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    Matchmaker Mysteries: Books 11, Prequel, Advice
    Matchmaker Mysteries: Books 11, Prequel, Advice
    Matchmaker Mysteries: Books 11, Prequel, Advice
    Ebook321 pages4 hours

    Matchmaker Mysteries: Books 11, Prequel, Advice

    By Elise Sax

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    About this ebook

    Perfect for fans of Janet Evanovich and Jana DeLeon, Elise Sax’s wickedly funny Matchmaker Mysteries series proves that the road to love comes with a few dead ends. The Books 11, Prequel, and Grandma’s Advice Boxed Set is a page-turning beach read and a small town mystery romance and includes the books Ship of Ghouls, Road to Matchmaker, and Matchmaking Advice From Your Grandma Zelda.

    "Elise Sax will win your heart."--New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis
    *
    "Sax will make you laugh. Her larger-than-life characters jump off the page and make crazy seem like a fun place to hang out."—New York Times bestselling author Christie Craig
    *
    “Elise Sax belongs on every bookshelf.”—New York Times bestselling author Melissa Foster
    *
    "With quirky characters reminiscent of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series and a small-town heroine redolent of Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse" --RT Book Reviews
    *
    "Fans of laugh-out-loud romantic suspense will enjoy this new author as she joins the ranks of Janet Evanovich."--Booklist, on An Affair to Dismember

    Ship of Ghouls:
    *
    Gladie and Spencer are finally married. After they’re gifted a honeymoon cruise, they’re on their way into international waters. But the ship is less than luxurious, and the ship’s crew isn’t what they seem. When Gladie stumbles on a dead body, the newlyweds are thrust into a life-or-death mystery. Gladie’s “gift” could come in handy to find the killer, but she might find herself overboard before justice is served.
    *
    Road to Matchmaker:
    *
    A month before Gladie Burger moves to the small town of Cannes, California to help in her grandmother’s matchmaking business, she’s busy moving from one temporary job to the next. Living in Los Angeles in a studio apartment over an Italian restaurant, she works in a used book store doing inventory, but she spends most of her time reading the collection of old murder mysteries. After an accident involving the books, Gladie has lost her memory and believes she’s the detective in the last book that she read. Determined to track down her arch nemesis, Gladie finds herself in a real-life mystery and an adventure of a lifetime.
    *
    Matchmaking Advice From Your Grandma Zelda:
    *
    The complete collection of Grandma Zelda’s matchmaking advice from the bestselling Matchmaking Mysteries series. All of her words of wisdom are here, and as a bonus, Yiddish definitions and introductions by Elise Sax and Grandma Zelda are included. Zelda’s humorous words of wisdom about love and life are a shot of happiness, sure to brighten anyone’s day.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherElise Sax
    Release dateJan 24, 2019
    ISBN9780463805763
    Matchmaker Mysteries: Books 11, Prequel, Advice
    Author

    Elise Sax

    USA Today bestselling author Elise Sax writes hilarious happy endings. She worked as a journalist, mostly in Paris, France for many years but always wanted to write fiction. Finally, she decided to go for her dream and write a novel. She was thrilled when An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker Series, was sold at auction to Ballantine.Elise is an overwhelmed single mother of two boys in Southern California. She's an avid traveler, a beginner dancer, an occasional piano player, and an online shopping junkie.Like her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theelisesax?ref=hlFriend her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ei.sax.9Or just send her an email: [email protected] can also visit her website and get a free novella: elisesax.com

    Read more from Elise Sax

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      Book preview

      Matchmaker Mysteries - Elise Sax

      cover.jpg

      Matchmaker Mysteries Book 11, Prequel, Advice are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Copyright © 2019 by Elise Sax

      All rights reserved.

      Published in the United States by 13 Lakes Publishing

      img1.jpg

      Cover design: Elizabeth Mackey

      Edited by: Novel Needs

      Formatted by: Jesse Kimmel-Freeman

      elisesax.com

      [email protected]

      http://elisesax.com/mailing-list.php

      https://www.facebook.com/ei.sax.9

      @theelisesax

      ALSO BY ELISE SAX

      Matchmaker Mysteries Series

      Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda

      Road to Matchmaker

      An Affair to Dismember

      Citizen Pain

      The Wizards of Saws

      Field of Screams

      From Fear to Eternity

      West Side Gory

      Scareplane

      It Happened One Fright

      The Big Kill

      It’s a Wonderful Knife

      Ship of Ghouls

      Goodnight Mysteries Series

      Die Noon

      Doom with a View

      Jurassic Dark

      Operation Billionaire Trilogy

      How to Marry a Billionaire

      How to Marry Another Billionaire

      Five Wishes Series

      Going Down

      Man Candy

      Hot Wired

      Just Sacked

      Wicked Ride

      Five Wishes Series

      Three More Wishes Series

      Blown Away

      Inn & Out

      Quick Bang

      Three More Wishes Series

      Standalone Books

      Forever Now

      Bounty

      Switched

      ALSO BY ELISE SAX

      SHIP OF GHOULS

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      ROAD TO MATCHMAKER

      CHAPTER 1

      CHAPTER 2

      CHAPTER 3

      CHAPTER 4

      CHAPTER 5

      CHAPTER 6

      MATCHMAKING ADVICE FROM YOUR GRANDMA ZELDA

      INTRODUCTION

      INTRODUCTION

      THE LESSONS

      EXCERPT DIE NOON

      ALSO BY ELISE SAX

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      img2.jpg

      SHIP OF GHOULS

      book eleven of the matchmaker mysteries series

      img3.jpg

      elise sax

      For all of the Matchmaker Mysteries Readers. I’m so grateful.

      CHAPTER 1

      At some point, we all get in a rut. If your relationship is all about the same old, same old, force it onto a new path. Go on a road trip! Or better yet, go on a cruise. Cruise ships have an all-you-can-eat midnight buffet. All you can eat crab legs might not get you out of a rut, but at least you’ll have a belly full of crab legs.

      Lesson 2, Heart Advice from

      Gladie Burger

      For some reason, Spencer always made the bed. It was one of the good things about being married, and there were a lot of good things about being married, it turned out.

      It had been almost two months since we said I do and our dream house disintegrated in a huge post-wedding pile-up. I didn't want Spencer to know it, but I was relieved that our dream house was now Pompeii, post-volcano. I loved my grandmother's house, which for me was home and the only home I'd ever known. It was true that we didn't have a refrigerator just for champagne or a giant island in the kitchen with an inlaid computer monitor, not to mention a workout room and a sauna, but my grandmother’s house was a beautiful Victorian home, full of history and happy memories.

      Cozy.

      Spencer didn't seem to be too sad about the demise of our custom-made home, either. Occasionally when he would go to work, he would pause at his car, look wistfully across the street at the rubble of our house, and sigh. But otherwise, he seemed happy in our newlywed home.

      I explained to him that we weren’t going to get hit, financially. The rubble of our house would get sold, and we would turn a good profit. I was sure of it.

      I had seen it.

      That's right, I had the gift.

      The gift didn’t turn out to be an all-seeing eye. I couldn’t tell when every little thing was going to happen or read minds, but I always knew when to wear a sweater or bring an umbrella. It was also helping me make matches left and right. I had turned into a dynamo matchmaker. A whiz. I could do no wrong in the love business.

      For instance, I knew that Molly Evans should be with Jake Robbins. It wasn’t an obvious match. She was six-foot-two and a librarian, and he was a five-foot-four boxer, but I knew that they would make each other happy, and that's what I was going to tell them at an early morning match greet I had set up.

      What’re you doing? Spencer asked pulling me back into bed. Where are you going?

      Molly and Jake are coming to meet each other this morning, and I need to dress professionally.

      You mean you have to brush your teeth? Come on, we've got time.

      Since we had gotten married, we had fallen into a morning routine. Spencer woke me up at the crack of dawn, and we'd jump all over each other like newlyweds until around six-thirty. Then, we would take a communal shower and possibly do some more down and dirty monkey sex while the water was still hot. After we were clean, Spencer would make the bed, and we would go downstairs and eat breakfast.

      My grandmother was still on her cruise with Ruth, and it was just Spencer and me in the house, outside of matchmaking hours. It had taken a little while to get used to not having Grandma there, but not too long. At first it was like Spencer and I were playing house, that it wasn't really our home and that we were just pretending to be adults. But that ended fast.

      We quickly adapted to our new roles as grownups with our own house. I got used to being the wife, and Spencer seemed to be born to be the husband. We had traded bedrooms with my grandmother, and we finally had enough space for Spencer’s clothes. Our morning routine just sort of happened organically. Without discussion between us, we fell into a rhythm.

      I had to admit that there was little in my life that gave me more joy than eating a bagel and drinking a cup of coffee with Spencer at seven o’clock every morning. But this morning I had a lot to do, and I couldn't let Molly and Jake down. I didn’t have time for our normal routine.

      Would you be upset if we skipped the morning bed noogy? I asked Spencer.

      Spencer shot me his best hurt puppy look. No noogy? Why? Why?

      Molly and Jake are going to be here right on time, and they’re going to get right down to the match greet. Then, Jake is going to have a flat tire, and Molly's going to give him a ride. That’s when they’ll fall in love. So you see, I’m on a tight schedule. It has to happen on time.

      Spencer arched an eyebrow. Okay. You know, it's hard to argue with your wife when she's a witch.

      I'm not a witch. I just have the gift.

      Okay. Okay, Glinda. No bed noogy. But we’ll give the shower noogy a bigger punch today. I’ve been meaning to try out the soap dish.

      I couldn’t lie. I was as intrigued as I was scared about the soap dish remark. Deal, I said.

      Spencer turned on the shower, and we walked inside. As much as possible, he was very good about letting me have the spot under the showerhead.  I took in his nakedness and sucked air between my teeth. Spencer was very impressive naked. Even more impressive than he was dressed in his fancy clothes. He had washboard abs and muscles everywhere. And then there was his face, which on a scale of one to ten was a number so high that only Stephen Hawking could have counted to it.

      Even without a fancy workout room at home, Spencer was diligent about exercising at the police station every day. The only exercise I got was sex with Spencer and minimal walking to get coffee. I placed my palm on his chest with my fingers splayed. You're in such good shape. I can't compete.

      Spencer wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. He already had a big erection and he ground it against my belly. Don't change anything about you, Pinky. You've got exactly the right biological and physical makeup. It's like Frankenstein created you in the lab just for me.

      Just for you? I croaked. Exactly right biological and physical makeup?

      He palmed my breast with one hand and squeezed my ass with his other hand. See? Perfect. Fleshy, yet firm. You’re beautiful, Pinky. And more than that, you’re the sexiest woman I have ever had the pleasure to be with. Strike that. The sexiest woman that I could've ever conjured in my imagination.

      I swallowed with difficulty. Wow, you do foreplay good.

      You like it? I've been playing around with it for a while and thought I would try it out this morning. Now let's get this party going. How about you turn around and bend over?

      In the shower? What if I drown?

      He smirked his normal little smirk. Don't worry. I know CPR. If you drown, I'll bring you back to life.

      Yeah, like I believe that. You're not going to give me CPR if you haven't finished yet, if you know what I mean.

      Spencer scratched his chin. You have a point, Pinky. I guess I’ll just lift you up against the tile and do you like that.

      Do me?

      Spencer shrugged and smirked his little smirk, again. Don't shoot me, Pinky. I haven't worked out the rest of my foreplay speech. How’s ‘making love’? Or ‘fucking your guts out’? I like ‘fucking’. There's a certain poetry to it.

      Sure. Let’s go with that.

      With the words out of the way, Spencer’s hands were all over me. He caressed his way down the front of my body and slipped a finger inside me. He was getting me ready, but the joke was on him. I had been ready since I had woken up in bed in his arms.

      Spencer was ready, too. He looked like he could chop wood with his penis. He picked me up, and I wrapped my legs around him. He backed me up against the tile wall and entered me.

      Oh, I moaned. It felt really good. Normally we did a lot more foreplay, including tongues and everything that nature provided. But today Spencer was all about getting it done before my appointment.

      He was thoughtful like that.

      Anyway, I didn't need a lot of lips and tongues. By the time that he thrust three times inside me, I felt the familiar rush of pleasure through my body as it rose to orgasm.

      Geez, I loved orgasms. They were even better than chocolate.

      Thirty minutes later, we were downstairs in the kitchen. Spencer was dressed for work in a tailored Armani suit, his hair perfectly coiffed, and his beard was scruffy and barely visible. I was wearing black pants and a blue top. That was fancy for me.

      I put on the coffee, and Spencer sliced the bagels and tossed them into the toaster.

      Orange juice? he asked. One of the changes that Spencer had implemented was no more bottled orange juice. He insisted on making it fresh every morning.

      Sure, I said. He squeezed the orange juice, and I cracked eggs into a pan.

      When the food was ready, we sat down at the table and faced each other. Spencer smirked his little smirk, and I blushed. Love that, he said. Love that I can make my wife blush. And I plan on making you blush every second we're on our honeymoon. He checked his watch. Countdown, Pinky. I can smell the sea air already. Just a few more hours before we leave town and sail the high seas of love. He broke into the Love Boat theme, singing off key.

      We had been given a honeymoon cruise as a wedding gift from my best friend Lucy and her husband Harry. Spencer and I had been planning all the things that we were going to do on the cruise, and none of them involved shuffleboard or hanging out on the Lido deck with Captain Stubbing.

      Most of our plans entailed new ways to get naked together and pushing the boundaries of lovemaking. I had secretly bought new racy négligées, one outfit for each night, and I had them delivered to my other best friend Bridget's house so that it would remain a surprise for Spencer. I was going to pick them up from her at Tea Time after the match greet.

      img4.jpg

      After Spencer left to go to work, the match greet happened exactly as I had foreseen. Jake got a flat tire, and Molly gave him a ride. They had hit it off at the house, but I knew that they would fall in love in Molly’s Honda Fit. It was one of the easiest matches I'd ever done.

      With another love match made, I walked to Tea Time, which was my favorite place for coffee. I had a deal with Ruth Fletcher, who owned the tea shop, to give me free lattes for a year. But Ruth was away on an around the world cruise with my grandmother, and she had left Bridget in charge while she was gone.

      Tea Time was housed in the center of the historic district. It used to be a saloon, and there were still a few bullet holes in the wall. Bridget was a bookkeeper and she just had a baby, but running the tea shop turned out to be a natural fit.

      The social interaction was a relief for her. No longer isolated in her house with the baby, she was now around people all day long. She brought baby Jonathan with her, and he got a lot of attention from the customers.

      I walked into the shop. A group of customers were cooing over baby Jonathan, who was perched on the bar in a baby seat. When he was born, Bridget didn't allow anyone to talk to him in baby talk because she thought it would stunt his cerebral cortex. But these days she was giving into it, and I had caught her on more than one occasion calling him her baby waby.

      Bridget waved me over to the bar. I gave Jonathan a kiss on his forehead. Latte? Bridget asked, even though I never got anything else to drink. She put her hand over her mouth. Are you picking up the you-know-whats? she asked me in her best spy voice.

      I nodded.

      Normally, I don't condone women wearing stuff like this to objectify their bodies and make men want them as objects, Bridget said. But boy, you got some racy, pretty stuff. Sizzle hot!

      I hadn’t tried the lingerie on yet, and a little bubble of worry popped inside me. Would I have the nerve to get that down and dirty with Spencer? What if I looked ridiculous in the sexy outfits?

      I put them in bags so you can carry them easier, Bridget explained, putting three large bags on the counter. She made the latte and sat down with me at a table with baby Jonathan on her lap.

      Have you heard from Ruth, lately? I asked.

      Are you kidding? It's been nonstop. She calls at least twice a day, even though the charges for telephone calls are crazy on that boat. She micromanages everything. When I bought too much Lapsang Souchong, I thought she was going to have a stroke. I won't make that mistake again. And you know what, Gladie? I think something happened on that cruise. Ruth doesn't seem quite herself. I mean, she’s still ornery as hell, but she seems a little different to me.

      I'm Skyping with her and my grandmother in about an hour.

      They discovered Skype?

      Spencer introduced it to them. But this will be the first time they’re placing a call. I'll let you know how it goes. I took a sip of the latte. It was good, but it wasn’t quite as good as Ruth's.

      Are you all packed for the cruise, besides the dirty stuff? Bridget asked.

      Spencer is packed. But I haven't started. I bought three new dresses because they make you dress fancy for dinner. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I hadn't done a lot of fancy stuff in my life. I was much more a jeans and t-shirt kind of girl.

      Bridget put her hand on mine. It's going to be wonderful, Gladie. You’ll be beautiful, all glammed up, and it's going to be the perfect honeymoon. Even though I don’t believe in honeymoons.

      I tried to see what the cruise would be like. I was seeing excitement and adventure, but the rest was blurry. I was okay with that. A vacation was a vacation, and I had never been on a real one with Spencer before. I hugged Bridget goodbye and went home. I quickly packed my things, and threw my toiletries into a grocery bag. It took me two minutes to pack completely.

      There. That wasn't so bad, I said, looking appreciatively at my packed suitcase. It was time for the Skype call with my grandmother and Ruth, so I went upstairs to the attic office where my laptop was. As I stepped into my office, I smiled. It was a beautiful sanctuary, filled with antiques and light. Spencer was jealous of my space, and he hinted more than once that he wanted a man cave. I told him that was ridiculous because the whole house was his man cave, but I had secretly planned to have the little room off of the parlor turned into his man cave while we were away on the cruise. It was my wedding gift to him, I mean, besides the hoochie mama underpants.

      I turned on my laptop just as the Skype app dinged. I pushed the button and waved at Grandma and Ruth. Back up a little, I urged. I'm only seeing cheeks. You have to back up so I can see all of you.

      It’s this damn technology. It's the dehumanization of our species. Not that we didn't deserve it, Ruth grumbled as she and Grandma rearranged themselves. It took a good five minutes before they could see me and I could see them.

      You look beautiful, dolly, Grandma said with a smile.

      What are you wearing? I asked.

      It's called a muumuu. You like it?

      Of course she doesn't like it, Zelda, Ruth spat. You look like you're wearing a circus tent. A circus tent made of fifteen colors. Nobody likes it.

      I never realized how comfortable baggy clothes are, dolly. My whole body’s breathing. Even my tuchus is breathing. Such a great invention. They wear muumuus here in Fiji.

      Fiji, I breathed. That sounds like heaven.

      If you call mosquitoes heaven, then yes, it's heaven, Ruth complained. I didn't know what Bridget was talking about. Ruth seemed exactly the same to me.

      Are you all ready for your cruise? Grandma asked me.

      I just packed. And I matched Molly with Jake.

      Grandma clapped her hands together and smiled. Perfect. What a wonderful love match they are. Good work, Gladie. You’ve got the gift.

      Didn't I know it. I had the gift and how. I could do no wrong.

      It was sort of disorienting.

      How's the rest of the cruise? I asked. I hear that they have midnight buffets.

      People eating like pigs, Ruth said. Pigs. They can't get enough. They shovel it in morning, noon, and night. I've never seen anything like it. I don't know how these people don't explode with all the food in their systems. They don’t even chew. They just swallow. I saw a man swallow an entire slice of cheesecake, and then he asked for another one. Revolting. I’m not seasick, but I still want to throw up.

      Ruth's a little upset because her friend got off the cruise early, Grandma explained.

      I'm not upset. And you know that I don't have any friends, Zelda.

      What friend? I asked.

      A man kind of friend, my grandmother said.

      Oh, really? A man friend?

      Knock that smile off your face, girl, Ruth snapped at me. You think no man would be interested in me? I'll have you know that I have to fend off advances every day.

      But she didn't fend off this advance, Grandma explained. Rudolph Varian. A dentist, now retired. He got off early because he's doing a cross-country trip of America, instead.

      That's more of my style, Ruth said, earnestly. "You know, the Grand Canyon, New Mexico, the St. Louis

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