I was so excited to read this book. I’ve read many books by these authors and have always started each series somewhere besides the beginning. This is the first time I’ve started one at the beginning! Now I don’t have to go backwards to go forward.

I’m beginning to suspect Joyce and Jim Lavene have special powers. How else can they write so many books so fast and make me fall in love with their characters so easily?

I loved Sarah Tucker. She’s a successful lawyer working for a senator. Rising up the ladder quickly. When her mother decides it’s time to sell her grandparents abandoned farm, Sarah takes time off to seal the deal.

Off she goes to Misty River, Virginia, and right into her childhood memories. Sarah loved her grandparents and cherished every minute she spent on their farm. From swimming naked in the river, to watching the pumpkins grow huge, she knew every inch of those acres.

Her analytical mind says seal the deal when a buyer offers a huge amount of money for the farm. Her whimsical mind says don’t do it. You love this place. It could be brought back to it’s former glory.

And what about her grandparents. They vanished without a trace many years ago, food still on the table, no signs of violence. If she sells the farm, she might never know what happened to them.

And where will Jack go. Her former childhood playmate, the boy who gave her her first kiss, lives on the farm. He’s been there for years, a squatter you could say, protecting the place and keeping it from falling to ruin.

Digging into the old investigation stirs up a hornets nest. Sarah and Jack arrange a meeting with a man who says he has a lead on her grandparents. Once they reach the farm, bullets fly and they find the man dead.

Sarah, along with Jack and many of the town folk, better dig faster for clues if they don’t want more bodies piling up.

Speaking of digging. There’s also the mystery of the buried Confederate gold somewhere on the farm. The plot thickens.

This is the type of writing that keeps me reading for hours, reading from beginning to end. Pausing to laugh. Diving back in. Wanting to know what happens. Not wanting it to end.

The romance is sweet and funny. Sarah is attracted to Jack in spite of herself. He loves to keep her off balance. These two are made for each and I crossed my fingers for a happy ever after.

The mystery is a good one. I’m sure you’ve heard this before, but it totally caught me by surprise.

The characters were wonderful. So many of them, yet it was easy to remember who was who.

The community is close. Everybody pitches in to help each other. And a bear can’t poop in the woods without someone knowing about it. You know those kind of towns.

The writing. How to describe it. These two authors have a way of keeping me engrossed even when they’re writing about something as mundane as walking from the farmhouse to the barn. No wasted word, just the right ones to show you the scene.

I loved every word. Can’t wait for more. And knowing how fast these two write, it probably won’t be a long wait. ( )

I'm going to start out by saying that it's a good thing I didn't have anything planned today. I couldn't stop reading this book. Another home run by Joyce and Jim Lavene. I can't wait for the next book.
We are introduced to Misty River in this new series. Sarah is sent by her family to handle the sale of her grandparents farm. No one from her family has been to the farm for over 16 years since the mysterious disappearance of her grandparents, Tommy and Bess Denning. Sarah has fond memories of spending time with her grandparents on the farm as a kid. Her mother and brother never wanted to be there but Sarah never wanted to leave. She gets out of the car and all the memories flood back like picking pumpkins with her grandfather. But what is she thinking, she is a city girl. She along with the rest of the family are lawyers. She just needs to focus on selling and going back to her life. Unti Jack, the person from her past that has been taking care of the farm shows up and then a dead body ends up in the living room of her grandparents house. Who would want the property now???
Will she be able to let the ghosts from her past go before someone gets hurt? What really happened all those years ago with her grandparents disappearance?
I loved this story from the beginning to the end. I can't wait to see what is in store for Sarah and the folks in Misty River. ( )

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the authors for a fair and honest review.

A cozy mystery set in a pumpkin patch in Virginia, Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About by Joyce and Jim Lavene is filled with colorful characters, plenty of action and a light touch of humor. The first book in a new series by the authors, this is a book cozy readers will enjoy, especially those who enjoy reading cozies with recipes. Having read other books by these authors, I looked forward to reading this new story and was not disappointed.

A divorced attorney given the task of selling her grandparents farm, Sarah Tucker returns to Misty River for the first time in 16 years. While waiting for the real estate agent to arrive, Sarah can’t help remembering the good times she had visiting her grandparents as a child and how they all came to an end when she turned twelve and her grandparents literally disappeared from the face of the earth. Determined to discover what happened all those years ago, Sarah soon finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation and a hunt for buried treasure.

The authors do an excellent job introducing us to Sarah, the female sleuth at the center of their new series. She’s attractive, smart and thinks she can take care of herself, especially since she learned to use a gun and is licensed to carry. I easily connected with Sarah and enjoyed watching her character develop as I turned the pages. Good character development is something I’ve come to admire about the Lavene’s and their stories.

The secondary characters, beginning with Jack Collins, a man “illegally” living on Sarah’s family’s property, are well developed and I found myself laughing every time that Jack made an appearance. Especially since he and Sarah have a backstory she doesn’t completely remember. The sheriff of the small town and the rest of the inhabitants are also well developed and each contributed something to the story. I especially liked how everyone had good things to say about Sarah’s grandparents, though clearly some of them have too much time on their hands because they thought they had been abducted by aliens. It was also nice to have a “surprise visit” from a character in another of the author’s series, it just added an extra element of fun.

The mystery of what happened to Sarah’s grandparents and why someone gets killed inside the old farmstead within a day of Sarah’s arrival is well developed and takes several twists and turns. It’s also tied to a legend about Confederate gold that is supposedly hidden somewhere on the property. The story is quickly paced and my imagination was clearly engaged in the story. I especially enjoyed how something that was supposed to be simple and take a couple of days at most, turned into a life changing experience for Sarah.

Will Sarah discover what really happened to her grandparents? Will she find the Confederate gold that is allegedly buried on her family’s land? And will Sarah and Jack become good friends? You’ll have to read Give ‘Em Pumpkin to Talk About to find out. I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book. ( )