, I admit I was skeptical—one of my all time favorite romance authors writing a mystery?

Kate Medlar moves to Florida to sell real estate, staying with her aunt, world-famous romance author Sara Medlar in hopes of learning more about her father who died when Kate was only four. Also staying with Sara is bad boy Jack Wyatt, a local contractor updating her mansion, as well as rehabbing neighborhood homes. But when a large poinciana tree topples during a storm, the three become amateur sleuths, attempting to learn the identities of the pair of skeletal remains found entangled in the roots.

This is a great cozy mystery with lots of red herrings and quirky characters. I thought I had things figured out early on, but nope, there was a final twist.

As a big fan of Jude Deveraux, I knew I'd probably like her newest book and I was right - I love it! Her characters are so well developed and the storyline kept me guessing until the very end. Kate wants to find out more about her father and has just found out that her Aunt Sara, a famous writer, lives in Florida. So Kate gets a job as a realtor in town and writes to her aunt who invites her to stay with her until she can find a place. Jack is also staying with Sara since he was injured in a serious car accident. The bond that forms between these three people is strong and healing. This humorous, emotional, and engrossing mystery is a must read!

Kate has started a new career in real estate in Florida, but she can’t afford a place of her own, so she’s staying with her aunt, Sara, a romance novel writer with fans spanning the globe. Sara, meanwhile has returned to her Florida hometown to restore the old mansion she dreamed of owning when she was a child. Joining the women is Jackson Wyatt, Sara’s houseguest and while at first the three roommates don’t see eye to eye on anything, the discovery of two skeletons on the property casts them as detectives trying to solve a mystery everyone else seems to believe is better off forgotten. Devereux (who could be Sara herself) has been delighting fans of romantic fiction for over thirty years and will no doubt attract new readers with her newest story