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Fatal #1
Fatal Fixer Upper
From Night's Edge anthology
She does not believe in ghosts…
Kiley's made a name for herself with her column debunking new-age fortune tellers, mediums, and psychics. Her small New Englandish town is known for its hauntings, so the charlatans abound. Her nemesis eludes her…Jack McCain is the one she's never been able to trip up. He's the smoothest con of them all with his good looks, quick wit, natural charm. She even enjoys the game they're playing, her trying to trick him, him always a step ahead of her. They've become best enemies.
But something's wrong…
Now, something's going on with her house, a big old Gothic she bought for a song. It began with a death threat written in blood. At first, she figures it's one of the phonies she's exposed, out for revenge, but before long she has to admit there's something otherworldly happening. And she can't handle it on her own. She needs help. She needs a medium who's the real deal. She needs Jack McCain.
FATAL FIXER UPPER was originally titled "Her Best Enemy," and is a RITA® Award-winning story.
She does not believe in ghosts…
Kiley's made a name for herself with her column debunking new-age fortune tellers, mediums, and psychics. Her small New Englandish town is known for its hauntings, so the charlatans abound. Her nemesis eludes her…Jack McCain is the one she's never been able to trip up. He's the smoothest con of them all with his good looks, quick wit, natural charm. She even enjoys the game they're playing, her trying to trick him, him always a step ahead of her. They've become best enemies.
But something's wrong…
Now, something's going on with her house, a big old Gothic she bought for a song. It began with a death threat written in blood. At first, she figures it's one of the phonies she's exposed, out for revenge, but before long she has to admit there's something otherworldly happening. And she can't handle it on her own. She needs help. She needs a medium who's the real deal. She needs Jack McCain.
FATAL FIXER UPPER was originally titled "Her Best Enemy," and is a RITA® Award-winning story.
142 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 1, 2004
208 people are currently reading
212 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Shayne
269 books2,583 followersI live in the teeny, tiny town of Taylor, NY, (Alliteration Alert!) though my mailing address is Cincinnatus, my telephone exchange is Truxton and I pay taxes and vote in Cuyler. All of these are at least in the same rural county in the southern hills of New York State; Cortland County. There are more cattle than people here. The nearest “big” cities are Syracuse and Binghamton and they are an hour away, in different directions, and not really all that big by most standards, though they both seem humongous to me. I look out my window to see rolling, green, thickly forested hills, wildflower laden meadows and wide open blue, blue skies. My road is barely paved. The nearest neighboring place is a 700 acre dairy farm.
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
My house is a big, century old farmhouse. I moved in here after my divorce in 2006. Just a little over a year later, the house, which I had named, SERENITY, burned. It was 99% gutted, and I lost my two dogs, Sally, an 11-year-old great Dane, and Wrinkles, my 14-year-old, blind bulldog. This was the culmination of my Dark Night of the soul, which had seemed to hit me all at once in 2006-2007. My mother died that year, after a 14 month battle with pancreatic cancer. She was only 60. The youngest of my five daughters had left home that same year, and while that’s not a tragedy at all, it felt like one to me. Then came the divorce. And finally there was the fire--it seemed my darkest night wasn’t quite finished with me after all. I had lost almost everything before that point, and as I poked through the wet ashes and soot the next day, I realized that I had now been stripped all the way to the bone.
No better time to start over. (And no, I didn’t come to that realization that day--there were a few days of wallowing in pity first, particularly the day after the fire, when I hit a deer and smashed up my car, which I was practically living in!)
That’s when I started to laugh. Just sat on the side of the road as the deer bounded, uninjured and carefree, out of sight, and laughed. It was just too ridiculous at that point, to do anything else!
And from there, I picked myself up, and brushed myself off, and said, okay, there’s only one way to go from here. Forward. And that’s what I did. There I was at the age of harrurmphemmph, living in my one, mostly undamaged remaining room, with a dorm-sized mini-fridge, a futon, a TV, my cat (nine lives!) and a laptop. And not much else. (Though thank goodness the room that survived the fire, was a room that had its own attached bathroom!)
Since then I have rebuilt my beloved home, which really has become my haven, my “Serenity.” I share it now with my fiancé, Lance, and we have accumulated quite the little family together. “Little” being a relative term. We have a pair of English Mastiffs, Dozer and Daisy, who weigh 203 pounds and 208 pounds respectively, and a little pudgy English Bulldog named Niblet, who is bigger than both of them, inside her mind. We also have the aforementioned cat, Glorificus (“Glory” for short,) who adores her canine pups and keeps them firmly in line. And we've acquired a pair of stray cats as well, a mother and son, Luna (Lulu for short) and Butters aka Buddy. Lulu showed up pregnant during a lunar eclipse, had a litter, and vanished again. We found homes for all the kittens except one. Butters. We got him fixed and kept him. A few months later, Lulu returned, again expecting. This litter was born on the "Monster Moon." Again, all the kittens were spayed and neutered and placed in homes, and this time we got Lulu to the vet in time to spay her before the cycle could repeat.
Glory is not amused.
She has a story of her own, my old Glory cat, having been with me before the Dark Times descended, she went through it all with me, moved with me, survived the fire, and remains with me still. She's tolerating the newcomers. Barely.
My partner is an artist, a mechanic, a welder and an inventor, and the rumors are true, he is much younger than I
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews
December 23, 2020
Cute, spooky, enemies to lovers story all while trying to solve the ghost problem a small town reporter has in the new house she just bought. Before the haunting she was a sceptic on all thing paranormal along with proving the mediums and so called psychics in town were frauds. But when an eerie message is left on her bathroom mirror in blood she turns to her nemesis medium Jack McCain to help her get rid of the ghosts haunting her house.
September 5, 2023
What do you do when you’ve spent your career debunking psychics, mediums and paranormal investigators while also denouncing the existence of ghosts only to find out your newly renovated house is super haunted? Ask your arch nemesis - the one man you’ve never been able to prove is a fake for help of course!
Full of spooky ghosts, all the banter, town secrets, a head scratching mystery, friendship, smidge of spice and paranormal sleuthing - Fatal Fixer Upper was a spooktacular read! I’m so excited to see where the series goes from here!
Full of spooky ghosts, all the banter, town secrets, a head scratching mystery, friendship, smidge of spice and paranormal sleuthing - Fatal Fixer Upper was a spooktacular read! I’m so excited to see where the series goes from here!
October 14, 2023
-Enemies to lovers
-🌶️
-Paranormal
This was a nice slow, sweet read about a young woman, Kiley, who has trust issues and starts to take it out on local clairvoyants. Jack has been able to keep Kiley from discovering him as a fraud. When Kiley moves into her new house, things start happening. She went from not believing in the paranormal to living with them. So, she goes to the one person she knows that can help her, Jack.
These two have to band together and trust each other enough to figure out why these spirits are acting out and how to stop them. Jack has to figure out how to help her without being exposed as a fraud.
It was an interesting read and had some funny banter between the two MCs.
-🌶️
-Paranormal
This was a nice slow, sweet read about a young woman, Kiley, who has trust issues and starts to take it out on local clairvoyants. Jack has been able to keep Kiley from discovering him as a fraud. When Kiley moves into her new house, things start happening. She went from not believing in the paranormal to living with them. So, she goes to the one person she knows that can help her, Jack.
These two have to band together and trust each other enough to figure out why these spirits are acting out and how to stop them. Jack has to figure out how to help her without being exposed as a fraud.
It was an interesting read and had some funny banter between the two MCs.
March 8, 2023
What do you do when you have debunked so many fake mediums and psychics, then the home you just bought, is fixed up with all your money, and weird things start happening? As a journalist, it is my job to seek out the truth…only, what is the truth in MY case? That is something Kiley will have to discover in this new series…Jack is the only psychic she has not been able to bust as a fraud. When things go hinky at her house, she invites him in to take a look and then exorcise the ghosts ~ Jack believes he is a fake; after knowing things and visions and occurrences happen, he is not so sure. He calls on three others to come help solve the dilemma of Kiley’s home~ This is a great new read~
March 15, 2023
this was the first paranormal (romance) book i’ve read in a long while and OH MY GOD i loved it
it WAS really fast paced, with it only being a hundred or so pages, but i’m not mad about that. would i have loved more Jack and Kiley content in this book?? yes. is that a deal breaker?? absolutely not.
the start was a little slow, and since it was so short i feel like i didn’t get to connect with the characters until like, 50-60% in, but again, not deal breakers.
4.5 overall, only cause of the slow start and a few spelling / grammar mistakes — aka things that don’t really matter much lol
it WAS really fast paced, with it only being a hundred or so pages, but i’m not mad about that. would i have loved more Jack and Kiley content in this book?? yes. is that a deal breaker?? absolutely not.
the start was a little slow, and since it was so short i feel like i didn’t get to connect with the characters until like, 50-60% in, but again, not deal breakers.
4.5 overall, only cause of the slow start and a few spelling / grammar mistakes — aka things that don’t really matter much lol
January 2, 2023
At 142 pages it's paced very quick but still feels rounded out. Easy, fun read with charming banter and a good dose of the paranormal. I really enjoy Shayne's writing and this was an enjoyable way to spend a few hours.
The others in the series are currently priced higher than the first and with how short they are I'm not sure if I'll continue but I'm definitely interested in where the story goes from here.
The others in the series are currently priced higher than the first and with how short they are I'm not sure if I'll continue but I'm definitely interested in where the story goes from here.
May 16, 2023
My newest series.
I've always been happy with all of the books by Maggie Shayne that I've read. This one was no different. It was spooky but not over the top. A great ending and what I'm sure is a great start to a wonderful series. I can't wait to start on the next book. Thank you Ms. Shayne for the hours of enjoyment and entertainment that you have created for us. I know I'm not alone in hoping that you continue with your gifts to us.
I've always been happy with all of the books by Maggie Shayne that I've read. This one was no different. It was spooky but not over the top. A great ending and what I'm sure is a great start to a wonderful series. I can't wait to start on the next book. Thank you Ms. Shayne for the hours of enjoyment and entertainment that you have created for us. I know I'm not alone in hoping that you continue with your gifts to us.
February 5, 2024
Very cute if seriously predictable. The writing was good with great descriptions. As an aspiring writer I like reading books that help me learn the writing craft.
Kylie is a journalist who specializes in debunking fake psychics. When she buys a house that seems to be haunted, she ends up enlisting the help of her nemesis, the one who she can never catch and out as a fake, Jack. Short and fast-paced, this one had me hooked from the first paragraph.
Kylie is a journalist who specializes in debunking fake psychics. When she buys a house that seems to be haunted, she ends up enlisting the help of her nemesis, the one who she can never catch and out as a fake, Jack. Short and fast-paced, this one had me hooked from the first paragraph.
April 20, 2022
Fatal Fixer Upper by Maggie Shayne is a lighthearted, enemies to lovers, psychic, romance with an intriguing storyline. It has a good share of ghostly happenings with a particularly unexpected ending. The characters are well developed and their banter is fun. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and highly recommend it.
July 20, 2023
Fluff, but good spooky fluff
This is short, which is why I think it doesn't have as much depth as it could have. But it is still a fun story. I like the characters in it and I am willing to set aside how fast the relationship came together. I liked the fraud or not storyline and I loved the ghosts.
This is short, which is why I think it doesn't have as much depth as it could have. But it is still a fun story. I like the characters in it and I am willing to set aside how fast the relationship came together. I liked the fraud or not storyline and I loved the ghosts.
March 14, 2024
Maggie Shayne has done it again!!
Fatal Fixer Upper has caught my attention and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series!! Kiley and Jack's chemistry is undeniable, from the very beginning. I very much enjoyed reading their begining story and can't wait to see where Maggie's brilliant mind takes them next!!
Fatal Fixer Upper has caught my attention and I'm eagerly awaiting the next book in the series!! Kiley and Jack's chemistry is undeniable, from the very beginning. I very much enjoyed reading their begining story and can't wait to see where Maggie's brilliant mind takes them next!!
June 8, 2025
A cute cozy paranormal mystery starring a skeptic out to debunk all mediums "no matter what" because she herself was conned in the past. A medium, that no matter how hard she tries, she just cannot catch him conning his clients. Together they tackle her haunted house and find romance along the way. A fun afternoon read.
December 19, 2025
Sceptic to believer
This was a fun start to the series. You have Kiley, the main character, who is a sceptic and working on debunking fake psychics, Jack who thinks he is a fake, and a haunted house. I enjoyed the storyline and loved the characters and am looking forward to more haunted stories in the series.
This was a fun start to the series. You have Kiley, the main character, who is a sceptic and working on debunking fake psychics, Jack who thinks he is a fake, and a haunted house. I enjoyed the storyline and loved the characters and am looking forward to more haunted stories in the series.
August 29, 2021
Interesting
I love ghost stories, psychics and romance so I enjoyed this book. It was a little more light hearted than a thriller but then the end got gory fast maybe too much. I have mixed feelings about it. It was not her best work but still intriguing.
I love ghost stories, psychics and romance so I enjoyed this book. It was a little more light hearted than a thriller but then the end got gory fast maybe too much. I have mixed feelings about it. It was not her best work but still intriguing.
February 23, 2023
Best ever!
This was the best book! I was hooked from the beginning, can't say that about a lot of books. It has everything I enjoy, ghosts, mystery and of course romance. You must read this. You won't be sorry.
This was the best book! I was hooked from the beginning, can't say that about a lot of books. It has everything I enjoy, ghosts, mystery and of course romance. You must read this. You won't be sorry.
February 28, 2023
Great Ghost Story
Not many ghost stories end in a love story but this one sure does. A few twist and turns with a surprise along the way. Well worth the time to read and looks like it will be a great series.
Not many ghost stories end in a love story but this one sure does. A few twist and turns with a surprise along the way. Well worth the time to read and looks like it will be a great series.
February 28, 2023
Thought it was too short
When I started Fatal Fixer Upper, I thought it was too short to have substance. I was wrong. The characters were interesting and well drawn. I am looking forward to the next book.
When I started Fatal Fixer Upper, I thought it was too short to have substance. I was wrong. The characters were interesting and well drawn. I am looking forward to the next book.
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March 1, 2023Ghost romance
This short ghost romance by Maggie Shayne had me laughing and smiling throughout the whole story.
As the first in the series it was interesting enough to ensure I want to continue on to book 2.
This short ghost romance by Maggie Shayne had me laughing and smiling throughout the whole story.
As the first in the series it was interesting enough to ensure I want to continue on to book 2.
March 18, 2023
Fatal Fixer Upper
Wow! This was really intriguing story. I thoroughly enjoyed the banner between Jack & Kiley. It really made me smile. Who knew here was so many ghost. Great read!
Wow! This was really intriguing story. I thoroughly enjoyed the banner between Jack & Kiley. It really made me smile. Who knew here was so many ghost. Great read!
April 30, 2023
solid ghost story
This is a short read, but will make you think- you don’t have to be a ghost believer to read this, just open minded. And the story makes it worth reading. As does the sex - not overdone, just well done.
This is a short read, but will make you think- you don’t have to be a ghost believer to read this, just open minded. And the story makes it worth reading. As does the sex - not overdone, just well done.
April 28, 2025
I loved this story!!!
This story has it all, ghosts, crime, 2 protagonists who start out hating each other, haunted house, murder and sick psychotic killers crime spree......and, love.
This story has it all, ghosts, crime, 2 protagonists who start out hating each other, haunted house, murder and sick psychotic killers crime spree......and, love.
February 20, 2021
If you like entertaining paranormal stories this is a fun quick read.
December 21, 2021
Great Story
This book was great, loved the story line, the characters were great to. I really love stories by Maggie Shayne and I look forward to all her books….
This book was great, loved the story line, the characters were great to. I really love stories by Maggie Shayne and I look forward to all her books….
April 8, 2022
Fun story!
January 6, 2023
Well-written, entertaining mystery with great characters. Funny, clever dialogue. The final details of the mystery was sad and serious, but that didn't affect my enjoyment.
July 25, 2023
I adore this author's stories and missed reading them, this one already existed with another title and is being rereleased.
December 1, 2023
My first
This was my first paranormal romance book. It was a fast and easy read. Read in one night. Fun, spooky, and flirty. I enjoyed it
This was my first paranormal romance book. It was a fast and easy read. Read in one night. Fun, spooky, and flirty. I enjoyed it
December 27, 2023
It’s supposed to be an enemies to lovers but I could care less about Jack and kiley’s dynamic… it was pretty bland. The paranormal parts were the highlight of this book.
March 22, 2024
A good first one in a new series. I'm glad to see there are more. I'm looking forward to them.
July 30, 2023
very enjoyable book to read. The characters are interesting, and the storyline was creepy which I loved. This will make a great series!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 32 reviews