Book 1 — Nothing but Trouble
After ten years of running from her past, PJ Sugar is lured home by her sister who is remarrying and needs PJ to care for her four-year-old son while she is on her honeymoon. PJ is a sucker for being needed.
First day back, she witnesses a fight that leads to murder … and runs into her old boyfriend who was the cause of her disgrace ten years earlier. And things move into more trouble from there.
Susie has an entire cast of colorful and wacky characters who keep PJ busy — her mom, her sister's new in-laws, Davy, the nephew, and then the men in her life. The men in her life caused more unease in this romance reader's soul than the mystery. Boone, PJ's first love and highschool sweetheart, has been keeping the torch burning for her all these years. The physical spark is still there. What is going to keep them from getting together?
Enter PI Jeremy Kane.
Book 2 — Double Trouble
PJ Sugar continues to get into trouble (really, it isn't her fault, nor is it trouble in the sense of causing it — but after so many years of getting blamed, PJ has trouble distinguishing the difference.)
Now she works for Jeremy Kane while she is training to get her own PI license. Boone has proposed, and she's not sure what holds her back from accepting. Thankfully another mystery needs solved.
Book 3 — Licensed for Trouble
PJ hasn't received her PI license yet, so she intends to solve a mystery all on her own to fulfill the requirements and become a professional. But in this hunt to find out if she can actually amount to more than trouble, PJ inherits the "mushroom house," an ancient Kellogg estate that instead leads her into a hunt of her own heritage.
Both Jeremy and Boone remain in the picture, but it's now obvious where her affections rest.
This theme of trouble … of living messy lives before God … is interesting. Susie gives the easy answer of "know God and know who you are in Christ," but PJ has a long journey to be able to even begin to grasp those truths. She needs to learn how to distinguish her old self before Christ with the new one she now is in Him. She needs to be able to separate her old life in Kellogg from the new life she now wants to live. She needs to extend grace and forgiveness on so many levels (her mom, Boone, her biological family) before she is free to see where God wants her next. And she needs to learn to let go of the familiar (PJ Sugar = trouble), before she can grasp her new life, which truly cannot be separated from her past.
All good stuff.
The writing was easy to read and the stories easy to follow. The characters were funny, tender, and broken. The mysteries were convoluted enough between the main mystery and side mysteries to keep me guessing to the end. (Well, except a few points that I figured out before PJ, especially in book 3.) My only style complaint was a few flowery discriptions that reminded me I was reading a book rather than living in PJ's skin. I have yet to be disappointed in a Susan May Warren book and this series is no exception.
I'm sure you could find a copy if you are interested. I don't think you'll be disappointed either.
