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Debutante Dropout #3
The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club
Andy Kendricks is back in the third sassy and irresistible installment in Susan McBride's Debutante Dropout series … and this time she's teaming up with her high-society mama to catch a killer who's targeting rich, lonely widows.
Wealthy Texas widows need loving too … which is why Bebe Kent joined a dating service for "discriminating" seniors soon after relocating to the swanky Belle Meade retirement community. Unfortunately, Bebe didn't even live long enough to meet "Mr. Right." And though doctors declared her death totally natural, extravagant blue-blooded Dallas socialite Cissy Blevins Kendricks believes her old friend's demise was hastened—and she's ready to check herself into Belle Meade incognito to prove it.
Cissy's rebellious, sometimes-sleuthing daughter, Andrea, wants no part of her mother's crazy schemes—yet she's anything but pleased that Cissy is going off on her own, playing a highbrow Miss Marple. So she has no choice but to join her mom in search of the truth—especially when more well-heeled widows start turning up dead …
Wealthy Texas widows need loving too … which is why Bebe Kent joined a dating service for "discriminating" seniors soon after relocating to the swanky Belle Meade retirement community. Unfortunately, Bebe didn't even live long enough to meet "Mr. Right." And though doctors declared her death totally natural, extravagant blue-blooded Dallas socialite Cissy Blevins Kendricks believes her old friend's demise was hastened—and she's ready to check herself into Belle Meade incognito to prove it.
Cissy's rebellious, sometimes-sleuthing daughter, Andrea, wants no part of her mother's crazy schemes—yet she's anything but pleased that Cissy is going off on her own, playing a highbrow Miss Marple. So she has no choice but to join her mom in search of the truth—especially when more well-heeled widows start turning up dead …
332 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
57 people are currently reading
411 people want to read
About the author
Susan McBride
24 books497 followersSusan McBride is the USA Today Bestselling author of Blue Blood and five more award-winning Debutante Dropout Mysteries from HarperCollins, including The Good Girl's Guide To Murder, The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, Night Of The Living Deb, Too Pretty To Die, and Say Yes to the Death. Susan has a second bestselling series with HC/Avon, the River Road Mysteries, that include To Helen Back, Mad as Helen, and Not a Chance in Helen. A fourth installment, Come Helen High Water, will be released in 2017.
Walk Into Silence, a thriller featuring Texas police detective Jo Larsen, was named a Kindle First pick for November 2016 and was the #1 paid Kindle bestseller in the US and UK (and #3 in Australia!). Walk a Crooked Line, the second Jo Larsen book, will be released in July 2018 by Thomas & Mercer.
Susan's young adult thriller, Very Bad Things, was released by Random House in 2014. In addition to her mysteries, she has penned three well-received women's fiction titles from HarperCollins: The Truth About Love & Lightning, Little Black Dress, and The Cougar Club. Foreign editions of Susan's books have been published in France, Turkey, Croatia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria.
Susan has one nonfiction title: In the Pink: How I Met the Perfect (Younger) Man, Survived Breast Cancer, and Found True Happiness After 40, which tells her tale of becoming an "accidental Cougar" and marrying a younger man, her cancer diagnosis at age 42, and finding herself pregnant at 47.
She has authored several YA non-mystery novels for Delacorte about debutantes in Houston: The Debs (2008) and Love, Lies, And Texas Dips (2009). Gloves Off, the third book, will be out sometime in the future.
In January of 2012, Susan was named one of St. Louis's "Most Dynamic People of the Year" by the Ladue News. In April of 2012, she was given the "Survivor of the Year" Award by the St. Louis affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As Susan likes to say, "Life is never boring."
Walk Into Silence, a thriller featuring Texas police detective Jo Larsen, was named a Kindle First pick for November 2016 and was the #1 paid Kindle bestseller in the US and UK (and #3 in Australia!). Walk a Crooked Line, the second Jo Larsen book, will be released in July 2018 by Thomas & Mercer.
Susan's young adult thriller, Very Bad Things, was released by Random House in 2014. In addition to her mysteries, she has penned three well-received women's fiction titles from HarperCollins: The Truth About Love & Lightning, Little Black Dress, and The Cougar Club. Foreign editions of Susan's books have been published in France, Turkey, Croatia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria.
Susan has one nonfiction title: In the Pink: How I Met the Perfect (Younger) Man, Survived Breast Cancer, and Found True Happiness After 40, which tells her tale of becoming an "accidental Cougar" and marrying a younger man, her cancer diagnosis at age 42, and finding herself pregnant at 47.
She has authored several YA non-mystery novels for Delacorte about debutantes in Houston: The Debs (2008) and Love, Lies, And Texas Dips (2009). Gloves Off, the third book, will be out sometime in the future.
In January of 2012, Susan was named one of St. Louis's "Most Dynamic People of the Year" by the Ladue News. In April of 2012, she was given the "Survivor of the Year" Award by the St. Louis affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As Susan likes to say, "Life is never boring."
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Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews
December 29, 2013
Sarah Lee Sewell still believed in romance, even in her seventies. Discreetly being a member of the Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club, an exclusive online service for the wealthy, she was enjoying discreet meetings with the carefully selected male members. A woman still needed to be touched by a man, no matter what.
Before she could leave for yet another new date, she is found dead in her luxury apartment in the Belle Meade Retirement Community. Cissy Blevins Kendricks is in shock, losing one of her oldest, dearest and best bridge club friends. Natural causes, as declared by the coroner, did not stick with the mourning Cissy. With her usual skillful manipulation she got her rebellious daughter, Andrea, involved. It is soon obvious that something is heating up, and it wasn't love, when another friend of Cissy's are found dead. Again 'natural causes'.
Romance, however, was not completely lost. It was just encountered in a totally surprising way. Andrea did not find it comfortable. There were issues she needed to deal with before she could accept the inevitable.
This is the third book in the Debutante Dropout Mystery Series. Old and new characters, new challenges and new friendships make this another satisfying, relaxing read. All the books in the series are really great reads on their own. Never a dull moment so far!
ARC received from edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com
MY REVIEWS FOR THE SERIES
#1 Blue Blood
#2 The Good Girl's Guide to Murder
#3 The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club
#4 Night of the Living Deb
#5 Too Pretty to Die
Before she could leave for yet another new date, she is found dead in her luxury apartment in the Belle Meade Retirement Community. Cissy Blevins Kendricks is in shock, losing one of her oldest, dearest and best bridge club friends. Natural causes, as declared by the coroner, did not stick with the mourning Cissy. With her usual skillful manipulation she got her rebellious daughter, Andrea, involved. It is soon obvious that something is heating up, and it wasn't love, when another friend of Cissy's are found dead. Again 'natural causes'.
Romance, however, was not completely lost. It was just encountered in a totally surprising way. Andrea did not find it comfortable. There were issues she needed to deal with before she could accept the inevitable.
This is the third book in the Debutante Dropout Mystery Series. Old and new characters, new challenges and new friendships make this another satisfying, relaxing read. All the books in the series are really great reads on their own. Never a dull moment so far!
ARC received from edelweiss.abovethetreeline.com
MY REVIEWS FOR THE SERIES
#1 Blue Blood
#2 The Good Girl's Guide to Murder
#3 The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club
#4 Night of the Living Deb
#5 Too Pretty to Die
March 14, 2023
Cute mistery
November 2, 2016
Kitaptaki tasvir çoğunluğunu elersek fena değildi .. çik-lit tarzı bir polisiye demek yanlış olmaz herhalde :)
May 8, 2020
In this installment of the series Cissy & her daughter Andrea switched roles in the sense that I was cheering Cissy on 100% while Andrea struck me as nearly 100% unlikable, i.e., rude, impatient, unkind & generally obnoxious. But the story was entertaining & introduced a new character into the mix, that being a very likable boyfriend for Cissy. Still enjoying the series & looking to another installment.
April 22, 2014
A fun beach read. the third in the series. Andrea Kendricks is from a very rich Dallas socialite family but decided she didn't want any part of that life. She went to art school and is website designer. Her mom, Cissy, drags her to a funeral for one of her rich friends who she feels was murdered instead of just dying of natural causes and then a second friend also dies unexpectedly Cissy decides she will investigate the deaths to see if they were natural of unnatural. Andrea decides to help her out to protect her and then the fun begins. This story even finds Cissy unbending her very proper ways!
November 29, 2024
2.5 read rounded up because I hadn't read the first two which might have helped but I found Andy to be so obnoxious I rather hated her. Andy is the titular Deb drop out and her mother, Cissy, is the millionairess. And I had to hear about how much Andy hates that world, how she is so much happier in her non-wealthy job (but no doubt has a trust fund) and her lawyer boyfriend (who mom is upset she won't marry even though, gasp, she's 30) SO many times I was shocked I was only 30 pages in.
Andy is also terribly judgemental to, upset that the old women waking their friend, Bebe, who had passed on as she wanted with a big blow out party and spends the next 70 pages treating her mother like a child because her mother insists a) Bebe was very healthy in spite of being 70 and b) slept nude so why was she found dead in a nightie? She must have been murdered. Even after the next death (100 pages in) everyone is still treating Cissy like she has dementia and needs a nap.
I just was not impressed with this. Also it has SO many pop culture references in it that it's eye rolling and many were 20 years out of date even when this was published in the early 2000s. I doubt I'll look for more of it.
Andy is also terribly judgemental to, upset that the old women waking their friend, Bebe, who had passed on as she wanted with a big blow out party and spends the next 70 pages treating her mother like a child because her mother insists a) Bebe was very healthy in spite of being 70 and b) slept nude so why was she found dead in a nightie? She must have been murdered. Even after the next death (100 pages in) everyone is still treating Cissy like she has dementia and needs a nap.
I just was not impressed with this. Also it has SO many pop culture references in it that it's eye rolling and many were 20 years out of date even when this was published in the early 2000s. I doubt I'll look for more of it.
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March 28, 2021La suite des aventures d'Andy m'a autant plu que les deux premiers tomes. L'héroïne est toujours très en forme: sa narration reste très vivante, pleine de réflexions souvent amusantes. L'autrice crée d'ailleurs des situations propices aux remarques spirituelles de son héroïne. Et lorsque celle-ci n'en fait pas, c'est parce qu'un événement la laisse sans voix. Par exemple, sa première rencontre avec Myriam Ferguson...
Comme dans les autres tomes, les moments et les répliques cocasses sont ce que j'ai le plus apprécié.
[...]
lien vers ma chronique: https://www.lalivrophile.net/debutant...
Comme dans les autres tomes, les moments et les répliques cocasses sont ce que j'ai le plus apprécié.
[...]
lien vers ma chronique: https://www.lalivrophile.net/debutant...
September 2, 2020
Enjoyable cozy mystery featuring Andrea (Andy) Kendricks and her mother Cissy, a society doyenne in Dallas. Cissy has lost two friends in short order, and she's sure both were murdered, so she goes undercover at a retirement village to learn the truth.
Cissy pulls the Southern Mama guilt trip to get Andy to do her will. Andy is too clever by half to see what's clear to any reader. And Mama's no Miss Marple, so she misses obvious clues, too. Perhaps that's just he way McBride wanted it to be. Not too much mystery to the mystery. I enjoyed the repartee, though.
Cissy pulls the Southern Mama guilt trip to get Andy to do her will. Andy is too clever by half to see what's clear to any reader. And Mama's no Miss Marple, so she misses obvious clues, too. Perhaps that's just he way McBride wanted it to be. Not too much mystery to the mystery. I enjoyed the repartee, though.
October 23, 2018
Interesting twists and turns. Characters were more likeable than in previous books.
March 11, 2019
Just love this series. Funny dialogue and great characters
July 16, 2020
Interesting and lighthearted fun!
September 19, 2023
My favorite book in this series so far. I enjoyed the story line.
October 2, 2023
Mother's friends at nursing home
February 22, 2020
Too boring and repetitive at times.
June 30, 2016
I loved the first book in this series, Blue Blood, but the next two just kind of lagged along. It was to the point where I just wanted it to end already. I still have the two most recent books to read but I think I'm going to be putting them off for a while, until I'm in the mood for an excruciating slow moving plot with underdeveloped characters.
January 2, 2014
When two of Cissy's friends are found dead in their posh retirement village- Cissy decides to go undercover. She believes they were murdered and not victims of heart attacks. Andrea can only hang on for the ride.
March 19, 2014
Is a killer targeting the residence of a poss retirement home? The plot of this one was too thin, although I did like the characters.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
Read my full review at Carstairs Considers.
September 17, 2007
I don't know why but there were times I laughed so hard I was crying...learn nothing kinda read well except from Dallas Society.
November 12, 2007
read 05.08.07
July 21, 2008
The characters weren't that interesting and the mystery wasn't that intriguing.
November 10, 2008
Not sure when I read this one, I'll have to go through some of the other websites to see. Again, another great mystery read from Susuan McBride.
April 12, 2010
I think this is my favorite in the series. We get to see more of Cissy and the story is a bit tighter
November 16, 2014
Very entertaining mystery with Andy and Cissy going undercover at a retirement community.
May 5, 2016
Not as good as the first two for me. I have the next one in the series that I will read but I think the oomph was gone in this one.
February 22, 2013
Enjoyable mystery with humor and interesting characters.
June 17, 2016
Another quick read of this series...
Displaying 1 - 27 of 27 reviews