Mary Kay Andrews is one of my favorite authors, especially for a fun, summer read. However, the Homewreckers was not my favorite. Hattie specializes in restoring old houses in Savannah, GA but when she bites off more than she can chew, she signs up to star in a new television show. After purchasing a falling-down beach house to restore for the tv series, the drama heats up quick when a famous interior designer is brought into the mix and a missing woman's wallet is found in the house. Can Hattie pull off the ultimate house flip while also solving a mystery? Unfortunately I thought this book felt a bit long and drawn out and I just wasn't invested in the characters. I did enjoy the mystery of the missing teacher but it took a while to figure out what happened and the ending felt rushed. While this one wasn't for me, it would definitely make a good beach read. Thank you Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for my copy. The Homewreckers is out May 3rd!

I just love Mary Kay Andrews, her sense of humor is amazing and definitely comes across in her writing.
This book is well written, funny and I loved the characters.
Reading this book while having my own home improvement projects motivated me to complete them and start more. I have been to Home Depot probably 4 times in the last 2 weeks! I think I need my own show!
Definitely a must read! #NetGalley

A chick lit romance murder mystery? I never realized that was a thing until I read this! The summary of the plot reads like a typical romance with a love triangle, but then at the end there’s mention of a woman who went missing years earlier. I didn’t know whether this would be a lighthearted and fun romance or a dark mystery, and in the end it’s a mashup of both, but left me wanting more romance and more mystery.

Besides Hattie and Cass, the characters felt kind of surface level and the romance left me wanting more. I didn’t feel like either man was interesting or sexy, but at least Mo was a nice guy. It felt like there was a lot of trying to convince Hattie to give either man a chance, which isn’t particularly romantic to me.

The murder mystery was more interesting to me and I found myself looking forward to those parts and wishing I was reading a book following the detective.

Hattie and Cass’ friendship is the best part of the book and made me really like both of them. It made them feel like real people since they’re both genuine and flawed. It made them stand out compared to the other two dimensional characters.

I wanted to like this more, but felt like I was reading two separate books stuck together.

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press for the chance to read this book prior to its release on May 17th.

I think the idea here was super cute and I was expecting to LOVE it. I love books that cross genres and the idea of a HGTV type home repair show, a little romance and a big mystery sounded right up my alley.

I ended up really struggling with this one and I think it was mostly due to the length, amount of characters and the mixing of genres. I think ultimately this book tried to be too much and ended up just confusing me.

Parts of it were still super cute and I still think a lot of people will resonate with it.

Thanks to St. Martin’s Press, I was provided an ARC of The Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.


*****Publishing May 3, 2022*****


⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mary Kay Andrews does not disappoint with her latest book, The Homewreckers, her books are always engaging and entertaining! A perfect book to start off your summer reading!

Hattie Kavanagh had been through so much, her husband’s unexpected death, buying a house she thought she could fix up, but turned out to be a money pit, so was forced to sell. Hattie and her best friend Cass both work for Hattie’s father in law’s construction and renovation company, Hattie as a contractor and Cass as her foreman. Mo Lopez from Toolbox Productions comes to town to find the right opportunity for his new reality home renovation TV show. He feels that Hattie would be the perfect match for his show, but she doesn’t agree. After much convincing, she agrees. Will Hattie be able to recoup her losses? Is reality TV all that appears to be? All the twists and turns will have you turning the pages to find out.

I love how Mary Kay Andrew’s books include a mystery element, are humorous, and keeps you entertained! I loved all the plot twists as well. A great vacation read!

Mary Kay Andrews writes the perfect mix of summer beach vibes, mystery & a little romance.

What works for me:

-Savannah/Tybee Island setting - I appreciate the nod to the historic architecture of the low country.
-the home renovation plot line - I love the HPTV plotline, a reality home renovation show is very of the time.
-Hattie - love the name. Hattie is a a total boss babe. She has suffered in her past, was widowed young, but is determined to run her business and bring a good name/reputation to the family business. We get to see her stumble and overcome several adversities.
-MKA always adds a little mystery to her books, which keeps me turning pages as quickly as I can.

What didn't work for me:
-Nothing, loved this one.
Love MKA!

3.5⭐️I did a combination of the ebook and audiobook.

What I liked: mystery element, the setting

What I didn’t like: this book was way too long (I think the core plot pieces could have been relayed much more succinctly) and the first 30% really dragged. The characters weren’t my favorites but I liked the romance at the end.

The best of both worlds takes on a new meaning in Homewreckers by Mary Kay Andrews. I love to read and I love to watch DIY TV, specifically shows that flip houses. Like so many people, I became a huge fan of Chip and Joanna Gaines, Property Brothers, Love it or List it, anything about home improvement. In Homewreckers, I got to go behind the scenes of reality TV with a bonus romance and an unsolved mystery. Andrews manages to bring characters to life and turn them into old friends. She can make you feel every emotion from every character. I have never been to Savannah but I could feel the humidity! Kudos to Mary Kay Andrews! Homewreckers is a winner!

Hattie works restoring home and flipping houses. But when her most recent home is causing her to lose money, she’s unsure what her next steps are. The she gets the opportunity to star in a new home renovation show and it may be the answer to all of her money problems.

One thing I love about Mary Kay Andrews is her ability to create light, fun reads with a little bit of romance and a level of mystery that keeps you so intrigued and invested. On one hand, here we have a book about flipping houses and reality TV, but woven into it is the decades old mystery of a missing woman. Both story lines had me equally invested, but the two together made for such a great read. I loved all the characters in this book - they were all very well-developed with distinct personalities that really added to the story. The home improvement angle was a fun plot that had this reality tv loving girl so happy. This was a fun, light read that would be perfect to take to the pool or beach!

I switched between the ebook and audiobook for this one. The narrator, Daphne Kouma was a joy to listen to. I found myself not wanting to stop when listening to the audiobook.

Thank you to St Martin’s Press, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the advanced copies.

My first Mary Kay andrews and I have to say it was better than expected! It was very different than what I thought it would be but I really liked it. I have heard so much hype and was nervous but she lived up to the hype. Highly recommend

Official rating: 3 stars
Page turner rating: 3 stars

Hattie is determined to take a run down house in Savannah and flip it as a part of the family business but she has gotten herself a little over her head with a home that is way more rundown than she realizes. Luckily though, her attempts cast the attention of a tv producer for a new type of flipping homes show. With a lot of encouragement she goes for the new opportunity and finds a lot more than she expected kicking off an investigation and perhaps a new relationship!

I really wanted to love this one a little more, but it was an interesting split of the 2 genres. It took a while to get into the mystery, but once it did we would be in depth talking about cabinet renovations and then sent back into an interrogation for a missing person. I enjoyed the characters and especially liked the Georgia and Savannah references. All in all, it was a good summer read, but could have been a little shorter for my liking.

Read if you:
Love the blended rom com and mystery aspect
Have been to Savannah, GA
Like watching Fixer Upper shows on HGTV
Liked Big Summer by Jennifer Weiner

This one comes out on May 3, if you would like to check it out! Thanks to NetGalley for the early copy!

Love anything by this author and this one did not disappoint! Absolutely fantastic. Thank you to publisher and NetGalley for access to ARC.

Mary Kay Andrews has done it again…produced a feel-good book with just the right mix of tension, mystery, and human drama to satisfy almost any reader. It’s all in The Homewreckers, her latest book, written with the backdrop of beautiful Savannah and Tybee Island, Georgia. These places definitely take a back seat to the story; but provide just enough backdrop to share a bit of the relaxed pace of one of the US’s most beautiful cities and a hint of what it might be like to have a beach house overlooking the back river on Tybee Island.

Hattie Kavanaugh, the central character, works rehabilitating old houses, which are abundant in Savannah, and struggling with grieving for her husband, killed 5 years ago in an accident. When the story opens she has just suffered an enormous financial loss on the house she thought she could rehab. She is almost overcome by this stinging failure, plus trying to decide how she’s going to keep from losing everything she has when Hollywood comes calling in the form of Mo Lopez, a producer who has the idea for a new reality TV series called Saving Savannah. Of course, by the time all the contracts have been signed it’s turned into a show called The Homewreckers, starring Hattie and a fancy California designer named Trae. Your imagination can supply the sparks that will fly from that combination.

Secondary characters who round out the story and fill Hattie’s world include Tug, her father-in-law and owner of the reconstruction company, Cass, her best friend since high school who is her construction foreperson, Zenobia, Cass’s mother and the business manager, plus a host of Savannah people who are so real you have no problem picturing yourself walking past them as you stroll through one of Savannah’s beautiful squares. There also is the family who let the house fall into disrepair and are several years in arrears on their taxes. They feel the house was stolen from them by Hattie, who offered the highest bid when it was sold at auction. Their resentment is powerful and their behavior borders on criminal, but Hattie is determined to ignore them other than to reply she bought the house legally and is improving it.

The mystery itself is well plotted, a seven year old cold case that involved the disappearance of Lanier, Hattie’s favorite English teacher in high school. People who were around at the time are divided, with some of them believing she ran off and left her child and husband, others believing she was murdered. The police investigation was cursory, and now there is a new detective, retired from Atlanta, who picks up the threads and starts his own investigation. Questions abound. Was she the sainted teacher helping all her girls through times of troubles as some remember? Or was she the opposite, the woman who ran around on her husband, possibly with a football player from the husband’s football team? Would she really abandon her four year old child? She’ll have to be found to answer these questions.

As Hattie and her crew work late into the night trying to complete the job on the network’s time frame, the Tybee detective interviews people who were around at the time of Lanier’s disappearance. He finds the Creedmore family, former owners of the house, difficult to pin down and reluctant to discuss anything. The same exists for Lanier’s husband who is filled with anger because he blames Lanier’s disappearance for his being fired as the head coach of the boy’s private school.

Finally there is the love triangle that forms between Hattie, Trae, and Mo. At outset, neither man appears to be headed in that direction. Trae has his exclusive California lifestyle and is completely wrapped up in his own success and future. Mo is always running from place to place, depending on where his current project is being filmed, but he, too, enjoys his California life. Hattie’s entire life is wrapped up in Savannah, could she leave it? Still, an unlikely interest in Hattie seems to develop in both men, as the reader has an opportunity to see the real man behind the public persona. Andrews resolves this triangle in a satisfying way while still leaving room for speculation about the future.

The book is an easy read, and holds the reader’s attention throughout. Pacing is excellent and whether the reader is interested in beach reading where they can read in spurts or someone who is looking to read straight through, this is a book to consider. My thanks to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with an advance copy for this review. The opinions expressed here are entirely my own.

This was such a fun mixture of romance, healing, moving forward, and.... murder! I loved how Andrews was able to weave all these things together to seamlessly create a beautiful story!

Hattie is a young widow and works with her father-in-law restoring old Savannah homes to their former glory. I really loved Hattie. She is grieving but is such a fun woman. Watching her heal and grow throughout this story felt like watching a good friend go through a transformation. The grief isn't heavy, it's been quite a few years since she lost her husband, so I still completely feel this is a beach read!

There is a murder mystery, and it's a light one. I would not recommend this to someone that wants a murder mystery book. This is a story about a woman rehabbing a home and coming out of her shell. The murder mystery is a side-story, and it's good, but it's not the main focus of the story.

I thought the characters were the most enjoyable part of this book. Hattie is a delight, and her friends and support system are fantastic. The TV crew that comes to shoot the reality tv show bring color and frustration to the story, and it makes the story even more compelling.

Overall, I really enjoyed this one! I would recommend this to someone looking for a beach read or a story about moving forward in life!

I have loved books by Mary Kay Andrews in the past, but sadly I cannot say the same of this one. It was a little slow going until about a third of the way in, but after that, was an easy read. I loved the setting but did not love the tv show part of the story...could have done without it. The mystery was entertaining, but overall, the book was just not for me, I guess.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the opportunity to read and review an advanced reader's copy of this book. This in no way affects my review, all opinions are my own.

Mary Kay Andrews has another terrific summer read! What do a reality tv show, a cute but strong gal who flips houses and a missing person have in common? You might just find the answer on Tybee Island.
Hattie Kavanaugh puts her heart and soul into lovingly restoring historic homes. How she is “discovered” to star in a tv show and the personalities of those involved add intrigue, dislike for some, romance (of course) and a mystery on top! Perfect read for the summer!!!

This one wasn't really for me. I liked the idea of the renovation reality show, but it got pretty convoluted with the mystery part of the story. There were just one too many story lines. I liked the main characters alright, but wasn't sure about much of the supporting cast. I did like the background of Tybee Island.

It’s always a joy to get the newest MKA book! Always a great storyline, sassy characters and an even flow of events to keep you turning the pages! Fantastic southern lit!
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for this copy for review

THE HOMEWRECKERS by Mary Kay Andrews is a fun, enjoyable romp of a book that grabbed my attention with the prologue & kept me turning the pages until the last page. In her most recent book, Andrews mixes a little bit of thriller & mystery with the romance & women’s fiction for which she is so well known. There’s a reason it’s a great read, this is her 30th book in 30 years, she’s an excellent writer who knows how to tell a story that fully occupies the reader’s mind. Well written & captivating, THE HOMEWRECKERS is a book that will entertain you & keep you turning the pages to see how it all winds up. I loved reading it & enthusiastically recommend it! Thank you to NetGalley for the complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Read this if you;
•like HGTV
•have ever been to Savannah / Tybee Island
•like a little mystery sprinkled in your beach reads

MKA is a great author. This book was fun and enjoyable! Definitely recommend. Pub date: May 3! Thank you NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review