I use books like this in the same way most people use TV watching...engaging me enough to get an addiction-soothing hit of story, not complicated enough to make my neurons seek new connections. I'm not much of a fan of the cheating-husband trope...no woman ever cheats?...yet very interested in the home-improvement focus. I was also interested by the fact that the body she discovers in her house is unknown to her, but also everyone else. That makes a better, if still relatively unchallenging, puzzle.

I don't know how many of y'all are going to prefer this to watching the Hallmark Channel, but it's a good one of their mountain of mystery series, and they should snap this author up.

I absolutely loved Death by Demo by Callie Carpenter! This book had me hooked from the very first chapter, and I finished it in just a few days. The story follows a home renovation gone horribly wrong, leading to a thrilling and unexpected murder mystery. The pacing is perfect, with plenty of twists and turns that kept me on the edge of my seat. The characters are well-developed, and the blend of humor, suspense, and drama made it such a fun read. If you love cozy mysteries with a unique setting, this one’s a must-read! Highly recommended!

I received an ARC of “Death by Demo. A Home Renovation Mystery” by Callie Carpenter from NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, due to some personal issues going on, my download expired before I could review it, so I purchased a Kindle copy of the book. Purchasing this book is one of the best things that I’ve ever done.

Based on Carpenter’s GoodReads page, this is the author’s first novel. Who would have known that such a brilliant writer lurked within for so long? Writing a novel (and carpentry!) is a lot like quilting—anyone can do it. With practice, our results become better and better over time, especially if we have the right tools at our disposal. But, sometimes, there are those among us who seemingly appear unusually gifted in a given craft. I believe wholeheartedly that Carpenter is one of those fortunate people.

Over the past few years, I have found a new love of mysteries, and particularly cozy mysteries. Sometimes cozy mysteries can be a little “hokey” to quote my mother (and she is a ravenous reader of all cozy mysteries). But there is absolutely NOTHING hokey about this novel.

“Death by Demo” includes all of the elements that cozy mystery readers have come to love and expect: a clean story (no cussing); no fear mongering in the the form of over-description of dead bodies; a light read with absolutely NO politics (thank goodness, because there’s enough of that in the world already); plenty of suspense (with seven suspects, no less); tongue-in-cheek humor that kept the story light and entertaining; just a hint of romantic love that wasn’t overbearing; and a satisfying ending where the offender was caught and justice was served.

Carpenter is an excellent writer. And I don’t mean just “kind of”; I mean she is EXCELLENT at writing. This book was engaging from the title to the very last page. I admit that it took me a while to get through this book, but this should in no way reflect that author, but rather my insistence on devouring this book page-by-page. I fully admit that this is exactly what I did because as soon as I read the first page, I knew that I was reading a potential first novel by a writer who will no doubt go on to have an illustrious career. I believe that the name “Callie Carpenter” is quite possibly a pseudonym, but whether or not this is true, and whether or not the author is male, female, or any other gender along the spectrum, this writer has a unique ability to become a bridge between genders. How is this so? By taking a female character and ensuring that the character has complete expertise in a traditionally “male” occupation, while at the same time showing readers that this expertise does not hinder the MC’s femininity in any way whatsoever. THIS is exactly what the world needs.

The author’s timing is excellent. For example, at the 8% mark and the end of Chapter 2, the MC finds the body. There is great tension within this book, but the tension isn’t overpowering. The climax was both exciting and I felt a complete sense of urgency. Carpenter made me fall in love with the MC, Jamie Moore, and I desperately wanted her to succeed, and I STILL do.

I am looking forward to seeing a second, third, and fourth novel. And, hopefully, the author will provide as many future books as I a read. I absolutely recommend this book to everyone and without hesitation. If you’ve never read a cozy mystery before, I encourage you to start with this novelist.

Death By Demo
A Home Renovation Mystery
Callie Carpenter
5 Stars

Synopsis:


Perfect for fans of Kate Carlisle and Diane Kelly, after her ex-husband tears down their marriage, the last thing Jaime wants is to renovate a worn-down historic home. But when a body is discovered behind a wall, she realizes she’ll have to catch the killer before she builds herself up again.

Jaime and Henry were the perfect couple with the perfect life; together, they ran one of the most successful construction and interior design companies in all of Charlotte, North Carolina. But when Jaime catches her charismatic husband in an affair, she realizes her husband is not the man she thought she married. The divorce is equally gutting—due to an ironclad prenuptial agreement, Jaime receives only one thing: a historical house in disrepair. Knowing that any renovation she attempts will be tedious and costly, Jaime starts to believe that things can’t get much worse—until she finds a dead body in the house.

The body is found behind a recently renovated wall—and this leaves Jaime with more questions than answers. Who killed this person and why? Could it have been the previous owners, someone who snuck in while nobody was looking, or Henry? Furious that the house is now a crime scene, which further delays all renovations, Jaime decides to investigate the murder herself, DIY-style. Together with the new resident cat she calls Demo and the handsome and friendly hardware store owner who happens to be her neighbor, Jaime is ready to use all the tools in her toolbox to catch the killer.

Jaime needs to renovate this house if she wants to move forward with her life, but will this murder investigation leave her in ruins—or worse? (Amazon)

Review:

The characters are well rounded and well developed. Jaime is doing a house renovation and she gets a big surprise—a dead body. Now she has to figure out who the killer and the why.

The author is very talented in her descriptive writing and these descriptions pulled me into the story from the very beginning. The writing style flows smoothly and the book is an easy read. The mystery was well plotted and there were enough clues to sift through and suspects to consider and the mystery is hard to solve.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well crafted cozy mystery. I look forward to reading the next book in the series.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book provided by the publisher, Crooked Lane Books, and NetGalley, which I greatly appreciate.

An enjoyable start to a new cozy mystery series with a newly single lead. Jaime caught her husband cheating and now her only asset from their life together is a home in need of serious renovations. Jaime's ready to turn the house into a showpiece when she discovers a dead body in it. Hard to renovate when the building is a crime scene.

Jaime's likable and resourceful making her easy to root for. I loved her determination and tenacity. Fast-paced, quick read with a twisty mystery. Perfect for HGTV fans.

Thank you Netgalley and Crooked Lane Books for the ARC of this book. This was an honest review. #campnetgalley

It was a wonderful start to a series about home renovations. HGTV is one of my favorite TV networks, so I knew it would be good. The character Jaime is determined, trying to rebuild her life after having a terrible marriage, and rebuild herself and start a new home renovation business.

There was something annoying about the neighbor and possible love interest. It was fascinating to learn the ins and outs of renovating a home. And quite an interesting location for a dead body. Jamie's new cat, Demo, was a perfect match. I found it to be a suspenseful and enjoyable read. Hopefully, this series will continue.

When home renovation specialist Jaime finds herself holding onto a single house after a rough divorce and a tragic pre-nup she signed when they were first getting their company off the ground, she decides to fix the house up and flip it instead of selling it like everyone urges her to. Her first step in the renovation, however, reveals the body of a woman sealed into a wall, and things run screaming downhill after that. Jaime’s only chance at keeping afloat is to renovate the house, but solving the murder might be her only way to move forward.

I loved every minute of this home renovation-themed cozy mystery. The heroine captured my attention from the first lines, and the world that Carpenter built around her was believable and intriguing. Every character was interesting and the mystery itself was perfectly complicated – not too much, not too little. Jaime’s methodical solving of the mystery – and the choices that she made along the way – were all enjoyable to follow along with, and the book was plain and simply easy to read. I really, really liked Jaime, and she tied every bit of the story together beautifully for me. This was a really, really fun mystery with a lot of neat twists and turns. I cannot wait to read Carpenter’s next mystery!

Jaime got the short end of the stick when she naively signed papers that took away most of her shared business and assets with her no good ex husband, she’s left with a derelict house that has a dead body.
I liked reading about Jamie sussing out the clues and trying to repair the house.
It was a quick read with the potential for more books since Jaime is just getting started.

This is such an amazing series! Keeps you guessing until the end.
I can't wait for the next one! This author is wonderful!

This was a good beginning to a new cozy mystery series, and I look forward to the next book!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher

Jaime definitely got the worst end of things in a divorce, but she is making the best of it. She sets out to renovate the major fixer-upper. When she finds a body in one of the walls, she wonders if her ex is setting her up. She decides to conduct her own investigation. Most first books in a series are not quite as polished as they could be with character development, and that is partially this case here. I do think this series has great promise as the mystery in this one was strong. I look forward to the next installment in the series.

Jaime found her husband in a compromising position and promptly divorced him. If only she hadn’t been so blinded by love that she’d actually read the prenup before signing it. Now the only thing she has from her marriage is a rundown house they’d bought to rehab. After all, that’s what King Contractors does. Now they’ll just have to do it without her.

She spent too much time in limbo after the divorce. Now it’s time to get moving again. She’ll rehab the house herself, trade her skills for others, and make enough money to do it again. In the process, she’ll show her ex she doesn’t need him to succeed.

There’s an added wall in the house and it’s got to go. Jaime can take out her frustrations and feel like she’s moving forward just by using a 12-pound sledgehammer to take it down. It’s not as sturdy as it first seems because it crumbles into dust—all except for the dead body that is.

What first looks like it’s been there for many years turns out to be a woman who had gone missing only a short time ago. Although Jaime didn’t know her well, they’d gone to the same school. So, her house, her schoolmate, and she found the body. Well, who wouldn’t try to find out how it got there and why it looks so old, especially when it’s determined to have been a homicide?

With the help of her friend, Lara, who makes spreadsheets for everything, including motives, alibis, and murder, Jaime starts to fill in the blanks, even when it puts her own life in danger.

I like Jaime. She doesn’t take unnecessary risks although her timing can be off and that leads to problems. She had been lovestruck so long, she’s forgotten her own self worth but as the house comes back to life, so does she. There’s Mike, a nice neighbor who brings coffee, a cat who lives in the shed but finds his way into the house while she works, her brothers, parents, and friends to help her along the way.

This is the first in a series. Based on this first book, I predict it will be a long running series of enjoyable reads.

Home renovation? Check. Fun, lovable characters? Check. Dead bodies? Check. This was a fun read and I can't wait to read more!

Princess Fuzzypants here: Jaime is newly divorced from her cad of a husband and not only does she lose everything she has worked so hard to build, her reward for her efforts, thanks to signing a pre-nup when she was just a teenager, is a dilapidated house. As she starts the renovations, she takes down a wall and finds a body. It turns out she knows the victim and even though she was a very kind person, there is no shortage of possible suspects including Jaime’s ex and his new girlfriend.

Jaime is adopted by a kitty whom she names Demo and the two of them work to get the house in order as she tries to figure out who murdered the deceased and why. She is a capable and likeable heroine so I was really disappointed when Jaime ended up in a Darwin Award kind of situation. I quickly discovered that like many of the men in the book, I had underestimated her, and with strength and cunning, she was able to extricate herself, leading to a highly satisfying take down of the villain. This is a woman who knows how to get things done and has the persistence to get it done. Five purrs and two paws up.

Really good first book in the series! I love reading books with contractors as the main characters. Excited to see where this series goes!

Book Review: Death By Demo. Home Renovation Mystery #1
Stars: 4 X 5
Author: Callie Carpenter
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books @crookedlanebooks
Thank you @netgalley for this ARC

Set in a small town in North Carolina where Jamie and her husband have a successful contracting business. They work in renovations. All was going well until Jamie found her husband cheating on her. From the divorce Jamie get an old house that she decides to renovate herself. This is a perfect way to start her own business. All is going well until Jamie decides to knock down a wall and she finds a body. Jamie ends up becoming an amateur sleuth along with her best friend Lara. Jamie wants this mystery solved fast so she can get back to renovations. Unfortunately, when Jamie learns the identity of the deceased she realizes it is someone she knew from the past as did her friends and ex husband. Needless to say they all end up being person’s of interest to the police. Not only does she use Lara to help her but she ends up having Mike her next door neighbor get in on the shenanigans too. Lucky for Jamie she knows Mike as he owns the local hardware store and is very easy on the eyes.

The ending of the who dunit mystery was a surprise for me and I did not see this ending at all. I also liked that towards the end of the story Mike and Jamie have the beginning's of a budding romance. This was a great cozy mystery and I am looking forward to reading more in those series. Plus, there is a cat and I love cats.

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Dollycas's Thoughts

Jamie Moore signed an ironclad prenuptial agreement when she married Henry King never imagining their perfect life would come to an end. Together they ran King Contractors, a very successful construction and interior design company. After catching Henry in an affair their love bubble burst and all she received in the divorce was a historical house in need of a ton of repairs to even make it livable or flippable. But Jamie takes the bull by the horns and starts to demolish a strange wall in the home. She is shocked when the wall quickly falls apart and the dead body falls out.

She now has so many questions. Who is the dead body? Who killed them? Why were they killed? Could Henry be involved? Is that why he gave her this house? Or was it the previous owners? Or did some random person see the empty house as a great place to dump a body?

Now the house is a crime scene and any work Jamie had planned comes to a halt. With nothing but time on her hands, she decides to do some sleuthing of her own with a little assistance from Mike, her new neighbor/hardware store owner, and a cat she found on-site she now calls Demo.

____

Several years ago my husband and I owned a construction company with some friends. These days I have been binge-watching Fixer Upper from the Magnolia Network. So when I saw this book, the synopsis spoke to me on several levels. I just had to read it. We too, saw many cats on our construction sites and one very special one found a home with our friends. I immediately had a soft spot in my heart for Demo.

I enjoyed meeting Jaime Moore. She made a huge mistake signing a prenup without reading it but now she is trying to make the best of a bad situation. She did most of the work at King Contractors so she does have the skills, knowledge, and reputation to start her own company. She develops well throughout the story. Her ex-husband was a real tool and his new girlfriend is awful too. They were very easy to dislike. Thankfully Jaime has her best friend of 24 years, Lara in her corner. Her parents are supportive but their plans for her to take her life in another direction didn't mesh with what Jaime wanted to do. Detective Scoles is an interesting cop and more open with Jaime than I expected him to be. All of Ms. Carpenter's characters have room for growth as the series continues but their introductions were done very well within this story.

Several people could have gotten into Jaime's new house which means plenty of suspects. Jaime doesn't know who she can trust and her list includes some people she has known for years including her ex. The body itself offers an interesting clue sending Jaime's quest in a different direction. She did have a few instances that made me want to jump into the story to stop her from making stupid decisions. One did fall into the TSTL (too stupid to live category) but she was in dire straights already. The way she handled it though was very smart and a little bit painful and was followed by an exciting showdown where she was very lucky.

I really liked the way the story ended. It gave me just a peek at what's to come for Jaime and I think the future of this series looks bright.

Death by Demo has given this series off to an exceptional start. The theme has me invested on a personal level and I am looking forward to seeing what develops in book two.

My thoughts...

We meet our amateur sleuth as she is trying to rebuild her life, and all she wants is to be able to hold her head high while she works to renovate a dilapidated house she received in her divorce settlement, a house that is so inconsequential that King Contractors did not see value in it and her now ex-husband fobbed it off on her.

But all Jamie sees is potential - potential for a fresh start, potential to create her own business. But when she decides to knock down a wall and finds a body, everything is temporarily put on hold.

Each day she cannot work on the house costs her money and endangers her timeline with contractors she has hired, so she decides to do a little investigating on her own, especially when she discovers that she knows the person found in the wall. And this begins Jamie’s adventure into amateur sleuthing.

Everyone is a suspect, even the handsome neighbor and new manager of the hardware store. He always seems to pop up right as she gets to the house, and he always seems to have coffee for her at the ready.

The pacing of the story is the way I like my cozies - short chapters and fast development. Sometimes in cozies the writers give readers too many misdirections and/or distracting details, but this cozy did not. No detail is wasted, and the final confrontation is a page-turner.

I loved Jamie as our amateur sleuth, but her husband Henry? I was ready to fight him on behalf of Jamie by book’s end.

The supporting characters do what they are supposed to do - support Jamie on her new life journey, and help her solve a murder. Jamie's parents were my favorite.

I enjoyed this cozy mystery. I tend to stick to book, library, and food-themed cozies, but the plot of this one appealed to me, and I’m glad I gave it a read. I really enjoyed it, and I am looking forward to seeing Jamie succeed, and take down King Contractors.

The book was provided by NetGalley for an honest review.

A great start to a new cozy mystery series. I'm a sucker for a mystery series that focuses on home demos. I find they tend to keep my attention. especially when the heroine finds a body in the house.

I think there's a lot of potential in this series even if I wasn't a fan of this mystery. I appreciated the part about renovating but found the story a bit confusing.
I want to read the next story as I think it will surely be better
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine