#Review - Bewitched by Darynda Jones #Fantasy #Paranormal

Series: Betwixt & Between # 2
Format: Kindle, 274 pages
Release Date: September 28, 2020
Publisher: September 28, 2020
Source: Kindle Unlimited
Genre: Urban Fantasy

Forty-something Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches. Added to that was the teensy, infinitesimal fact that she is what’s called a charmling. One of three on the entire planet. And there are other witches who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power, which would basically involve her unfortunate and untimely death.

No one told her life after forty would mean having to learn new lifeskills—such as how to dodge supernatural assassins while casting from a moving vehicle—or that the sexiest man alive would be living in her basement.

Whoever said life begins at forty was clearly a master of the underappreciated and oft maligned understatement.

Bewitched is the second installment in author Darynda Jones's Betwixt & Between series. This story takes place 6 months after the ending of Betwixt. 45-year-old Defiance Dayne only recently discovered she comes from a long line of powerful witches called charmling. One of three on the entire planet, one born every other generation. And there are other witches and warlocks who will stop at nothing to steal her immense power. But the most amazing thing is that she spent 6 months in a coma like state after an event that happened during the previous installment.

Waking up in mid air, Defiance finds Percy, the house, is  covered in vines, and it appears as though Percy was protecting her. Defiance is still having difficulty coming to terms with her destiny as a super witch and thinks she can change her fate by pretending to have lost her powers. Everyone around her goes along with her ploy while trying to get her to accept her new reality. Meanwhile, dark forces are invading her dreams, forces which have Defiance wanting to run as far and as fast as she can, but fate has other ideas. 

Defiance is living in the home her grandmother Ruthie Goode left for her. She has her best friend Annette, who I think as the humorous sidekick, as well as Roane Wildes who is not only a shape shifter but the love interest as well, but her own personal security detail. Her two dads are still around because she spent 6 months in a coma like state. Her house is actually named after her grandfather Percy Goode who wasn't a good man when he was alive. Lastly, there is the cat called Ink who is always good for a laugh or two, as well as someone who was previously dead.

Curiously, the author via Defiance hints about some big evil that should be coming based upon what she witnessed in her coma at the beginning of the book. She also hints at Defiance past exploits which has huge implications for why so many people want to take what she has from her. There is also the fact that she is constantly being threatened to move, or people are coming up to her and demanding that she find something they may have lost. She also leaves the story on a stunning cliffhanger ending. Good thing I have book # 3!

But let's get real for a moment. My rating is based on the fact that Defiance is a grown woman of 45 and she acts like a teen whenever she and Annette are together. Maybe it's the attempted humor, maybe it's all the giggling, or maybe it's the fact that Defiance actually has issues with her powers and therefore pretty much walks into a dangerous situation blindly. One can definitely NOT call Defiance a Mary Sue because it takes her almost the entire story to realize that maybe her powers can be used for good. 

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#Review - A Hard Day for a Hangover by Darynda Jones #Mystery

Series: Sunshine Vicram Series (#3)
Format: Hardcover, 352 pages
Release Date: December 6, 2022
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Mystery / Police Procedural

"Laugh-out-loud funny, intensely suspenseful, page-turning fun." —New York Times Bestselling author Allison Brennan

Some people greet the day with open arms. Sheriff Sunshine Vicram would rather give it a hearty shove and get back into bed, because there’s just too much going on right now. There’s a series of women going missing, and Sunny feels powerless to stop it. There’s her persistent and awesomely-rebellious daughter Auri, who’s out to single-handedly become Del Sol’s youngest and fiercest investigator. And then there’s drama with Levi Ravinder—the guy she’s loved and lusted after for years. The guy who might just be her one and only. The guy who comes from a family of disingenuous vipers looking to oust him—and Sunshine—for good.

Like we said, the new day can take a hike.

The blockbuster conclusion to the bestselling Sunshine Vicram trilogy, A Hard Day for a Hangover will have readers laughing and cheering to the very last page.

A Hard Day for a Hangover, by author Darynda Jones, is the third, and final installment in the authors Sunshine Vicram's trilogy. Let me start out by saying that I encourage folks to please read A Good Day for Chardonnay first before jumping this book. There was an event that happened in the final chapter that has lasting implications for things that are going to take place in this story. Del Sol, New Mexico's Sheriff Sunshine Vicram day begins with a massive hangover from way too much tequila which ties into what I just said.

From there, things get worse. A hunter spots a seriously injured and sexually assaulted young girl at Copper Canyon. The girl is barely alive when she is rescued and taken to hospital. As Sun awaits news at the hospital, a prisoner suffering from a heart attack is brought in, only for chaos to ensue when he manages to escape. He is no stranger to Sun, it is Wynn Ravinder, she had been responsible for facilitating his move to the local prison. Of course, a certain US Marshal arrives just in time to tell Sun that she is going to be investigated for her role in his escape.

To make things worse, her Deputy Quince Cooper now wants to put Levi Ravinder in the back of his squad car after Levi did something funny, and Levi is trying to avoid Clay Ravinder who is out to kill him and take over his business. Thankfully, along with Cooper, Sunny has Tricia Salazar, Sniper Zee, Poetry Rojas with his super power of recognizing those have spent time in prison and her newest recruit, Keith Seabright, who has now in the process of settling in the area. Too bad the Dangerous women and Sinister sons have to get involved.

Then comes the real meat of this story. Meanwhile, Sunshine’s 15-year old daughter Auri, who apparently wants to go to the FBI, becomes aware of a missing girl who possibly may have been en route to the area. Could Jane Doe be the missing woman? And if so, who put her there? Auri and her best friend Sybil, who has already seen way too much, decide that yes, they are going to ignore Sunny's warnings and charge ahead. Auri reminds me of Cookie's daugher Amber from the Charley Davidson series. Auri also has to deal with her friend Cruz de los Santos who was hurt badly saving her life. Cruz and Auri are wonderful together. 

And, of course, we can't ignore Sunny's frustration when it comes to Levi Ravinder and what really happened to her 16 years ago that caused her to leave Del Sol and ended up in Santa Fe where she would eventually become a Detective before a certain group of people helped her to become Sheriff of Del Sol. ::slight spoiler:: Levi has known about what happened to Sunny for years, and even knows about Auri, but now it is time for not only he, but the rest of us to learn as well even though we got a bit of an awakening at the end of the previous installment. 

It's always sad when a series comes to an ending. But I have no regrets when it comes to reading this series, or finishing this book so that I could find out whether or not all the loose ends would be wrapped up. Jones once again does an excellent job of balancing the light-hearted humor with darker, more suspenseful scenes which sees a real life scene that probably wasn't necessary but likely put in to send a message to gun owners. The result is a page-turner that is both laugh-out-loud funny and compulsively readable.

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#Review - Honor & Shadows by Jessie Milhalik / Betwixt by Darynda Jones #SyFy #Paranormal

Series: Starlight's Shadow # 0.5
Format: E-Book, 64 pages
Release Date: November 1, 2022
Publisher: NYLA
Source: Amazon
Genre: Space Opera

Captain Octavia Zarola needs an infusion of credits—fast—if she’s going to keep her close-knit bounty hunting crew paid and fed. Tracking down an escaped embezzler on a backwater planet should be a piece of cake, but bounties are rarely as easy as they seem.

As the crew closes in on their quarry, the hunt becomes entangled with a local criminal overlord, and Tavi will have to decide what’s more important: money or honor, and how much she’s willing to risk for either one.

Jessie Milhalik's Honor and Shadows is a 10,000 prequel to the authors Starlight's Shadow series. The crew of the Starlight Shadow is down to basically supplies and looking for a bounty to collect to keep the ship running, and stocked with food. So, Captain Octavia (Tavi) Zarola, 1st Officer Elias Bruck, and engineer, Kee Ildez, set their sights on a man named Alan Hudson who has eluded capture for 2 years. When Tavi and crew arrive, Megan Gail knows that Tavi is after Alan, and agrees to help as long as the crew helps them get off planet, and away from her father who runs the town, and the mines, and has used Hudson to get rich. Even though this is a fairly short story, it is entertaining, especially when it leads directly into the first installment called Hunt the Stars. If you've read Hunt the Stars, read this novella! You won't be disappointed!

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Series: Betwixt & Between # 1
Format: EBook, 256 pages
Release Date:  February 18th 2020
Publisher: Feather & Leaf, LLC
Source: Amazon
Genre: Paranormal

Divorced, desperate, and destitute, former restaurateur Defiance "Dephne" Dayne finds out she has been bequeathed a house by a complete stranger. She is surprised, to say the least, and her curiosity gets the better of her. She leaves her beloved Phoenix and heads to one of the most infamous towns in America: Salem, Massachusetts.

She’s only there to find out why a woman she’s never met would leave her a house. A veritable castle that has seen better days. She couldn’t possibly accept it, but the lawyer assigned to the case practically begs her to take it off her hands, mostly because she’s scared of it. The house. The inanimate structure that, as far as Dephne can tell, has never hurt a fly.

Though it does come with some baggage. A pesky neighbor who wants her gone. A scruffy cat who’s a bit of a jerk. And a handyman bathed in ink who could moonlight as a supermodel for GQ.

She decides to give it three days, and not because of the model. She feels at home in Salem. Safe. But even that comes to a screeching halt when people begin knocking on her door day and night, begging for her help to locate their lost objects.

Come to find out, they think she’s a witch. And after a few mysterious mishaps, Dephne is beginning to wonder if they’re right.

Darynda Jones' Betwixt is the first installment in the authors Betwixt and Between series. Divorced, desperate, and destitute, former restaurateur Defiance "Dephne" Dayne finds that she's been bequeathed a house by a complete stranger named Ruthie Goode. She leaves her beloved Phoenix and heads to one of the most infamous towns in America: Salem, Massachusetts. She’s only there to find out why a woman she’s never met would leave her a house, and why people are all of a sudden eager to speak to her when barely a minute has passed.

The home is a Victorian that has seen better days. In fact, it needs a lot of work! It comes with a cat named Ink, and a handyman who wears a kilt and calls himself Roane. With barely a dime to her name, how can Defiance keep the home? As a twist, the house, aka Percival, well, it appears to be sentient! and it's not happy that Defiance is thinking about getting rid of the house. She decides to give it three days, and not because of the model. She feels at home in Salem. Safe. But won't stop begging for her help to locate their lost objects or missing persons.

To top things off, she learns several things. 1. Ruthie Goode is her grandmother who has been watching over her for 40 years. 2. She's something of a witch called Charmling. Charmlings were created by original witches thousands of years ago. They were a coven, and they saw the injustice women suffered at the hands of men, even in the witch realm. They sought to balance the power by creating three beings no man can defeat. They pooled their power and the power of their ancestors and funneled it into three witches to be a beacon of light. A balance of power.

Along with her best friend Annette, who decides to pick up her life and be with her friend Dephne, Defiance now has to deal with learning her own powers that have been hidden for decades. She has to deal with new people asking her strange questions. Then there's Roane who is, well, eye candy. One of the thing that Jones is very known for is the snarky commentary of her characters and that doesn't change in this book. Defiance does and says some irritating things, but when all is said and done, I'm good with the overall direction the book went in and will continue with the series. 

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#Review - A Good Day for Chardonnay by Darynda Jones #Mystery #Humor #Suspense

Series: Sunshine Vicram # 2
Format: E-Galley, 416 pages
Release Date: July 27, 2021
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: Publisher
Genre: Contemporary / Mystery & Detective

Running a small-town police force in the mountains of New Mexico should be a smooth, carefree kind of job. Sadly, full-time Sheriff—and even fuller-time coffee guzzler—Sunshine Vicram, didn’t get that memo.

All Sunshine really wants is one easygoing day. You know, the kind that starts with coffee and a donut (or three) and ends with take-out pizza and a glass of chardonnay (or seven). Turns out, that’s about as easy as switching to decaf. (What kind of people do that? And who hurt them?)

Before she can say iced mocha latte, Sunny’s got a bar fight gone bad, a teenage daughter hunting a serial killer and, oh yes, the still unresolved mystery of her own abduction years prior. All evidence points to a local distiller, a dangerous bad boy named Levi Ravinder, but Sun knows he’s not the villain of her story. Still, perhaps beneath it all, he possesses the keys to her disappearance. At the very least, beneath it all, he possesses a serious set of abs. She’s seen it. Once. Accidentally.

Between policing a town her hunky chief deputy calls four cents short of a nickel, that pesky crush she has on Levi which seems to grow exponentially every day, and an irascible raccoon that just doesn’t know when to quit, Sunny’s life is about to rocket to a whole new level of crazy.

Yep, definitely a good day for chardonnay.

A Good Day for Chardonnay, by author Darynda Jones, is the second installment in the authors Sunshine Vicram series. If you haven't already read the first installment, please take time to do so before jumping into this book.* You've been warned. 

Set in the small mountainous town of Del Sol, New Mexico, Sheriff Sunshine Vicram has her hands full in this second installment. The story begins with Sunny on a blind date with a man named Carver that was set up by her parents. Sunshine believes that having her teeth pulled would be a whole lot more fun but Carver wants more. She then heads to her best friend Chief Deputy Quinn Cooper's along with her entire staff and the women from her mother's book club, where a raccoon has invaded his home. Hilarity ensues as the raccoon refuses to go down without a fight.

Sunshine then races towards Roadhouse Bar & Grill where an incident has left ex-military Keith Seabright seriously injured and likely drugged after being attacked by 3 unknown men who fled the scene. The fact that the love of her life, even though she won't admit it out loud to anyone, Levi Ravinder was also injured and refuses treatment after he went to Keith's aid, makes things more twisted. Keith's investigation brings Sunshine back to Santa Fe where there's an open investigation into a kidnapping. This case was the only case that she's failed to close.

Sunshine also has the Mayor of the town, Donna Lomas, blackmailing her into investigating a group called the Dangerous Daughters. They are allegedly a group of women that secretly run the town and who the Mayor believes helped Sunshine win her election as Sheriff after spending 10 years working for the Santa Fee P.D. as a Detective with a high clearance rate. Sunshine has gone over the towns records with a fine tooth comb, but she's gotten nowhere fast. Even though she knows who is who's pocket, she doesn't how close she could be to solving the mystery.

One of the ongoing issues that Sunshine is trying to solve is her own kidnapping. Which brings Sunshine to visiting Levi's uncle Wynn in prison in Arizona and some revelations. Wynn claimed he was responsible for killing Sunny's kidnapper but Sunny knows that he's protecting someone. Because Sunny doesn't have full memories of what happened to her thanks to a head injury, Levi may be the only person in town who knows the truth about what happened to her when she was kidnapped and held for ransom for 5 days. 

To make matters more interesting is that Sunshine's daughter Aurora aka Auri is enamored with Levi who once saved her life when she was only 7 years old. Auri decides that she is going to be like her mom and investigate a series of disappearances in the town and the appearance of what may be a serial killer who is still alive. Her BFF Sybil and love interest Cruz joins her investigation and they get into lots of trouble. As a reminder, Auri's mom saved Sybil and Cruz saved Auri which has tied them together. 

If you're like me and had lots of unanswered questions after A Bad Day For Sunshine, be prepared for what you'll discover after reading this story. The banter between Sunshine and Levi ratchets up to hot, and Ari might have found her future as the towns investigator after nearly finding a grave. The interactions and banter between Sunny's team, which includes Deputy Tricia Salazar, the ace shooter Zee, and 'newbie' Poetry Rojas, whom she blackmailed into becoming a cop, and who is turning out to have stellar instincts and spot on judgements.   

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#Review - A Bad Day for Sunshine by Darynda Jones #Mystery

Series: Sunshine Vicram # 1
Format: Hardcover, 400 pages
Release Date: April 7, 2020
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Source: Library
Genre: Mystery & Detective

Police chief Sunshine Vicram finds her cup o’ joe more than half full when the small village of Del Sol, New Mexico, becomes the center of national attention for a killer on the loose.

Del Sol, New Mexico is known for three things: its fry-an-egg-on-the-cement summers, its strong cups of coffee—and a nationwide manhunt? Before FBI agents and US Marshalls descended on her town, Sunshine Vicram’s biggest crime wave on record involved an elderly flasher named Doug. But now, both the established citizens of Del Sol and the new, rich elite are questioning Sunshine’s skills as an officer of the law. Add to that trouble at her daughter’s new school and a kidnapped prized rooster named Rex, and Sunshine has her hands full.

Enter a sexy FBI agent and a sultry US Marshal, both of whom find Sunshine an eleven on a scale of one to blazing inferno, and the normally savvy police chief is quickly in over her head. But can their attention erase the feelings she still has for her childhood crush, the dark and elusive Levant Ravinder? If she were to judge by the one scalding kiss they shared as teenagers, the answer to that would be no. Now it’s up to Sunshine to juggle a few good hunky men, a not-so-nice murderous miscreant, and Doug the ever-pesky flasher. And they said small towns were drama-free.

A Bad Day for Sunshine is the first installment in author Darynda Jones' Sunshine Vicram series. Sunshine Vicram returns home to Del Sol, New Mexico where she has just won election to be the next sheriff of Del Sol. A race she never entered her name in. Election interference!!!! It has been 15 years since she left home, but she didn't just prance around from job to job or state to state. She got a degree in Criminal Justice, she became the youngest detective in Santa Fe, New Mexico history, and she raised her 14-year old daughter Aurora aka Auri who has to deal with a strange new world when she begins public school with all that comes with it for the first time.

Sunshine and her daughter moved into her parents’ guest house and try to adjust to life back in a small town. Sunny's first day on the job begins with Mayor Lomas attempting to blackmail Sunny into exposing a group allegedly called the Dangerous Daughters or she will dig up dirt on Sunny. They are supposed to have their hands in everything and are allegedly in charge of the town which may or may not explain why Sunny won the election. Then a woman nearly runs over Sunny while screaming that her daughter Sybil St. Aubin has been taken. Coincidentally, Sybil was Auri's second friend in town outside of Jimmy and Levi.

Sunny really came home intent on finding the man who abducted her when she was just 17 years old which led to a severe trauma and lost memories. She won't rest until she finds him. The trouble is that she does not remember most of what happened to her. She does remember Levi Ravider, however. Levi is the boy from the other side of the tracks who has made a decent living off selling Corn Whiskey but would have likely been her first lover. She remembers Haley Ravider as the mean girl who now must hide the fact that she and Sunny are friends. She tries to fit Levi into several aspects of his story since he's always around.

Auri is not just a bit player in her mother's story. Auri's story is one of a young daughter trying to investigate events of her life without making her mother feel as though she was to blame for anything that happened. She's also quite witty, intelligent, and may one day surpass her mother after she finishes school. She ends up with a best friend with Jimmy Ravider who has a fully functional autism. Levi seems to have a deep connection, no, not a creepy connection, but a loving relationship with her. Then there's Cruz who she falls for the first time she listens to one of his poetry being read in class. Cruz is also a boy that stands up for Auri when others treat her as a narc because of her mother and doesn't do it cave man style by grabbing her and throwing her over his shoulder to protect her.

While the book deals with the serious issue of a kidnapping and exposing the villain responsible, the book was quite funny at times thanks to the awesome banter between Sunshine and her long time best friend Quincy Cooper who becomes her second in command. I also loved Quincy's relationship with Zee who he calls his twin even though there's nothing at all similar about them. Zee is also a badass sniper which always comes in handy. I am giving the author major crops for doing a final call for a fallen officer. I'm glad there are authors who still have respect for the men and women in blue.

1


Welcome to Del Sol,

a town full of sunshine,

fresh air, and friendly faces.

(Barring three or four old grouches.)

Sunshine Vicram pushed down the dread and sticky knot of angst in her chest and wondered, yet again, if she were ready to be sheriff of a town even the locals called the Psych Ward. Del Sol, New Mexico. The town she grew up in. The town she’d abandoned. The town that held more secrets than a politician’s wife.

Was she having second thoughts? Now? After all the hubbub and hoopla of winning an election she hadn’t even entered?

Hell yes, she was.

But after her night of debauchery—a.k.a. her last hurrah before the town became her responsibility—she thought she’d conquered her fears. Eviscerated them. Beaten and buried them in the dirt of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Either Jose Cuervo had lied to her last night and given her a false sense of security, or her morning cup of joe was affecting her more than she thought possible.

She eyed the cup suspiciously and took another sip before looking out the kitchen window toward the trees in the distance. The snow had stopped last night, but it had restarted with the first rays of dawn. Snowstorms weren’t uncommon in New Mexico, especially in the more mountainous regions, but Sun had been hoping for, well, sun her first day on the job. Still, snow or no snow, nothing could stop the brilliance that awaited her along the horizon.

Thick clouds soaked up the vibrant colors of daybreak and splashed them across the heavens like a manic artist who’d scored a new bottle of Adderall. Orange Crush and cotton candy collided and dovetailed, making the sky look like a watercolor that had been left out in the rain. The vibrant hues reflected off the fat flakes drifting down and powdering the landscape.

Sun was home. After almost fifteen years, she was home.

But for how long?

No. That wasn’t the right question. Somewhere between her karaoke rendition of “Who Let the Dogs Out?”—which bordered on genius—and her fifth shot of tequila, she and Jose had figured that out the night before as well.

This was the opportunity she’d been both anticipating and dreading. Since she had a job handed to her on a silver platter, she would stay until she found the man who’d abducted her when she was seventeen. She would stay until he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. She would stay until she could shed light on the darkest event of her life, and then she would put the town in her rearview for good.

The right question was not how long she would stay but how long it would take her to bring her worst nightmare—literally—to justice.

She tucked a strand of blond hair behind her ear and appraised the guesthouse her parents had built, studying it for the umpteenth time that morning. The Tuscan two-bedroom felt bigger than it was thanks to the vaulted ceilings and large windows.

All things considered, it wasn’t bad. Not bad at all. It was shiny and new and warm. And the fact that it sat on her parents’ property, barely fifty feet from their back door, was surprisingly reassuring.

She’d worked some long hours as a detective. Surely, as a sheriff, that wouldn’t change. It might even get worse. It would be good to know that Auri, the effervescent fruit of her loins, would be safe.

The kid felt as much at home in the small tourist town as Sun did, having spent every summer in Del Sol with her grandparents since she was two. The fact that she’d twirled through the apartment when they first saw it like a drunken ballerina? Also a strong indicator she would be okay.

Auri loved it, just like Cyrus and Elaine Freyr knew she would. Sun’s parents were nothing if not determined.

And that brought her back to the malfeasance at hand. They were living in an apartment her parents had built. An apartment her parents had built specifically for Sun and Auri despite their insistence it was simply a guesthouse. They didn’t have guests. At least, not guests that stayed overnight. The apartment was just one more clue they’d been planning this ambush for a very long time.

They’d wanted her back in Del Sol. Sun had known that since the day she’d left with baby in hand and resentment in heart. Not toward her parents. What happened had not been their fault. The resentment that had been eating away at her for years stemmed from a tiff with life in general. Sometimes the hand you’re dealt sucks.

But if she were honest with herself—and she liked to think she was—the agonizing torment of unrequited love may have played a teensy-tiny part.

So, she ran, much like an addled schoolgirl, though she didn’t go far. Also, much like an addled schoolgirl.

She’d originally fled to Albuquerque, only an hour and a half from Del Sol. But she’d moved to Santa Fe a few years ago, first as an officer, then as a detective for SFPD. She’d only been thirty minutes from her parents, and she’d hoped the proximity would make her abandonment of all things Del Sol easier on them.

It hadn’t. And now Sun would pay the price for their audacity, their desperate attempt to pull her back into the fold. As would Auri. The fact that they didn’t take Auri’s future into consideration when coming up with their scheme irked. Just enough to cause tiny bouts of hyperventilation every time Sun thought about it.

Auri’s voice drifted toward her, lyrical and airy like the bubbles in champagne. “It looks good on you.”

Sun turned. Her daughter, short and yet somehow taller than she had a right to be at fourteen, stood in the doorway to her room, tucking a T-shirt into a pair of jeans and gesturing to Sun’s uniform.

Instead of acknowledging the compliment, Sun took a moment to admire the girl who’d stolen her heart about three seconds after she was born. Which happened to be about two seconds before Sun had declared the newborn the most beautiful thing this world had ever seen.

Then again, Sunshine had just given birth to a six-pound velociraptor. Her judgment could’ve been skewed.

Though not likely. The girl had inherited the ability to stop a train in its tracks by the time she was two. Her looks were unusual enough to be considered surreal. Sadly, she owed none of her features to Sunshine. Or her grandparents, for that matter.

Auri’s hair hung in thick, coppery waves down her back. Sunshine’s hair hung in a tangled mess of blond with mousy brown undertones when it wasn’t French braided, as it was now.

Auri’s hazel eyes glistened like a penny, a freshly minted one around the depths of her pupils and an aged one that had green patina around the edges. Sun’s were a murky cobalt blue, much like her grandmother’s collection of vintage Milk of Magnesia bottles.

Auri’s skin had been infused with the natural glow of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors. Sunshine was about as tan as notebook paper.

The girl seemed to have inherited everything from her father. A fact that chafed.

“Mom,” Auri said, pursing her pouty lips, “you’re doing it again.”

Sun snapped out of her musings and gave her daughter a sheepish grin from behind the cup. “Sorry.”

She dropped her gaze to the spiffy new uniform she’d donned that morning. As the newest sheriff of Del Sol County, Sun got to choose the colors she and her deputies would wear. For both their tactical and dress uniforms, she chose black. Sharp. Mysterious. Slightly menacing.

And because she wanted to look her best first day on the job, she’d opted for the Class A. Her dress uniform. She ran her fingertips over the badge pinned above the front pocket of her button-down. Inspected the embroidered sheriff’s patch on her shoulder. Marveled at how slimming black trousers really were.

“I do look rather badass, don’t I?”

Auri adjusted the waist of her jeans and offered a patient smile. “All that matters is that you think you look badass.”

“Yeah, well, it’s still crazy. And if I’m not mistaken, illegal on several levels.” How her parents got her elected as sheriff when she’d had no idea she was even running was only one of many mysteries the peculiar town of Del Sol had to offer. “Your grandparents are definitely going to prison for this. And so am I, most likely, so enjoy my badassery while it lasts.”

“Mom!” Auri threw her hands over her ears. “I can’t hear that.”

“Badassery?” she asked, confused. “You’ve heard so much worse. Remember when that guy pulled out in front of me on Cerrillos? Heavy flow day.” She pointed to herself. “Not to be messed with.”

“Grandma and Grandpa won’t go to prison. They’re too old.”

Unfortunately, they were not too old. Not by a long shot. “Election tampering is a serious offense.”

“They didn’t tamper. They just, you know, wriggled.”

Sun’s expression flatlined. “I’ll be sure to tell the judge that. Hopefully before I’m sentenced.”

Auri had been about to grab her sweater when she threw her hands over her ears again. “Mom!” she said, her chastising glare the stuff of legend. The stuff that could melt the faces off a death squad at fifty yards. Because there were so many of those nowadays. “You can’t go to prison, either. You’ll never survive. They’ll smell cop all over you and force you to be Big Betty’s bitch before they shank you in the showers.”

She’d put a lot of thought into this.

Sun set down the cup, walked to her daughter, and placed her hands on the teen’s shoulders, her expression set to one of sympathy and understanding. “You need to hear this, hon. You’re going to have to fend for yourself soon. Just remember, you gave at the office, never wear a thong on a first date, and when in doubt, throw it out.”

Auri paused before asking, “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. It’s just always worked for me.” She walked back to her coffee, took a sip, grimaced, and stuck the cup into the microwave.

“Grandma and Grandpa can’t go to jail.”

Sun turned back to her fiery offspring and crossed her arms over her chest, refusing to acknowledge the apprehension gnawing at her gut. “It would serve them right.”

“No, Mom,” she said as she pulled a sweater over her head. “It wouldn’t.”

Sun dropped her gaze. “Well, then, it would serve me right, I suppose.” The microwave beeped. She took out her cup and blew softly, having left it in long enough to scald several layers off her tongue, as usual. “But first I have to check out my new office.”

While she’d been sworn in and taken office on January 1, she had yet to step foot inside the station that would be her home away from home until the next election in four years. Barring coerced resignation.

She and Auri had taken an extra week to get moved in after the holidays. To prepare for their new lives. To gird their loins, so to speak.

“I need to decorate it,” she continued, losing herself in thought. “You know, make the new digs my own. Do you think I should put up my Hello Kitty clock? Would it send the wrong message?”

“Yes. Well?” Auri stood up straight to give her mother an unimpeded view. She wore a rust-colored sweater, stretchy denim jeans, and a pair of brown boots that buckled up the sides. The colors looked stunning against her coppery hair and sun-kissed skin.

She did a 360 so Sun could get a better look.

Sun lowered her cup. “You look amazing.”

Auri gave a half-hearted grin, walked to her, and took the coffee out of her mother’s hands. That kid drank more coffee than she did. Warning her it would stunt her growth had done nothing to assuage the girl’s enthusiasm over the years. Sun was so proud.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

Auri lifted a shoulder and downed half the cup before answering, “No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You are definitely my daughter. Indecisiveness runs in the family.”

“It’s weird, though. Real clothes.”

Auri had been in private school her entire life. She’d loved the academy in Santa Fe, but she’d been excited about the move regardless. At least, she had up until a few days ago. Sun had sensed a change. A withdrawal. Auri swore it was all in her mother’s overprotective gray matter, but Sun knew her daughter too well to dismiss her misgivings.


Copyright © 2020 by Darynda Jones

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