Cherry Tucker

In Halo, Georgia, folks know Cherry Tucker as big in mouth, small in stature, and able to sketch a portrait faster than buckshot rips from a ten gauge - but commissions are scarce. So when the well-heeled Branson family wants to memorialize their murdered son in a coffin portrait, Cherry scrambles to win their patronage from her small town rival. As the clock ticks toward the deadline, Cherry faces more trouble than just a controversial subject.

Cherry Tucker’s in a stew. Desperate and broke, Cherry and her friend, Eloise, spend a sultry summer weekend hawking their art at the Sidewinder Annual Brunswick Stew Cook-Off. When a bad case of food poisoning breaks out and Eloise dies, the police brush off her death as accidental. However, Cherry suspects someone spiked the stew and killed her friend. As Cherry calls on cook-off competitors, bitter rivals, and crooked judges, the police get steamed while the killer prepares to cook Cherry’s goose.

With a classical series sold and a portrait commissioned, Cherry Tucker's art career is in Georgia overdrive. But when the sheriff asks Cherry to draw a composite sketch of a hijacker, her life takes a hairpin as the composite leads to a related murder, her local card-sharking buddy Max Avtaikin becomes bear bait and her nemesis labels the classical series "pervert art". While she seeks to help the misfortunate and save her local reputation, Cherry's hammer-down attitude has her facing the headlights of an oncoming killer.

The curtain rises on Cherry Tucker’s debut as a high school set designer at the posh Peerless Day Academy. Cherry’s been hired for an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, but the drama director is hoping Cherry can also turn the spotlight on a malicious social media bully who’s sending poisonous texts to the faculty. The director’s got his own drama to hide, and the phantom texter seems eager to spill school secrets. When the principal’s secretary commits suicide, Cherry suspects foul play.

When Cherry Tucker's invited to paint the "kill portrait" for the winner of Big Rack Lodge's Hogzilla hunt, it seems like a paid vacation. Back home in Halo, a Hatfield-McCoy-style standoff builds between Luke and Cherry's families. She's ready for a weekend away, hobnobbing with rich and famous hunters, where she can forget her troubles and nobody knows her name.

For those who love country-fried cozy mysteries filled with action, quirky characters, and a side of romance, you're going to love the trouble-magnet portrait artist and amateur-sleuth Cherry Tucker. From The Wall Street Journal bestselling and international award-winning author Larissa Reinhart and read by the fabulously funny Joan Dukore.