Sharon St. George - Due for Discard - Review & Giveaway

About the Book

Aimee Machado is thrilled to be starting her first job as a forensic librarian at the medical center in the town of Timbergate, north of Sacramento, California. Her ebullient mood is somewhat dampened by her recent breakup with her former live-in boyfriend, Nick Alexander. And then there's a little matter of murder: on Aimee's first day on the job, a body is found in a nearby Dumpster and soon identified as her supervisor's wife, Bonnie Beardsley.

Aimee's heartbreaker of a brother and best friend, Harry, just happens to be one of the last people to see Bonnie alive, but he is hardly the only suspect. Bonnie was notorious for her wild partying and man-stealing ways, and she has left a trail of broken hearts and bitterness. Aimee is determined to get her brother off the suspect list.

Aimee's snooping quickly makes her a target. Isolated on her grandparents' llama farm where she fled post-breakup, she realizes exactly how vulnerable she is. Three men have pledged to protect her: her brother Harry, her ex, Nick, and the dashing hospital administrator with a reputation for womanizing, Jared Quinn. But they can't be on the alert every minute, not when Aimee is so bent on cracking the case with or without their help.

Book 1 in a new mystery series featuring amateur sleuth Aimee Machado.

My Review

Aimee Machado is real.

She has a lot of faults. She's not perfect. And that's what makes her interesting.

For a murder mystery, a librarian is a unique choice of sleuth solver, and Aimee herself readily admits, "The only crimes I was qualified to deal with involved library fines."

But Aimee's not just any librarian.

She has a master's degree in the health sciences that includes a special forensic component, making her one of only three people in the United States equipped in such a field. That makes her a boon to Timbergate Medical Center when Dr. Vane Beardsley brings her on board to kickstart a pet project of his, hiring her to get his fledgling hospital research facility up and running.

The only problem is Dr. Beardsley's wife turns up dead just as soon as Aimee takes the job.

Her relationship with her new boss immediately becomes strained when she realizes that Dr. Beardsley doesn't seem to be mourning his wife at all. Instead, he asks her out to dinner, quickly blurring the line between their personal and professional lives.

Aimee is an independent woman with an iron clad rule to never date an employer. She's someone who's struggling to pay her graduate school loans while living in a makeshift apartment above her grandparents' barn. Her job doesn't produce any revenue for the hospital so she knows that she could be axed at any time. She resents how Dr. Beardsley has no qualms about placing her in such a tenuous financial position, but her curiosity to learn if he killed his wife gets the better of her.

At first, she finds herself jealous of the memory of his blonde, curvaceous wife, the incessant gripe running through her mind about how "some women got all the rich guys" while she has to hustle to get by and make a living. So she gives in to an old weakness of hers by making Dr. Beardsley believe she has a fiancé.

It's a telling moment because Aimee has enough self-awareness to know that she usually lies in order to avoid awkward situations, instead of having the courage to face them head on.

But her resolve soon falters and she succumbs to temptation, allowing Dr. Beardsley to take her out. But things don't go well when he abruptly exits the restaurant, leaving her sitting alone at the table, after she starts asking too many probing questions about his family.

She knows how easily forensic evidence can be manipulated, but when she comes outside and sees that her four tires have been slashed, the first thing she thinks about is how she's going to find the money to replace them, instead of the amount of danger she could be in for letting a suspected killer know that she's on to him.

But the thing that really bothers Aimee is how she's allowing Dr. Beardsley to make her feel weak and vulnerable, and she's too relentlessly stubborn to let it go. After the good doctor walks out on her in public, she's determined to see if he really is the murderer or simply a womanizing creep. There's no going back now. After their dinner date went awry, she has to put it all on the line in order to expose the truth, whether it costs her her job, or quite possibly her life.

***

Due for Discard can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Smashwords

Prices/Formats: $4.95 ebook, $15.95 paperback
Pages: 340
Genre: Detective Murder Mystery
Release: March 1, 2015
Publisher: Camel Press
ISBN: 9781603812238
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About the Author

Sharon St. George had the good fortune to spend an idyllic childhood in a small northern California town, riding horseback and camping with her family in the nearby mountains. One of her favorite pastimes was reading fiction, and a trip to the library was always an occasion of great joy. She’s traded horses for llamas, but she still treks to the high mountain lakes near her home—always with a mystery novel in her backpack. Sharon’s writing credits include three plays, several years writing advertising copy, a book on NASA’s space food project, and feature stories too numerous to count. She holds dual degrees in English and Theatre Arts, and occasionally acts in, or directs, one of her local community theater productions. Sharon is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America, and she serves as program director for Writers Forum, a nonprofit organization for writers in northern California.

Links to connect with Sharon:
Web Site
Goodreads
Blog Tour Site


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