I originally discovered this series through watching the movies on the hallmark channel. I have enjoyed this fun, cozy mystery series. I thought it was really interesting that the building is based off of a real place.

I always try to look for the next in this series. This book however was not my favorite. The relationship between Shannon and Mac was too cutesy for words. They seemed to have jumped over a step. I was about halfway through the book and started to wonder if this was a mystery since nothing much had really happened other than some people creating a disturbance at the construction site. When we finally get to the first murder, there isn't much investigating going on other than Shannon and Mac throwing around ridiculous theories. When the second murder happens the mystery is solved and there is no surprise. This just left me disappointed.

What an awesome story! Shannon and Mac's relationship is so cute, I can't wait to see where it goes. I love that her sister Chloe is coming back to town and is in a relationship too. The mystery at The Gables is a page turner, I did not even remotely see the twists and who did it until they figured it out in the story. Can't wait until the next story (hopefully there are more coming!) to see how The Gables turns out and how Shannon and Mac move forward with their relationship. I'm such a sucker for a good mystery and a HEA!

This review is based on an ARC from NetGalley, courtesy of the publisher. All opinions are my own.

I gave this one only four stars because the murder takes way, way too long to occur. Other than that, this, the 8th in the series, was a great read. Shannon and Mac are immersed in another murder when Shannon takes on a huge renovation project for her friend, Jane. The old mental institution, abandoned for almost 20 years, is going to get a new life as a multi-use location with retail, restaurants and a five star hotel. The hotel is Jane's and Mac is one of the investors. If it all goes to plan, The Gables will become a big draw for the town of Lighthouse Cove,. Of course something always goes sideways and as soon as the ground breaking takes place, protesters start their agenda and make things difficult for Shannon and her crew. If only that was all she had to deal with - a body turns up and Shannon sets out to track down the killer in their midst. Along the way the dark history of The Gables is uncovered and, boy, is it creepy. Like read it at Halloween creepy.
We get to hang out with Shannon and Mac - I wish they would tie the knot - and we learn some more about Jane and then there is Chloe, Shannon's sister. I hope this means that she and her romance with the Chief will figure in future books. The mystery was well crafted and it kept me guessing. All in all it was a very enjoyable reading escape during these trying times.
My thanks to the publisher, Berkley and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

Shannon Hammer is working with her best friend Jane to rehab part of a former insane asylum into a grand hotel. The Gables has its issues and one of them is a group of former patients that are protesting the rehab project. Shannon is focused on the construction work until she's pushed into a pit of bricks and the next day finds a body nearby. To keep her workmen on schedule, she begins to poke around and find out who the killer is.
I was a little disappointed with this one. The mystery is weak, and the story line gets a little bogged down. There's always been some romance in her books, but this one seems to detract from the rest of the plot making it a bit repetitive.
#PremeditatedMortar #NetGalley

This was my first Shannon Hammer story and I am sure that it will not be my last. The characters are engaging and you do not have be a series follower to be able to follow the story. As with all good cozys, Shannon has a great group of family and friends, and her guy sounds like one smart and appreciative beau. I really appreciated the fact that the author took a couple of sentences to explain how Shannon got into construction in the first place. A unique concept, to take a former institution and to turn it into something new and commercially shiny while sticking to the original architectural integrity. You can tell that Ms. Carlisle definitely did some research. I also enjoyed the plot twist which I definitely did not see coming. The imagery made it very easy to see the wonderful scenery in my mind's eye and to contemplate a trip to northern California. With the amount of time that will be needed for this latest renovation and the size and grandeur I could easily see a follow up story that picks up slightly from where this one leaves off. I also liked the helpful hint about how to deal with mold using white vinegar where you have wall paper, one never knows when those little tidbits of knowledge can come in handy.

Shannon Hammer is about to begin the largest project her construction company has ever done - the restoration/renovation of The Gables, a former asylum for the insane. Jane Hennessey, Shannon's best friend owns this wing of The Gables and envisions it as a small luxury hotel and spa. Shannon and crew begin to work but all too soon they are shut down by a protest, a murder, an attempt on Shannon's life and the revelation of a darker side to the history of the asylum. Eighth in Carlisle's Fixer-Upper Mystery Series, this is a gripping story that reveals the horrors of a system gone wrong as well as the joys and healing powers of love. The best Fixer-Upper to date.
I received this ebook from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing in exchange for an honest review.

OOOOOO – Picture this setting – a dark and foreboding former state insane asylum. The complex includes seven large Victorian-style buildings and those buildings have all been acquired by a developer who has plans to turn the complex into an upscale ‘destination’ with upscale shops and a luxury hotel. The complex was originally built in Victorian times by Dr. Jones who firmly believed that a beautiful idyllic setting, pleasant surroundings, outside activities, etc. were all beneficial to his patients and he built the complex with those ideals in mind. The asylum was later privatized and was renamed ‘Gables’.

Shannon Hammer’s best friend Jane Hennessey has acquired the lease to building seven in order to create a small luxury hotel and Shannon’s company has been chosen to do the renovations. It is the biggest undertaking of Shannon’s career and she is looking forward to helping her friend create the hotel of her dreams. Jane’s mother was a patient at the Gables, and Jane wants to create the hotel as a warm, loving place in her mother’s memory.

Things begin to go wrong from the beginning – at the ribbon cutting ceremony that allows the lessees to begin their construction projects. When protestors arrive and the developer is slimed, things begin to go from bad to worse. All of the attention seems to be centered around building seven and Shannon is injured more than once and each of those ‘accidents’ could have cost her life. What is going on? Who could wish this project to go wrong? Who are those protestors who seem to have come out of nowhere?

As we read along, we learn more about the history behind the later years of the hospital and the patients who lived there. Can Shannon and Mac help the police chief, Eric, solve the case – even when there is a murder – or two?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the mystery. We saw a more emotional Shannon this time around. I’m not sure I enjoyed a tearful Shannon, nor am I sure I understood the reasons behind it, but that was a minor part of the story. I loved the growth and changes in the romantic relationships between Shannon and Mac, Chloe and Eric, and Jane and Niall.

You can totally read this as a standalone book even though it is part of a series. I hope you will give it a read and enjoy it as much as I did.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

This is my first book in this series, and I loved it! I am very interested in asylums, both for the mentally challenged and for children. I would never think of turning one of these institutions into a hotel - wow - and to find out at the end that Buffalo did just that. So not only is this an interesting story, but it was more than this for me. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. Now I have to get the other seven books in this series to catch up. And plan a visit to the Hotel Henry in Buffalo.

I really enjoy this type of cozy mystery. Fixer upper mysteries always seem to have some of the best plots, and Premeditated Mortar did not disappoint.
Shannon takes on a big renovation project for her best friend Jane, and it’s at an asylum.
The story is well written and I was hooked from the beginning.
I would recommend this book to other cozy mystery fans.

#PremeditatedMortar #NetGalley

What I Loved:

The Setting at the Asylum. Kate Carlisle writes a great scene, and Premeditated Mortar was no exception. I loved the slightly spooky setting of the insane asylum, but also how gorgeous it was. The turrets and courtyard style lend itself to the new project of a retreat and beautiful hotel, and you can actually picture the whole construction project. In my community, we also had a large asylum that was shut down during major mental health reforms, and I recognized a lot of the features they described (the long corridors facing the sun, underground tunnels that connected all of the buildings together). It makes this even more real for me, because my community never did anything with our old asylum building and it is now a n unwanted relic of a shameful past. Premeditated Mortar makes the project look believable and doable.

Chloe Hammer. I love Shannon’s sister Chloe, TV show extraordinaire and partner to the police chief. Chloe is brash and confident, and she is unapologetically feminine while also being a great builder. She is also a loyal sister to Shannon and I am so excited she is going to be playing a larger role in the coming books, because frankly, she is becoming more interesting than Shannon.

The Depiction of Mental Illness. I think that Carlisle did a fantastic job of showing various forms of mental illness (depression, mental intellectual disabilities, etc.) and how treatments have changed over time. The original doctor is a classic Nurse Ratchet, and some of her patients were scarred for life. The evolution of modern medicine is also on full display, with characters that were previously institutionalized able to live normal lives due to new medications. I like that this detailed research and characterizations elevated Premeditated Mortar from a regular cozy to something with a little more nuance.

What Didn’t Work For Me:

Shannon and Mac. Now, this is unpopular, and honestly this is the first book I have felt this way. But Mac and Shannon are sickeningly cute. The “will they won’t they” was annoying, and when they got together, I was as excited as everyone. However over time, it has become too much. Every cutesy dinner they cook together, every time Shannon longingly looks into Mac’s eyes and thinks he is the hottest thing ever, every time she “has to forgive” a girl for staring at Mac longingly because he is *that good looking,* I cringe. And it isn’t Mac! He is normal and loving but at an appropriate level, but Shannon is insufferable. I just wish their cloying sweetness is toned down in future books, because Shannon is a less strong character for it.

The Mystery. While I loved all of the characters surrounding the mystery, particularly Rachel and Michael, I definitely felt that the killer was a little obvious and the handling of the “big reveal” was anticlimactic. I checked, and the murder doesn’t even occur until 80 percent into the book… I’m sorry, what?! How is that even a genre murder mystery anymore? Since there is a couple of mysteries in one, I will admit that I loved the historical context of the asylum, but the murder mystery itself was slapdash and felt more like a plot device than the plot itself. The second murder was handled even more cavalierly, and the killer was discovered almost as soon as the body was found.

Premeditated Mortar by Katie Carlisle is an advance reader copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Shannon Hammer is a building contractor in Victorian Home Restoration. MacKintyre Sullivan helped her after a bike accident and they became friends. They lived in Lighthouse Cove in Northern California. Shannon takes Mac to the Gables, an old insane asylum, to check it out for investing into it. At a pregroundbreaking ceremony, Shannon and her crew, Mac and many investors are at the Gables. Protesters come saying, " burn down the Gables" and throw a red liquid onto speaker Rachel. At the Gables, Shannon is pushed into a pile of loose bricks, passes out and is able to call for Mac. She is hurt and scared, but Mac helps her out. Later, the police and friends go back and find a dead man on the other side of a brick wall.
Reading a story about a woman contractor was interesting. Remembering some asylums that closed in the 80's, I always wondered how they were run and what happened to the patients. Kate Carlisle brought up some of these issues and how cruel some of the doctors were. This story had a good plot and was well written. I've seen some of her made for TV movies and enjoyed them as well.

Oh my gosh, I love this series and anything by Kate Carlisle and this book was no exception! Well written, fun, and heartwarming; exactly what I needed on a cold evening. The characters have only gotten stronger and more loveable, I’m so invested in their lives. And the mysteries aren’t crazy, improbable things either. Ok, kind of improbable, but pretty normal for a cozy. I cannot wait to see what happens next!

As cozy mysteries go, this series never fails to bring a breath of fresh air (albeit infused with the scent of sawdust). I've read three so far - I believe this is the eighth - and thoroughly enjoyed each one.

As this begins, building contractor Shannon Hammer has signed on to renovate and restore a wing of a long-abandoned mental hospital known as the Gables. The wing will become an upscale hotel owned by Shannon's friend, Jane Hennessey; when completed, the rest of the property will become a large retail complex that, hopefully, will attract visitors to Lighthouse Cove, North Carolina. Shannon's main squeeze, successful writer Mac Sullivan, has invested in the hotel project, so she's eager to get started.

But at the groundbreaking ceremony, her hopes are dashed a bit as a group of protesters show up to create a media circus. But wait, there's more: After the protesters disburse and she heads inside to get a better look at what needs to be done during the year-long renovation, someone pushes Shannon into a huge stack of bricks. Once she gets back on her feet - literally and figuratively - she goes back in to check out a hidden space and finds the body of one of the protesters.

From there, it's a merry chase to identify the killer that brings most of Shannon's close friends and her sister Chloe together (Chloe, for the record, has been in a serious relationship with the local chief of police). The investigation takes several turns, revealing previously unknown relationships and the possibility that the murderer might be someone close to Shannon. In between are details of the restoration project and the dark history of the mental institution - all interesting in and of themselves. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for the chance to read and review another winner - and now I'm looking forward to the next installment!

Fixer-upper Mystery book #8
I would read in order cause you learn a little about each of the main group of people.
Contractor Sharron is helping her best friend Jane with her section of the Asylum that she bought. Of course things can't go smoothly.. They have sabatoge, murder, assult.
Shannon always manages to get involved even after warned to stay out of it.
Good read, have also watched the movies they made based on books

I know I am coming into the series at the end however I didn’t feel like I was lost. It can be a stand-alone for sure. The author had a great way of briefly recapping the background for reader on the characters.

I must say I was at the edge of my seat throughout this book. Excited and anxious of what will happen next. Who will be murdered? How are they found? Who was the murderer? What were their motives?
A brilliant murder mystery with such fun characters. All the clues were wrapped up. The smart-Alec attitudes and banters made me laugh out loud at times.

I was glad I had the opportunity to read this, it was very enjoyable and kept my mind thinking without being stressful. Just lots of fun.

This was actually the first of Kate Carlisle’s Fixer-Upper Mystery series that I’ve read. I want to go read the entire series now, just to see the whole story unfold! However, I was able to get sufficient backstory in this book to have a pretty good feel for where things stand.

Shannon Hammer is about to tackle an ambitious project. The Gables, a former psychiatric institution, is being renovated as a retail development. Shannon’s best friend Jane is turning one of the buildings into the new Hennessey Hotel, and she’s tapped Shannon to handle the remodeling. Shannon’s significant other Mac has also decided to invest in the project. But not everyone in town is excited about the new future for The Gables. There are protestors, the former doctor in charge shows up (and boy, she’s a piece of work – it is all about her, her, her), and someone tries to help Shannon to an untimely demise by shoving her into a pit full of bricks behind a partially demolished wall. Thankfully, Shannon is not the dead body in the story, but she does find one. Who killed this man, and why? And is everyone really who they appear to be?

I really like the characters in this book! The chemistry between Shannon and Mac is a lot of fun, and I love that Niall has a history of tossing cabers with his buddies. That’s a nifty detail that helps me get a good picture of him in my mind. I could have done without mean girl Whitney – I’m not sure she really adds anything to the story, and I didn’t like mean girls in high school, much less now. But that isn’t enough for me to knock down my rating.

This was a delight to read. It moved at a nice pace, and there were never any parts where I felt like, oh, gosh, I have to slog through this to get to the good bits. Now, if you’re someone who likes the mystery/dead body to pop up right off the bat, this may not be your cup of tea. Shannon and her crew don’t find the corpse until about 2/3 of the way into the book. I enjoyed all the set-up, though. I was fascinated by the description of how Shannon evaluated the renovation and the work that would need to be done, because that’s something completely out of my experience. A good book that lets me learn new stuff, too? Win!

Five stars, and now I’ve got to go read all of these books.

Disclaimer: I received an advance reader copy from NetGalley and Berkley Publishing Group. All opinions here are mine, and I don’t say nice things about books I don’t actually like.

I have been waiting to read the latest book in the Fixer-Upper Mysteries, since it was announced! This series combines my love of all things home renovation with cozy mysteries, a match made in heaven! Premeditated Mortar was perfect! I thought the premise of renovating a former insane asylum into a hotel could be a little too scary for a cozy, but Kate Carlisle wrote it beautifully. I really enjoyed spending a few hours with Shannon, Jane, Mac and even a guest appearance from Chloe. The book was fast paced and I didn't see the murderer coming, which I always love. Perfect Christmas gift to yourself or for your favorite cozy mystery lover!

Although this is a series, this does standalone. I have read the previous books, and never really clicked with Shannon, she was too immature and it bothered me, but that wasn't the case in this edition. Shannon has matured and settled down with Mac, I really like the other characters in this series especially Jane and Eric, and of course we get some comic relief from Whitney. The use of an old mental hospital being repurposed is a great background and the mysteries of what was going on there as well as murder were done well. For me this has been the best of the series so far. The writing is tight and you can see in your mind the facility and the character interaction was good. Happily I recieved an ARC from Netgalley and Berkley for an honest opinion.

Shannon has been hired by her friend Jane to renovate a wing of the Gables, an old mental health asylum that has been closed for twenty years.. The plan is to open a hotel/restaurant/spa at the location.. A group of protestors disrupt the groundbreaking ceremonies and two are arrested. Shortly after, Shannon is pushed over a pit of bricks while exploring the premises. When she and her friends return to inspect the site, a dead body is found. Shannon sets out to unravel the connection between the old asylum, the protestors and the doctor who was in charge of the Gables before it closed. The doctor's treatment of the patients and methods used will help in solving the mystery.