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Murder on Opening Day: A New Chapter Midlife Mystery
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 27 2026
Pages: 302
Weight: 0.89
Height: 0.63 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
A washed-up motel.
A dead former mayor.
And three women who came to Maine to escape their old lives-not solve a murder.
After leaving behind a brutal corporate law career in Dallas, Ava Harper buys a rundown motor court on the coast of Maine and pours her savings, sanity, and second chance into restoring it. Alongside her best friends-Flo Tiger, owner of Washington's Last Diner, and Anndee Adams, who opens the town's newest salon-Ava is determined to prove that starting over at midlife isn't failure. It's freedom.
But on the grand opening day of the Jefferson Bungalows, the town's former mayor collapses dead on Ava's gravel driveway moments before the ribbon cutting.
Everyone says it was a heart attack.
Sheriff TJ Lincoln isn't so sure.
As rumors spread through the small town of Washington, Maine, Ava, Flo, and Anndee begin uncovering old grudges, buried scandals, and decades-old secrets tied to a controversial Main Street project that changed the town forever. The deeper they dig, the clearer it becomes: someone in Washington has spent years protecting the past.
And they may be willing to kill to keep it buried.
Perfect for fans of small-town mysteries, found family friendships, sharp humor, slow-burn romance, and atmospheric coastal settings, Murder on Opening Day introduces the New Chapter Mysteries series-where reinvention comes with coffee, chaos, Great Danes, and murder.
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