Title: Careful What You Wish for by Hallie Ephron
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Suspense
Length: 304 pages
Book Rating: B
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss
Summary:
From the New York Times bestselling author of There Was an Old Woman comes a novel about a professional organizer with a deadly problem she may not be able to clean up.
Emily Harlow is a professional organizer who helps people declutter their lives; she’s married to man who can’t drive past a yard sale without stopping. He’s filled their basement, attic, and garage with his finds.
Like other professionals who make a living decluttering peoples’ lives, Emily has devised a set of ironclad rules. When working with couples, she makes clear that the client is only allowed to declutter his or her own stuff. That stipulation has kept Emily’s own marriage together these past few years. She’d love nothing better than to toss out all her husband’s crap. He says he’s a collector. Emily knows better—he’s a hoarder. The larger his “collection” becomes, the deeper the distance grows between Emily and the man she married.
Luckily, Emily’s got two new clients to distract herself: an elderly widow whose husband left behind a storage unit she didn’t know existed, and a young wife whose husband won’t allow her stuff into their house. Emily’s initial meeting with the young wife takes a detour when, after too much wine, the women end up fantasizing about how much more pleasant life would be without their collecting spouses.
But the next day Emily finds herself in a mess that might be too big for her to clean up. Careful what you wish for, the old adage says . . . now Emily might lose her freedom, her marriage . . . and possibly her life.
Review:
Careful What You Wish for by Hallie Ephron is a tautly woven mystery about a professional organizer who unexpectedly finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation.
Emily Harlow is thrilled to leave behind her teaching career for her growing business with her best friend Becca Jain. They are professional organizers who help their clients de-clutter their lives. Unfortunately, Emily’s long time husband Frank is a compulsive garage sale shopper. Although his hobby grates on her, she is mostly successful in her attempts to ignore his weekly purchases. Their marriage is also in a bit stressed due to their infertility problems. With Frank unwilling to work on their marriage, Emily busies herself with expanding her and Becca’s business.
Emily and Becca’s newest client, widow Ruth Murphy, hires them to clean out her deceased husband’s storage unit. Since Ruth is in a hurry to get his belongings cleared away, Emily immediately heads over to the unit so she can work up an estimate. While in the midst of the task, Frank’s best friend and business partner, Ryan Melanson III, begs them to work with his friend, Quinn Newell.
With Becca busy with family, Emily reluctantly heads over to Quinn’s house. Bonding over several glasses of wine, Emily and Quinn find common ground as they commiserate over their irritation with their husbands’ collecting hobby. Their joking takes a bit of a macabre turn, but the conversation is nothing but a lark for Emily. Unfortunately, Emily’s two newest jobs are soon intertwined when she discovers a body in the storage unit and she becomes a murder suspect.
Emily has good reason to be concerned when the police interest in her takes a bit of an ominous turn. As the evidence against her starts to pile up, Emily begins to wonder if someone is trying to set her up to take the fall for the murder. But will she uncover the real killer’s identity before she is arrested? And as she inches closer to finding out the truth, will Emily becomes the murderer’s next victim?
Careful What You Wish is a suspenseful mystery that is quite engrossing. Emily is a surprisingly clever amateur sleuth but can she trust her own instincts as she pursues her investigation? With unexpected twists and adroit turns, Hallie Ephron brings this ingenious mystery to an exciting and satisfying conclusion.
