Friday, September 23, 2011

I CAN’T MAKE YOU LOVE ME, BUT I CAN MAKE YOU LEAVE ME by Dixie Cash

Publisher: William Morrow
Date published: April 2011
ISBN: 9780061910142
Cozy Mystery
Trade Paperback
Reviewed by Valerie
Obtained by publisher


Salt Lick, Texas gets a surprise visit from former Country singer Darla Denman. The inhabitants who still remember greet her with the same sentence. ‘Thought you were dead!’ Still, Darla is touched to find so many fans. In fact, she is in trouble. She is on a comeback tour and the bus has broken down, there is no money in the pot, the two backup singers have packed up and gone home and her ex-husband now manager’s new wife is driving everyone up the wall! But, Debbie Sue and Edwina, the Domestic Equalizers, are happy to show Darla some true Texan hospitality and they give her and her entourage a place to stay and a vehicle to get them to their first gig. Debbie Sue and Edwina are even roped in to pose as backup singers. Life couldn’t get more exciting! Well, Roxie Jo, the new wife, shows up dead in her closet sized dressing room and Darla confesses to the crime. Debbie Sue and Edwina are convinced she’s not guilty and are determined to clear her name. They have resources!

I was so happy to get another Dixie Cash book to read and meet up again, with Debbie Sue and Edwina. These are two ladies I would love to visit and sit down with for an afternoon. Debbie Sue seems a bit more down to earth and Edwina is just a bale of laughs. I love them both. Dixie Cash, who is a writing team of two sisters, does a wonderful job of bringing these characters to life and casting them in a small Texan town. Ms Cash writes wonderful dialogue which is quick-witted and often just laugh-out-loud funny. Most of this story is introducing the characters and seeing their interaction with each other. You learn to really hate Roxie Jo, so it’s no wonder she gets murdered. Just about everyone who knows her would like to have done the deed. So, it was no wonder that I really didn’t guess who did it until the very end. Ms Cash cleverly kept that from me. The real mystery solving is in the last third of the book and will certainly keep you turning those pages to find out who-dun-it! I for one am looking forward to the next Domestic Equalizers book, to see what Debbie Sue and Edwina are up to next!

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

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