I received this book for free from Advance Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
No Gravestone Left Unturned by Gena Showalter, Jill Monroe Series: A Jane Ladling Mystery #2
on March 28, 2022
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Format: eBook
Source: Advance Reader Copy
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She suspects everyone of everything. Now, everyone suspects her.
For cemetery owner and world’s best fur-mom Jane Ladling, death is her business, romance is her misfortune and suspicion is her passion. When she discovers a fresh body on her porch, she calls Special Agent Conrad Ryan, her smoke-show of a boyfriend. Who isn’t actually her boyfriend. Whatever. It’s complicated, especially now that she’s being framed for the murder of the only “hard-hitting” journalist in the small town of Aurelian Hills, Georgia.
Determined to clear her good name, Jane dives headlong into following the clues––with best friends Fiona and Beau at her side. But can she identify the killer before she goes to jail? Or worse…there’s another victim?
In this second installment of the Jane Ladling Mystery series, we get fun, hijinks, romance, and some new friends.
Jane is having a normal day at her cemetery, pulling weeds and things like that when she notices a particularly nasty weed. Thorn Apple. And of course she accidentally has some blow in her mouth. Jane winds up higher than a kite. During this time, she basically drunk dials a whole bunch of people. It’s as embarrassing as it sounds. Except Jane really just rolls with the punches. She owns it and is nowhere near embarrassed. I would, of course, move away and change my name. But I guess when you’re known as the weird girl, you embrace it, Cemetery Girl.
Her friend Beau is still her security guard, and now he’s bought a place for his security business and brought in some of his friends from the military to join him. I loved the new additions to her team. And Conrad. I really enjoyed seeing more of Agent Conrad Ryan. He was able to have more time as Jane’s boyfriend and less time as the agent in charge of the case against her. It really gave him space to grow. My favorite thing about him is that he’s patient with Jane. She 100% believes that the Ladling women are cursed, so she’s afraid to fall in love. He gets that, he gets her, and that is so important to their story.
When a dead body is found on Jane’s porch, it seems like Jane is being framed for a murder. And while that really sucks, she does happen to have left some really wild voicemails on the poor woman’s phone from when she was under the influence of the Thorn Apple. It’s not looking good for Jane. But heck, she solved the mystery of the last dead body left on her property, she’ll just have to do it again.
So while Jane is off solving the mystery of why a dead woman wound up on her porch, she’s absolutely channeling her inner Jessica Fletcher (if you don’t know who that is, look up Murder, She Wrote. Best show ever!). She’s snooped, uh, she’s investigated, yeah, she’s investigated and discovered that her dead friend was a reporter and her latest story seemed to be about speed dating. So Jane and her friends go sign up. She even drags Beau along, determined to hunt down information…and to hunt down a date for him! She really has the best friends.
Meanwhile Conrad is not officially on the case, and he is a very by the books type of person so he keeps the police department apprised of whatever they find out. He’s been helping where he can, and he doesn’t want Jane running off on her own into dangerous situations, so he wants to stay close. He’s a very supportive boyfriend. The two of them work well together, and if there is a Ladling Curse, it’s going down. These two will have their happy ending, and it’s going to be so exciting to see.
I’m getting a kick out of this fun and funny series. This is Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe at their most fun. You can tell they enjoyed writing it, and you can see their love for the story in each word. I also really enjoyed the direction this book took us, and I can’t wait for the next installment!
***ARC courtesy of the publicity team for Gena Showalter and Jill Monroe
Gena can be found:
Twitter and Instagram: @GenaShowalter
website: www.genashowalter.com
Jill can be found:
Twitter: @JillMonroe Insgtagram: @jillmonroebooks
website: www.jillmonroewrites.com
